Silver Currents of Change

Chapter 19

Choosing to work late several nights every week, Harvey and his young assistant editor sometimes ordered in and ate together at the office, and other times they walked to nearby restaurants. Zarah was attracted to Harvey, but, sure it was just a harmless crush, she was also sure it would pass. After all, there was no way she could allow herself to entertain any ideas about him as anything other than her employer, and by default, a platonic friend. He was married, white, and too much older to be anything else.

It was a good thing she could never be romantically involved or interested in a white man, even one as great as Harvey Wilson. It was the thing that cemented her certainty that nothing could ever spoil the friendship they had, because it had come to mean more to her than she ever thought any work friendship could. Working hard every day, she was doing her best to live up to his expectations. 

Amazingly, one of her biggest work challenges was supervising the interns. After months of working with them, she decided one of them was too hard to manage. Joshua Vernon Smith, the only white man who answered to her, she decided, might be just a garden-variety racist. His attitude toward her always showed disrespect, and it was clear that, for some reason, he wasn't comfortable with her being his supervisor.

At first she was completely sure her race was why Joshua was acting the way he acted toward her, but after working with him longer, she decided it could be racism, sexism, or possibly even ageism. It was possible he was as intimidated by the fact that she was a very young female as by her being African-American. He always seemed reluctant to ask for help when his work showed he needed help understanding some of his assignments. She sensed he didn't want her to know he needed help, and since it was her job to help him, Marcus Patterson, and Jessica Wells, she reached out to all three and offered assistance wherever and whenever she felt it was needed. After trying everything she knew to help him, even though his performance started improving, she soon realized there was no improvement in his attitude toward her. He seemed most comfortable avoiding her, and when he had to come in contact with her, he was often short on words, long on looks, and he always did his best to get away from her as quickly as possible.

One day she was in the break room making her afternoon latte. Joshua saw her, came in, and did something that made her realize she was going to have to talk to Laura, soon, about the situation with him. She didn't know what to do with what he had done because he had asked her for a date. She turned him down, immediately, telling him she had a boyfriend, but now she was worried that wanting to date her was possibly the thing that had affected their working relationship all along.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"All this time," she said to Laura in the privacy of the assistant publisher's office, "I was thinking the guy was having a problem with me being his supervisor because I'm black and because I'm younger than he is, and it turns out, the problem was he wants us to date."

"And one thing doesn't necessarily exclude the other," Laura said. "It's something that happens in the workplace. It even happened to me a time or two before I moved here and married the boss's brother. Here, as soon as people hear my last name, they think I'm Harvey's wife."

"Instant respect, huh?"

"At least for the name."

"And then once they get to know you, they still respect you," Zarah said, "because they can see you know your stuff."

"Thanks. But I bet I've seen what you've described with Josh a hundred times. Men, when they're feeling intimidated by a strong, confident woman, will sometimes try to flip the script by dating her."

"That makes a lot of sense, somehow."

"Sure it does. It's a lot harder for a guy to be intimidated by his girlfriend, now isn't it?"