Hang the Moon

by Jeannette Walls

Wearing white gloves is a way of letting everyone know you don’t have to get your hands dirty working but instead have leisure time that you spend on clubs and committees and societies. Such airs are of the utmost importance to some town women—the wives of the judge, the bank president, the undertaker, the clergy—who are eager to set themselves apart from women of the hollows.

so to be a good boss you have to be steadfast and tireless, generous and kind, a glad-hander and an organ grinder, but you also have to have a hide thick as shoe leather, you have to be calculating, devious, treacherous, cruel, a real hard-ass, and, when it’s necessary, truly cold-blooded. And you trust no one. But on the off chance that you do find one man you can trust, you do whatever the hell you have to do to keep that fellow.”

I thought being in charge meant I was beholden to no one. What it truly means is that I am beholden to everyone.