Virgin Soul by Judy Juanita

Author:Judy Juanita [Juanita, Judy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Adult, Historical
ISBN: 9780670026586
Google: LCsa6s7SuTYC
Amazon: 0670026581
Barnesnoble: 0670026581
Goodreads: 16158570
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

25

“Discretion. That is the heart and soul of the process of public policy.” My public administration professor had thick maroon-tinged lips. “And no one is more important, more discreet, more fundamentally trust-bound than the secretary. In the delicate pads of her fingertips are your secrets, and in her ears, in the inner sanctum of her brain are your confidential deliberations. The secretaries are the nervous system of any business or office.”

I raised my hand. The way he looked at me I understood instantly I wasn’t supposed to interrupt.

“If they’re that important, why aren’t they paid more?”

He lifted his bushy, black, caterpillar eyebrows until they stood out over his horn-rims and ran his hand over his crew cut.

“Salaries in the public sector are set by educational level, by training, and by experience. Show me a secretary with a BA, management courses on her précis, and management, or even management trainee, experience, and, voilà, you’ll see a comparable salary.”

“Voilà” came with an arm gesture that said simpleton. A male voice behind me broke in. “That’s not the point she’s making.”

I turned. He didn’t look like a protester, his hair wasn’t long, and his shirt was laundered. But he spoke with as much authority as the professor. “Secretaries are donkeys in the office, beasts of burden. They’re paid thirty-five hundred to ten thousand dollars tops, because if you pay donkeys good money, they might get the idea that they’re not donkeys at all.”

The professor cut through it all. “My wife’s a highly competent secretary right here in the Econ Department. She’d be highly insulted if she thought her job description was jackass.” Students, laughing, began to pack up. Class ended.

I thought of him as I got a grilled-ham-and-cheese and went to the Gallery Lounge. In the middle of the room, at the podium, moving like her body was aching, a small snappy woman kept opening her mouth wide—Aunt Ola would have called her “unladylike.” But the voice coming out of her sounded like Joe E. Lewis. I was concentrating so intently on the cheesy, buttery taste, and crunch of my sandwich that I only saw her mouth opening rhythmically. She had people stretching their necks to pick up her rhythm. I couldn’t pick it up until I finished eating. She stopped and stood still, as if she was picturing something that brought her pleasure, smiling ugly.

“You know, don’t you, that the entire internal structure of the black male-female relationship changed when Aretha Franklin took on Otis Redding’s ‘Respect’? She changed what had been a man’s plea for the love of a good woman into a woman’s absolute and nonnegotiable right to a serviceable relationship, including—”

She looked around, making sure everyone was listening before she finished: “—penis, but not restricted to it, dig?”

Not many blacks hung out in the lounge. There were none to see this but me. The white students were getting off on her. I shrank, waiting for something smiling ugly to come out. She started humming and swaying. They seemed mesmerized. She was so little to have that much command.

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