Read Online Riding the Corporate Ladder (Indigo) by Keith Thomas Walker - Free Book Online Page A

crowd. She wasn’t a shy girl, but this was a lot of attention.
    “You is now officially my idol!” Uncle Pete called from the sofa. “You showed them white folks what for.”
    “You my idol, too!” another one of her cousins shouted.
    “That man peed in a can?” someone else wanted to know.
    “Boy, watch your mouth,” Mama Bernice snapped as she made her way through the crowd. Deena’s mother was a large woman, dark-skinned with short hair. She got into a habit of wearing muumuus a few years ago, but, other than that, Deena wouldn’t change one thing about her. When they were close enough, Deena put her cousin down so she could embrace her.
    “Mama, why do you have that tape on?”
    “Hush, child. It’s good for people to see you doing good.” Miss Bernice pronounced hush like hursh.
    Spencer approached from Deena’s left and threw his arms around both women. She didn’t think he looked as bad as Rodney let on. His clothes didn’t match or fit well, but at least they were clean.
    “For real, Dee Dee, we is all proud of you.”
    “Thanks,” she said, “but can we go eat now? I don’t want to be the center of attention all day.”
    “All right, girl.” Her mother backed away and hustled everyone to the kitchen. “Okay, come on everybody. Dee Dee say she don’t want y’all harping on her all day. Let’s go get some food in our bellies. We can watch it again when we get through eating.”
    “Mama.”
    Miss Bernice looked back and smiled at her. “Hush all that whining, girl. You can save that act for them people at work. Ain’t no need to be humble around your own family.”
    “But—”
    “Come on, girl.” Spencer put an arm around Deena’s shoulder and ushered her to the dining room. “When everybody get in front of that food, they ain’t gonna be thinking about you no more.”
    But that wasn’t true.
    For dinner that Sunday, the women prepared a huge Butterball turkey with all the trimmings typical of a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal. They had dressing, cranberry sauce, golden brown dinner rolls, a green bean casserole, macaroni, and six different desserts.
    Uncle Pete said grace, and everyone dug in ravenously, but the only topic of discussion was Deena’s Fizz Cola press conference. She finally gave in and told them everything they wanted to know about the case, including all the dirt she dug up on the plaintiff.
    Everyone was having such a good time, Deena didn’t even notice how quiet Sheila was until her sister decided to add her two cents.
    “I’m sure you got a lot of time to work on stuff like that with no husband and no kids to look after.”
    No one else noticed or took offense to the comment, but Deena gave her sister a hard look across the table. Sheila was four years older and single with three kids. She was an attractive woman, about fifty pounds heavier than Deena. She was brown skinned with long hair and full hips. The sisters had a lot in common, but their contrasting views on life in general drove a strong wedge between the two.
    It all started back when Deena was sixteen. Sheila helped get her little sister a job at the Burger King where she worked, and within a month Deena slept with the boss and got promoted to assistant manager. Rather than take orders from her baby sister, Sheila quit, and the girls’ relationship never really recovered.
    And it didn’t help that neither one of them ever changed. Deena was still trying to sleep her way to a million dollars a year, and Sheila was still struggling, giving it her all as a medical assistant. Both women thought the other was going about it the wrong way.
    “I don’t need a man or a bunch of kids to hold me down,” Deena said coldly and took a rough bite out of her dinner roll.
    “Kids are a blessing,” Sheila countered. “I wouldn’t trade my babies for nothing in the world. Who wants to come home to a cold, empty house all the time?”
    Most of the family was used to this bickering, and they ignored it,