Page 5 of Under the Tulip Tree
“Same as I am every Monday. Behind schedule and in need of a front-page story.” He continued to shuffle papers and act busy.
I stepped into the room. “You know I’d love to help with that.”
He nodded without looking up. “And you know why you can’t.”
My smile drooped. Yes, I knew. The crash. The failing economy. Money. Money. Money. The failures of other people had dictated my future for too long, yet what choice did I have?
After a long moment, the question I’d avoided the past six months resurfaced in my mind. I feared his answer, which was why I had yet to verbalize it, but perhaps it was time to know the truth and move on.
With a deep breath, I plunged forward. “Mr.A., if things were different and you were able to hire staff again, would you rehire me?”
His hands paused over the mess that was his desk.
My stomach clenched. Now I’d gone and done it. I’d handed him the perfect opportunity to get rid of me once and for all.
Yet when he finally looked up, it was with an expression I’d never seen on his face before. Sympathetic, I suppose, which seemed out of place on the hard-nosed newspaperman.
“I would, kid.”
Three simple words, but oh, how they lightened the heaviness in my heart.
I smiled again, satisfied. “Thanks, Mr.A.” I turned to leave.
“Kid, wait.”
My heart skipped with hope. Had my boldness changed his mind?
He dug through piles of paper until he found the one he sought and handed it to me. “This came in the other day. Maybe you should take a look into it.”
A quick glance revealed it was typed on letterhead from a government agency called the Works Progress Administration. I looked back to Mr.A. “What is it?”
He jabbed a fat finger at the paper in my hand. “Read it, Leland. It’s a job. A writing job.”
A writing job? My interest piqued. However, the more I read, the more confused I grew. When I reached the end of the brief missive, I met his gaze. “I don’t understand.”
He huffed. “The WPA is Roosevelt’s baby. It’s his idea of providing jobs for folks out of work. Writers, as you are well aware, are among the unemployed. Under the umbrellaof the WPA, they’ve created something called the Federal Writers’ Project. That letter states they need writers here in Nashville to do interviews. You’re a reporter with experience. No reason you shouldn’t get the job.”
I glanced back to the typewritten words. “But it says something about former slaves.”
“Yeah, that’s who’s being interviewed. To preserve their stories or something of that nature.”
I was sure my expression revealed too much because Mr. Armistead sat back in his chair and narrowed his gaze on me. “I never thought of you as the type to care about the color of a person’s skin, Leland.”
“I don’t.” Dovie had been one of the dearest people in my world before it all fell apart.
“So why not do this?” He indicated the letter again. “They’ll pay twenty dollars a week. All you have to do is spend an hour or two with each interviewee, type up your notes, and turn them in to the WPA office. Sounds like easy money to me.”
It did sound like easy money, and yet...
“I’ll think about it,” I finally said.
Mr.A. shrugged and returned his attention to the chaos on his desk. “Suit yourself, but this opportunity won’t last long. Plenty of writers are willing to do the job if you aren’t.”
I left his office with the letter tucked in my purse and frustration rooted in my mind. I needed the job, but to interview former slaves? My ancestors had owned slaves. Shouldn’t that disqualify me from the position?
The job posting board at the library held a small number of new handwritten cards, but they required experience I didn’t possess. As restless as I felt, sitting in the quiet solitude of the big building didn’t appeal today. I needed to walk. And think. I left the building and headed in the direction of home.
Questions poured from my brain. Why would the government care about preserving the stories of former slaves? Wasn’t it the government who created the very laws that had kept people in bondage for over two centuries? Surely there were more important issues to write about. With so many people suffering these days, no one even thought about slavery anymore. The War between the States happened when Grandma Lorena was a small child, over seventy years ago.
