as were the steps to the second floor on which I worked. The workers couldn’t even walk up the stairs together. I resented this deeply. I promised myself I would only stay there until I found something else. After three months, I found a job at Robinson Realty Company working as a secretary. I had been taking a business course at Central High’s night school, but my typing and shorthand were not very good. I explained this to Mr. Robinson and he gave me the job on a trial basis. A week after beginning my new job, I received a call from James Rosenbloom, the president of the Enro Company.
“I was considering making you a supervisor,” he said in a deep, authoritarian voice. “Will you come back if I give you a promotion?”
“I quit,” I told him, “because I detested the separate restrooms and stairs.” I paused, and when he said nothing, I continued. “I had made friends with some of the White girls and we couldn’t go to lunch together. We couldn’t even go up the same set of steps!”
“Georgia, I’d really like to have you back. I think you’d make a good supervisor.” That was all Rosenbloom said. It was like he hadn’t even heard me. He didn’t offer to do anything about the conditions that caused me to quit in the first place, so I didn’t go back.
Nicky had been sent to Germany from Fort Knox and I was living with my parents while looking for a place of my own. When I mentioned my search to Mr. Robinson, he said, “Mrs. Robinson and I have plenty of room in our two-story house on Chestnut Street, and we’d be glad to have you there.”
The Robinsons and I got along well. Soon I was driving us both to work in Mr. Robinson’s new Buick. As we drove in one day, I noticed a tall, Black man with charismatic eyes standing, waiting for a bus. He was handsome, dressed in a gray, stylish suit, and was carrying a newspaper under his arm. In his tapered fingers he twirled a long cigar. Slowing the car I thought, he looks just like a Philadelphia lawyer. I watched him for a long moment, then continued on my way.
With my husband in Germany and little to do after work, I had a lot of free time. One evening I went to the Grand Bar for a drink and began talking with the shapely, bronze-skinned waitress who served me. Her name was Inez Gillings and she came from Costa Rica. High spirited and attractive, she played poker with some of the fellows who frequented the Grand and invited me to go with her to the sessions, even though I didn’t play. At one of the poker parties, I met the man I had seen on the street corner—the Philadelphia lawyer. His name was Jim Powers. He and I talked that night and he told me he was born in Canton, Ohio. He also mentioned that his wife, Gloria, was in Waverly Hills Sanatorium, a tuberculosis hospital where he visited her every day. “On Wednesdays,” he said quietly, “I cook food and take it to her and others in the hospital.” He had come to Louisville to work at Churchill Downs for the racing season, but hadn’t intended to stay. He had planned to go on to New Orleans for the season there, when his wife contracted TB. He put her in the hospital and found work nearby. They had a small daughter and there was another child on the way. As we talked, I could feel his concern for his wife and thought that he must be a very caring person.
The next time I saw Jim was at a Christmas Eve party at Inez’s house. Like that first evening, he was alone. I felt pretty that night. My hair was newly cut stylishly short and I was wearing a long-sleeve, white silk blouse, a black skirt and black suede shoes with ankle straps. I could feel him watching me. Although nothing was said, I think we both felt the attraction between us.
Jim didn’t have a car, so when I left he asked if I could take him to the Brown Derby. Since I was already giving another guest a ride, I agreed. When I pulled up at the Brown Derby, Jim tried to persuade me to go in for a drink, but I refused.
In the spring, Nicky returned to the States and was discharged from the Army. He found a job on the night shift at the Brown-Forman Distillery. I was still working at Robinson Realty Company. Robinson had a building listed for sale on Sixteenth Street in the “California area.” It was a long, brick building that once had five small businesses in the front and living quarters in the back. As always, I was searching for some ways to make extra money. I bought the building, paying six hundred dollars for it. Nicky and I spent most of our days renovating it into two two-room apartments and two three-room apartments. We added one inside bathroom accessible to each apartment. Once the renovations were finished, I quit Robinson Realty. I was busy working hard to make a home for us, and we had extra income from the rentals. I should have been content.
However, Jim Powers was still on my mind. Nothing had actually happened between us, but every time I saw Inez, she told me Jim was asking about me. By this time, I had also gone back to work at the Jeffersonville Quartermaster Depot as an inspector of Army uniforms. Nine months passed and Inez continued to bring me messages.
“Jimmy wants to see you.”
“I don’t want to see Jim Powers,” I insisted to her, but I couldn’t lie to myself.
True, Nicky and I were congenial and pleasant to each other, but by then I knew something important was missing in our marriage. I did want to see Jim Powers even though I didn’t want to admit it to myself.
Finally, one night I agreed to go with Inez to the Top Hat. Jim and Inez’s boyfriend were there. Jim had asked her to arrange the evening in order to bring us together. That night I finally came to terms with the truth about my feelings for him. When he asked me to meet him the following night, I said, “Yes,” almost without thinking.
“Let’s meet at the Orchid Bar,” he went on. I, who rarely found myself speechless, merely nodded.
Almost from the moment I arrived at the meeting place and sat down at the table where he waited, I knew we would be together later. As we sat sipping our drinks he leaned toward me, saying, “I’ve rented a room.”
That night began an affair that was to continue on and off for many years. I was ecstatically happy when we were together, totally miserable when we were apart, and often tortured by the guilt of cheating on my husband.
I gradually learned everything about Jim, including the fact that what he had first told me about his place of birth was untrue. He had made up that story because he hated the South and the segregated life there and was ashamed of his place of birth. “I left Alabama as a teenager,” he told me, “went to Knoxville, Tennessee and worked as a waiter in a railroad dining car. Then I left Knoxville and went to Chicago, continuing to work on the railroad, until I landed a job as a waiter in the Palmer House.”
The snob in me was bothered a little by the fact that he was a waiter. He was far too distinguished-looking for what I considered such a menial job. He was a very good waiter, though, and was working at the Old House, one of Louisville’s best restaurants.
Gloria, Jim’s wife, was now out of the hospital and doing well. One evening at Joe’s Palm Room, I saw her for the first time. A tall, almond-skinned woman with black, wavy hair, she was from Jamaica. She spoke with a Spanish accent and was very intelligent. That evening she completely ignored Jim and talked animatedly with Dr. Maurice Rabb, a local physician, and some other professional people. She paid little attention to the others gathered there. Jim had told me that she preferred the company of the well-off and this seemed true, since she spoke to no one else.
Though there appeared to be no good solution for our relationship, Jim and I continued to see each other until fate intervened.
I got a call from a friend, Nellie Taylor, whom I had
