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“I know you didn’t just say that,” Joy said as she grabbed her suitcoat jacket and began putting it on. “Just a year ago, Tess and I were busing tables and you was a receptionist in the lobby of this very building that you are now a junior executive.”

“Thanks to you on both counts,” said Tess.

“Thanks to William on all counts,” said Joy. “He’s the one who hired all three of our black asses. And we’d better be grateful.”

“We are,” said Cory. “Mr. Skeffington has been real good to all three of us.”

Joy stopped and looked at her closest friends. “Why do you two still call him Mr. Skeffington? Call him William.”

“Like you said,” Cory said, “he hired all three of our black asses. And two of our black asses aren’t married to him. That’s why!”

Tess and Joy laughed.

“And other than Bobby Latham, we’re just about the only three black asses in this entire corporation,” Cory said, and then looked at Tess.

“Don’t remind me,” said Tess, who was the assistant director of the brand new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) department thanks to William. But she was still working with the director to get the department up and running. “We’ll be hiring more people of color soon enough.”

“People of the black color I hope,” said Cory. “Cause that’s the main color I’m not seeing around here.”

Tess wasn’t publicly committing to hiring any particular race, but they knew she knew. “Let’s just go eat,” Tess said. “I’m starved.”

But just as Joy was lifting her hair over the back of the suitcoat she had just put on, her phone began ringing.

“Don’t answer it,” Tess said.

“I have to,” Joy said when she looked at the Caller ID. “Hey.”

It was her mother.

Tess and Cory could see the sudden concern on her face as she listened to the caller.

“Did you take him to the hospital?” Then she looked horrified. “What do you mean he won’t go? Yes, I know how stubborn he can be, but he has to go. There could be internal injuries. But Ma, you have to make him. I know he’s stubborn, but. . . . But Ma . . .” Joy leaned her head back and shook it as she listened. Her mother was the most unreliable person in the world! “Okay, okay, I get it. And yes, I hear him in the background making himself clear that no way is he going to the hospital. I get it. But he still has to go,” she said. Then she exhaled. “I’m on my way.” She ended the call.

“On your way where, girl?” Tess asked her.

“Bridell, where else? Gramps had a fall and hit his head, but he refuses to go to the doctor. My mama claim he wouldn’t even let the paramedics come into his house when she called 911.”

“But you can’t go,” Cory said. “I thought Mr. Skeffington wasn’t allowing you to go back to Bridell without him.”

“He’s not here,” she snapped at Cory. “Gramps fell and hit his head and he won’t seek medical attention. What do you want me to do? Let him die?”

Tess and Cory both knew her snappishness had nothing to do with Cory’s comment. It had everything to do with her comment. The part about William not being here. He was rarely around.

“Where is he anyway?” Tess asked as Joy grabbed her purse out of her desk drawer.

“I don’t know. One of his biggest clients had an emergency, that’s all I know.”

“Which client?” Cory asked.

“He never tells me which client. Even Bobby doesn’t know who most of his top clients are, and he’s his chief-of-staff.” Then Joy exhaled. “He’ll be mad, but that’s tough. I’m the only one Gramps will listen to.”

“That’s because he knows you’re the only one who truly cares about him,” Tess said. “But even you aren’t gonna get that ornery old man to go to no hospital.”

Joy knew it too, but she had to try. She had to. She hurried out of her office.

“Mad is an understatement,” said Cory. “Mr. Skeffington is going to be furious with her.”

“Then he should be here with her,” said Tess. “Every time I turn around, he’s out of town helping some major, secretive client. It’s always about his clients needing him. But Joy needs him too.”