Love was never easy

It is a warm Friday morning in Southern Mississippi, a hotel stands tall and wide and is full of the morning rays. It is May of 1965 and Charlie and Billy are stacking up luggage upon a bellman cart, “It is hot as hell out here Billy.” Charlie says, swiping the sweat that has accumulated on his forehead from the day's work, “I know Charlie. Too bad we gotta move these bags for these lazy ofays.” Billy says plopping down the last of the heavy bags onto the cart. Charlie let out a lighthearted laugh, “Yeah. I bet one of them would break a finger if they tried to lift their own bags.” He says as they wheel in the cart filled to the brim with bags. A baby blue dodge dart car is driving down the road through open fields. The sky is as clear as can be without a cloud in sight, with the sun blazing down on the small town of Vicksburg, Mississippi, “Ah, it feels good to be back down south.” Julia sighs, moving her sunglasses from her face as she drives down the road towards a large hotel. Julia pulls up to the hotel building and hands the valet her keys, while the bellhops, Charlie and Billy come to take her bags and bring them up to the room for her. Julia and Charlie gaze at each other for a moment, a very long moment. “Thank you gentlemen, I appreciate the help.” Neither of them want to break away from the eyes of the other but know they must. “No problem ma’am, after you check in we’ll bring em up to your room for ya.” Charlie responds not wanting to look away from her beautiful green orbs. He felt as though he could stare into them for hours, she seemed so kind and he had barely even spoken to her. “Why that is quite kind of y’all.” Charlie and Julia gaze a bit too long for the liking of the southern folks around them and Billy pushes Charlie to come with him. He knows his friend is not in the right headspace, he would have to straighten him out once they were not under the watchful eyes of Miss Julia. “Come on man, she ain’t worth your life.” Charlie looks dumbfounded at Billy as Julia walks away to go check in. Billy and Charlie enter the hotel with Julia’s bags on the cart, Billy points at Julia who is at the check in counter. “Her, she ain’t worth you dying for her. You act like you never heard of that Emmett Till boy who got murdered in Alabama a few years ago, that’ll happen to you too if you ain’t careful man.” He says in a stern voice, as if it wasn’t common knowledge for Charlie. “I ain’t have no interest in no white woman Billy, especially not if they could get me killed. Nevermind my family, you know what they do if they found me with a white anything?” Charlie says matter of factly, even though he knew he stared too long at her. He knew that he shouldn’t have but she had the most calming gaze of any white person he had ever met. “I’m glad to see you haven’t fully lost ya mind Charlie.” Billy does not sound so sure of Charlie and he doesn’t know if he should really believes what Charlie said. “I ain’t lose nothin’ Billy, now let's bring these bags up to Misses room.” Charlie huffs out half annoyed with Billy and half annoyed with himself for even thinking for a minute that he could ever look at a white woman like that. The hotel manager walks quickly up to Billy and Charlie, “Billy come here and help these young gentlemen with their bags, the two of you do not need to be standing around talking while you are being paid here to work.” The man says in a snotty tone, as if they were the scum of the earth. Of course to him, they probably were. Billy mumbles out a “yes massa.” As he walks over to grab the bags from the young men. “What did you say to me boy?” The manager asks aggressively and Billy straightens out, “um, yessir. I am on it sir.” The manager just scoffs and walks away. Billy follows behind like a scolded puppy dog. Charlie rolls the cart over to the ‘Colored Only’ elevator to discover that there is an ‘Out of Order’ sign on the door, again. He groans and rolls his eyes, while he begrudgingly starts to unload the cart getting ready to walk up the massive flight of stairs up to the fourth floor of the hotel, seeing as that is the floor Julia is staying on. Julia exits off the elevator that has a sign above it that says ‘whites only’ while Charlie comes up the stairwell out of breath with all of Julia’s bags. “It is mighty nice of ya to bring in my bags for me, lugging those things all the way up the stairs is not a walk in the park.” Julia speaks out, startling Charlie a bit but he is able to keep his composure. “It is my job ma’am.” He huffs out as he puts down the last bag. “Well that is the last of em ma’am, you have a nice day now.” He starts for the door for the long track down the stairs when Julia calls out, “Hang on, let me grab something for you, for ya trouble.” Charlie looks at her with confusion written all over his face. “Ah, no need ma’am. I’m not suppose to take any money.” Julia is very surprised by this response, “Oh, why not?” He hesitatingly explains “The manager says that we are not suppose to make any contact with the white people who come in here, they don’t like it ma’am.” Julia nods but clearly does not absorb anything he has just said “You don’t have to call me ma’am.” She finally concludes with. “I’m sorry, do you prefer miss? I’m sorry if I offended you miss, please don’t tell my boss on me.” Charlie responds quickly, hoping Julia does not run and tell his boss that he is being disrespectful. He needs this job. However, Julia replies in an unexpected way. “No, it’s just that, I don’t like to be called things because I’m white. I like to be called them because I’ve earned that respect.” Charlie visibly relaxes before replying. “hmm, you ain’t like these other white folks who come in and out of here. But you sound like your from the south.” Julia looks slightly offended by this comment but responds nonetheless. “Well, I may be from the south but that doesn’t mean I’m caught in my southern way of life. I go to school up north in Illinois. I prefer to treat people like people Mr….?” She waits for him to says his name. “Charles Cotton, my friends call me Charlie.” He gives her a warm smile and she reciprocates “Julia Gardner.” She extends her hand to him for him to shake and slips the money to him through her handshake “Well now we touched anyway, so you might as well keep it Charlie.” Julia says slyly with a smirk on her face. “You are a different type of white Miss. Julia, Have a good day.” Charlie is dumbstruck again and just watches as Julia enters her hotel room before he turns, sighing heavily, and ascends down the never ending case of stairs.