Jilo by J.D. Horn Page A

twinge of the same anger she’d felt the night before. Why shouldn’t she sit here? Why shouldn’t she let that white boy who wasn’t half her age and who never did a lick of real work bring her coffee?
    She caught herself, but it was too late; Maguire had picked up on her thoughts, had read them in her eyes maybe. A tight smile curled on his lips. “I insist.” He motioned again with his hand toward the empty chair. “Sit.”
    May felt her knees weaken. She certainly could bear sitting down, but somehow she knew this was a trap.
    “But Mr. Maguire,” Porter began, protesting for her. “We can’t have a colored sitting in here. It just isn’t done. This is a whites-only establishment.” May wondered at the pride she heard in his voice as he made this pronouncement. “Always has been, always will be. I’m afraid I cannot allow it.”
    “ You ”—Maguire turned the word into a barb—cannot allow it?” Maguire tilted back in his chair and laughed. This time his laugh came from his belly. “If I say the woman sits, she sits. Afterwards, you can buy a new chair. You can buy a new table. You can burn this whole goddamned hotel to the ground and build it anew. And you can send me the bill, but by God, you’d better never contradict me again. You hear?”
    Sterling never said a word—May reflected that perhaps he didn’t dare lest his father’s vehemence turn on him—but his eyes gleamed with enjoyment over Porter’s plight. From Sterling’s expression—the way he tilted back his head and looked down his nose at Porter, the tight smile that threatened to morph into a snarl in a second’s notice—May could tell Sterling took far more than his fair share of pleasure in the suffering of others. May herself tried never to be cruel, never to hold hatred in her heart. She knew it’d be a moral failing to delight in this man’s suffering. Still, it was undeniable that a part of her might have enjoyed watching Porter’s already-gray skin blanch a shade or two lighter, enjoyed the sight of his sweat causing the calamine to dampen and run. The thought brought a twinge of guilt, but she knew the suffering headed her way was bound to be much worse than his could be.
    “Of course not, Mr. Maguire.” Porter wiped at his forehead, smearing the pink lotion and transferring it first to his hand and then to his pant leg when he lowered his arm. “I’d never intentionally contradict you, sir.”
    “Then go on and get the hell out of here.”
    Porter began backing out of the room, never taking his eyes off the old man. “Yes, sir, you just let May know if you need anything.”
    “Porter,” Maguire called out, bringing May’s boss to a full stop. “I don’t want May here working for you anymore. You go on and hire yourself a new girl.”
    May might never have found the nerve to take a seat on the embroidered chair, had these words not caused her knees to buckle. As it was, she barely managed to land on its cushion rather than the floor.
    “But Mr. Maguire, I ain’t done nothing wrong, sir. I need my job. I got . . .”
    “Yes, yes, I know. You have three children to feed,” Maguire said, waving his hands not only to stop her talking, but also to dismiss her thoughts. How could he know that unless he was the one who ordered those men to take Jilo?
    “Go on, Porter. You aren’t needed here,” he said, then waited for Porter to make his exit. May could feel the cloud of confused and angry energy that filled Porter leave the room, even though the thick carpet muffled his footfalls.
    The moment Porter was gone, Maguire’s lips curled up into a sly smile. “It’s just us now, May. Family. So please allow me to speak plainly.” He waved his finger at her like she was a naughty child. “Old Tuesday, she done told me that you didn’t inherit any of her magic. She lied.”

TEN
    “Oh, yes, your mama done told me a fib, now, didn’t she?” Maguire said, a canary-eating cat smile setting up camp on his