Blue Collar Blues Read Online Free PDF Page B

immediately been impressed with Khan’s clear ambition to succeed in life; so much about her had reminded Thyme of herself at that awkward age.
    But ever since Khan had dropped out of college, lured by Champion’s high wages for hourly work in the plant, Thyme couldn’t help but feel that Khan wasn’t working up to her potential. Thyme did her best to hide her disappointment from Khan and instead gently encouraged her to go back to school and finish her degree. Khan was just too damn smart to work in a factory.
    Thyme worried for her young friend. Khan seemed especially distracted tonight, which made Thyme even more concerned. She watched as Khan looked again at the phone, as if willing it to ring.
    “Thank God Luella’s accident wasn’t on company property,” Thyme said.
    “So Uncle Ron has a legitimate gripe?”
    “Always. He’s well informed. Ron’s the best plant union chairman we’ve had. He’s a tough negotiator, but he’s fair. He really cares about his union members. I’m not just saying this because he’s your kin.”
    Khan sat the remainder of cookies and milk beside her on the side table, and when she glanced in Thyme’s direction, her beautiful face was streaked in pain.
    “Khan, is something else bothering you? You don’t seem like yourself, and I don’t just mean the accident.”
    Khan’s voice was flat. “Remember I told you about the first time I knew I was in love with R.C.?”
    “Yeah, your exact words were: ‘The love I feel for R.C. calls me like the scent of a budding magnolia tree calls to bees.’”
    “You remember?”
    “Certainly. You were only nineteen, and I was convinced that you had no idea what love meant.”
    “That’s what Mama Pearl said, too,” Khan said dejectedly. Thyme had heard Khan speak many times of her grandmother, Mama Pearl, who had raised Khan after both her parents died when she was just a child.
    “That was five long years ago. Maybe both you and Mama Pearl were right. Mama Pearl thought that R.C. was too old for me. She said that if we ever had children, the baby girl would be born gray-headed, or the male child would come out with a full beard and mustache.” Khan laughed. “And of course they’d be wrinkled from head to toe.” Her huge dark brown eyes darkened and her voice became more serious. “I didn’t really care, though.”
    Thyme kept silent. One subject she rarely broached was having children. It was a touchy one between her and Khan. Neither agreed with the other’s point of view. Thyme had never wanted children; Khan felt that a woman’s life was incomplete without motherhood. Cy tended to agree with Khan. When Thyme would tell him that she needed more time to be somebody, he’d tell her that having a child would never take away from what she wanted to do with her own life. But Thyme didn’t trust that; she believed that children would always come first and her own goals would get lost in the shuffle.
    Silence enveloped the two women while they pondered their own thoughts for a moment. Then Khan went over to the aquarium and watched the graceful movements of the brilliantly colored fish.
    “I know y’all thought that Mommy forgot to feed her babies,” Khan said to the fish. “Come on up here, Felix—it’s time to eat. Hurry up now, Slowpoke, before the rest of ’em eat up all the food.” She sprinkled the food on the water.
    Thyme could see the reflection of Khan’s serene smile.
    “Did you know, Thyme, that fish are the only backboned animals with two-chambered hearts?”
    Thyme wasn’t sure why, but she couldn’t answer. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the fish that Khan seemed to love like her own children. Then again, maybe it was her heart trying to tell her something.
    “Imagine that. And that bastard I was in love with tried to break the only one God gave me.” Khan paused and then turned and faced Thyme. “There’s something I’ve wanted to tell you. Last Christmas, I found out I was pregnant. Four