I don't know that I want to be married, Mary protested.
Oh, go on! Now what else can a coloured woman do? You're a librarian, but you'll never get as much pay as the white librarians. They won't even put you in charge of a branch library. Not because you're not as good as the others—probably you're better—but because you're coloured. If you were a trained nurse it would be the same. The only chance a coloured woman has—she can't be a doctor or a lawyer or a preacher or a real-estate agent like a man—is on the stage, and you'd be no good on the stage! Why, probably you can't even dance the Charleston!
I can—a little. Mary laughed grimly.
Well, a little isn't enough. Anyway, they don't want your type on the stage any more, or mine either, for that matter. If I wanted to work today I bet I couldn't get a job. The managers, especially the shine managers, are looking for high yallers. Well, I can't say I blame 'em. I'm sick of Niggers myself, damn sick of these black Niggers!
Adora sipped her wine meditatively.
I might open a beauty parlour. Mary essayed a weak attempt at humour.
Yes, you might, but there are forty of those on every street in Harlem already. And you might start another Black Star Line, or peddle snow, or become an undertaker, but you won't do any of these things.
