Terry McMillan - Waiting to Exhale (pdf) by McMillan Terry

Author:McMillan, Terry [McMillan, Terry]
Language: en-us
Format: mobi

Robin was late again, something I was starting to notice was a bad habit of hers. I was sitting in the steam room, feeling pretty energized because I’d done a whole half hour of aerobics and ten minutes on the Lifecycle. This was a major accomplishment, considering that the first time I came in here I only lasted five.

“Savannah, you in here, girl?”

“Yep, up here,” I said.

She walked in, closed the door, and collapsed on the bottom bench. “These white folks are trying to drive me crazy, you know that?”

“Why? What’s going on?” “First of all, there’s four other underwriters in my office besides me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Well, a few months ago, Marva has a perfectly healthy baby. Her first. She’s thirty-nine, but she looks fifty. Anyway, it seems like every other week this baby gets some kind of new ailment, and Marva freaks out, drops everything, and dashes home. So this morning it gets sick again, and of course Marva goes home. She was in the middle of underwriting an account, and guess who got stuck finishing it?”

“You, no doubt.”

“Yeah. I mean, why couldn’t they ask Molly or Norman to do it? They didn’t have anything pressing. Although it

209 does take Norman all day to do nothing, and I guess I’m supposed to be flattered. Well, I’m not. I want to know when they’re gonna stop testing me. I’ve proven myself a million times over. They know they can count on me when the pressure’s on. That’s what the real deal is, which is why this just burns me up. When was the last time I got a raise, thank you very much? I can’t wait to see what kind of bonus I get come Christmas. I had to skip my lunch hour, girl, and tomorrow I have to get up at the crack of dawn, be in there no later than seven in order to finish, or we might lose the account. And watch. Marva’ll come strolling in the office all set to pick up where I left off; she’ll get all the credit or mess up everything I’ve done.”

“Well, my job isn’t exactly turning out to be a thrill a minute, either. Instead of pushing gas, now I have to come up with a bunch of hype about our programs — which are all basically dull. I spend half my time trying to convince magazines, newspapers, and other media to give us coverage. As of next week, I’ll have the pleasure of managing the speakers’ bureau for the president of the company, the correspondents, and the so-called hotshot anchors. In a nutshell, I’ll be a glorified travel agent. Hell, I live on the telephone all day long as it is.”

“Your job doesn’t sound boring to me.”

“It’s fluff work.”

“What isn’t, Savannah?”

“Robin, what I do doesn’t mean shit to anybody. It’s just

a glamorous form of propaganda. And I’m already bored with it.” “If it didn’t mean anything to anybody, they wouldn’t be paying you to do it.”

“They’re not paying me anything. And you want to know why?”

“Don’t tell me.

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