The Other Black Girl: A Novel

by Zakiya Dalila Harris

  Richard sprang up. “Yes. Yes. I’m—I’m so sorry,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his cell phone, “but my phone started ringing a moment ago. I was trying to ignore it, but I think I should really take this. Will you excuse me for a moment?”

  “Oh! Of course.” Nella put down her cup and started to stand. “I’ll just wait out in—”

  “Oh, no, no. Please, you stay. I’ll be back in a minute, no more than three. So sorry.”

  She waved him off. “It’s no problem at all. Take as much time as you need.” Richard bowed before ducking out of his office. A moment later, a clear and flustered “Hi, yes” floated from down the hall, but the remainder of his words were swallowed by the distance he’d put between them.

  Nella exhaled. She was relieved and glad to be alone for a few moments; it meant she could finally take a good look around. She’d been able to process the furniture, but the walls had too many items peppered across them—a few dozen, at least—for her to sneak more than just a flyover glance.

  But now, Richard was gone. And she was feeling emboldened. Not emboldened enough not to cast a glance toward the door, but emboldened enough to sidestep the coffee table and walk a few paces over to the left wall. She let her eye fall on a framed piece of paper that, judging by its typewritten text, was as old as she was. Maybe older. A closer assessment told her she was right. The letter, only two paragraphs long, was dated November 1, 1979, and was addressed To my editor, my friend, and my brother, without whom I would be nothing.

  Nella skipped over the rest of it—with a salutation like that, what else did she need to see?—and read the signature. It belonged to a Nobel Peace Prize winner whose obituary she recalled reading only a few months ago. Alright, Richard, she thought, impressed. So you really are a big deal. Noted.

  Not quite satisfied that she’d noticed everything worth noticing, she moved on to the next wall in front of which Richard’s desk sat. The few times she’d dared let her eyes stray had suggested that this was his own personal Wall of Fame. Indeed, it was. Faces filled every single frame, some in black-and-white, others in color. Some were silly—a young woman in an evening gown putting bunny ears behind a young man in a tux; four smart-looking men in polos smiling in the middle of a lush, green forest.

  It was all unnerving, really, all these body-less pairs of eyes staring down at her, and Nella was ready to walk away, return to her tea and her comfortable therapist’s office chair, when the clouds shifted outside and something flashed in the corner of her eye. Just once. She looked up to see what the mid-afternoon sunlight had caught and noticed a photo framed in bronze, no larger than a postcard.

  Nella moved closer so she could make out the three people in the photo. One was a younger, less gaunt version of Richard. Each of his hands was resting on the shoulders of two brown-skinned women, and he was smiling so hard that his eyes were closed—although judging from the bacchanal ruddiness of his cheeks, it was clear he wouldn’t have been looking at the photographer even if they had been open.

  The smiling woman in the bright white dress on Richard’s left was clearly Diana Gordon. Nella paused, unsurprised at the resemblance between the Diana Gordon she’d seen in an interview a few months ago, and the Diana Gordon in this photo. Old Diana and young Diana both had permanently smooth skin and dazzling grins.

  Then, her eyes shifted to the other Black woman, who was leaning—just a little bit—toward the right. Something was flitting across her face, too, but it wasn’t a smile. And if anyone wanted to believe the woman was smiling, Nella was confident the expression could be attributed to her martini, which she held high in her right hand—not quite in proposal of a toast, but of a declaration. I’m still here, she seemed to be saying, and the way she looked head-on at the camera, unbothered at how apart she seemed from her two companions, confirmed this.

  “I see you’ve found your hero,” a voice behind her said.

  Nella whirled around. Richard had reentered his office, but instead of returning to his desk, he was standing by the chair she’d been sitting in, the shoulder strap of her overturned tote bag trapped beneath his left polished shoe. It made her nervous, the way he was watching her.

  “Happens all the time,” he explained, gesturing toward the photo wall. “So many photos, so many faces. Whenever I have company, I never tire of seeing which one piques whose interest. Everyone has different… tastes.”

  “Sorry, I couldn’t help it. I’ve just never seen this photo before, this one of Kendra Rae. And you and Diana.” Nella crept back over to her chair as Richard returned to his.

  “That picture is probably worth thousands. Kendra Rae hardly took photos before…” He shrugged. “As I said, that woman wasn’t too big on being the center of attention. I’m glad I was able to get this snapshot, at least. That was taken at Antonio’s the night we celebrated Burning Heart’s debut at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. My gosh, those parties back then were the best.

  “Now…” He crossed his legs pointedly at the ankle. “What was I saying before I was so rude? Oh, yes! That we’re here to talk about you. You’re from Connecticut, you said?”

  Desperate to do something with her hands, Nella reached for yet another cube of sugar—her third, she realized, hoping he didn’t—and said, “Yes. I’m from Springville. It’s a small town, about a fifteen-minute drive from—”

  “New Haven. Yes, I’m familiar with Springville. I got my start at Yale University Press while I was finishing up my senior year at Yale. Great place. So rich in culture. Good food, good theater. And the art, ah…”

  “Mmm. Yale’s galleries are incredible.”

  Richard perked up at this. “The Center for British Art?”

  Nella bobbed her head. “I’ve spent a lot of time there. First when I was in high school, but I like to go back whenever I’m there for the holidays.”

  “Oh?” Richard leaned forward in his chair, his eyes practically boggling out of his eternally youthful face. Nella matched his body language with hers. It might have sounded peculiar, but it was in seemingly mundane moments like those—when she told a white man something so basic about herself that made his eyes boggle out of his head—that she felt closest to all the Black people who were Black long before she was: all of the enslaved Black men and women who impressed white people with their reading abilities; all of the Black men and women who became doctors and lawyers and other things people said they couldn’t. Garrett Morgan, Marian Anderson, Diahann Carroll. Barack Obama. Her parents. Anyone who had impressed a white person simply by existing. Which, given the number of times Black people had been lynched and raped and beaten down over the last four hundred years, should have been every Black person.

  “It must have been very nice to have all of that New Haven culture at your disposal,” Richard was saying, taking another sip.

  “Oh, very.”

  “I thought young people didn’t do art galleries these days. Not with the Internet and Instagram and whatnot.”

  “I’m a bit of an old soul, I guess you could say.” Feeling emboldened by his approval, even though she really needn’t have, Nella crossed her legs and took her first sip of her Earl Grey. At that point, of course, it was cold—she always managed to miss the narrow drinkability window of tea—but she commented on how much she liked it anyway.

  “Not too sweet?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “I went to college in the land of sweet tea, Richard. This ain’t nothin’,” she quipped, using the same exaggerated sassy tone that she’d used with Owen when she joked that she’d been raised by the streets. A passing glimpse of the bronze frame behind Richard’s head made Nella second-guess the daring move she’d just pulled. Pulling it out in a professional setting risked misunderstanding: One might think she was either a Black girl who actually did roll her neck in corporate settings and didn’t know better, or a Black girl who was making fun of other Black girls who did—and Nella wasn’t sure which was worse. What would K
endra Rae have thought about Nella’s performance?

  She had no way of knowing. But what she did know was that Richard was drinking it down with the countenance of a child who was finally about to have that eerie noise he’s been hearing in the basement explained to him. Nella had delivered the perfect neck roll, apparently, and the precise amount of sass. She felt the air ease between them, felt the tension fall from her shoulders.

  And so, she took another sip, set her cup down, and ventured to admit, smooth as honey, how badly she wanted to become Wagner’s next great Black editor.

  * * *

  Nella could use a cup of warm tea now, but she settled for a deep, centering breath as she rose from her desk, trying to summon the confidence she’d had the last time she and Richard had sat down to talk. What she was about to do could very well blow up in her face. She wasn’t even sure Richard knew anything about the Colin incident at all. Nella had double-checked Colin’s Twitter to make sure he hadn’t tweeted about it to his five hundred thousand followers, and Vera had always rejected the idea of reporting her business to anybody—especially a man. Chances were, Richard knew nothing, and if Richard knew nothing, she risked blowing up her own spot for no reason.

  But she continued toward Richard’s office anyway. The most practical thing for her to do was explain everything and apologize for the misunderstanding. She’d take control of the narrative, fall on her sword. She’d do it so beautifully, so selflessly, and he’d admire the way she did it, just as he’d admired her sassy neck roll in their first meeting. He’d be convinced that Nella was still that plucky, mature employee he’d met two years ago. He’d see she had upstanding moral character and decide he didn’t want to swap her upstanding moral character for someone else’s.

  Nella approached Donald’s desk with her head held high and her mouth open, ready to ask if Richard was free. But she abruptly closed it when she saw that Donald wasn’t there. His Discman was, but he wasn’t.

  Nella peered across the hallway. Richard’s light was on, and the door to his office was wide open. She could hear him speaking, but his voice was so low that it sounded like he might have been talking to himself.

  She glanced at Donald’s chair again, as though he might have suddenly materialized in the last two seconds. But he was still nowhere to be seen. So she moved closer to Richard’s office, prepared to knock on his open door and ask for a few minutes of his time. But something caused her to close her mouth and swallow her words whole.

  It was his tone, hushed and stern.

  “—middle of the day. I can’t say more right now. I told you email was better.”

  Silence.

  “Yes, I know. But—”

  Richard sighed. When he spoke again, his voice was biting.

  “Look, you don’t get to suddenly grow a conscience. Remember whose idea this was?”

  An even longer silence.

  “Fine. But just remember, you put the ball in motion. You chose to deal with Kenny the way you did, and now you—”

  Something about the way he’d spat out the words “deal with” turned Nella’s blood cold. But then she remembered Kenny Bridges. Of course. She’d heard through the grapevine that this particular author had been giving his whole publicity team trouble. His agent hadn’t been keeping him in check, which explained Richard’s uncharacteristically angry tone. The realization thawed Nella’s thoughts as she waited impatiently for Richard to finish his call. If someone were to walk by her at this very moment, it would look pretty damn incriminating.

  “Fine,” she heard him say. “But do us both a favor and stop pretending you don’t need a little assistance, alright? Okay. Love you, too. Bye.”

  There was the click of a phone, followed by the soft muttering of the word “Dammit.” But Nella was fixated on the L-Word. Had she misheard Richard before? No. Deal with Kenny, he’d said, clear as day. She’d been so sure he was talking to Kenny’s agent.

  So where did “love” come from? Everyone knew Richard’s wife managed a chain of candle stores that stretched from SoHo to the Hamptons. Richard’s wife dealt with fragrances, not fussy authors. It didn’t make sense.

  Unless that hadn’t been Richard’s wife on the phone. And he and Kenny Bridges’s agent were…

  Nella gasped, covering her mouth. She’d clearly overheard something she wasn’t supposed to, and this something had propelled Richard into a foul mood. Now was definitely not the time to barge in and start talking about how she’d fucked up with one of Wagner’s most important authors—especially if he was still in the dark about all of it.

  The sound of computer chair wheels rolling against wood shook Nella out of her paralysis. “Hello? Is someone there?” Richard called, his voice so singsongy that he must have seen the shadow Nella was unconsciously casting across his doorway. “Donald? Are you back?”

  Nella didn’t stick around long enough to see if he inquired further. She sped off, rounding the corner so quickly that she nearly stepped right out of her Keds.

  9

  For the next few days, Nella walked around Wagner with her head down and her mouth closed. Her eyes, however, remained open. She kept her sights upon every single writing utensil her colleagues utilized. And when anyone stopped by her desk—anyone—Nella jotted down the time of the interaction and what was said.

  Hazel wasn’t exempt from such surveillance. Nella took note of all of their interactions, benign as they were, and she took note of Hazel’s interactions with Vera, too—starting right after she’d accidentally snooped on Richard outside of his office. When she’d returned to her desk that day, she’d been shocked to see they were still talking about The Lie. By the time Vera’s door had finally reopened (approx. 68 min. after Hazel first went in), Nella had finished the massive bag of pretzels she kept in her emergency snack drawer. They were supposed to be that month’s Sprint Snack—the snack that got her through the last hours of the day for at least four weeks—but the occasional giggle that fluttered beneath Vera’s closed door, coupled with the panic that she might be fired, drove her to obliterate every single twist.

  Nella had been poised to empty the bag into her mouth for that last bit of salt when Vera’s door finally heaved open and a cheerful Hazel gallivanted out from behind it.

  “Thank you, Vera!” she said, manuscript pages askew in her hands. “That was such a wonderful conversation.”

  “Oh, thank you! And thank you again for taking a look so quickly, Haze. I’d love to hear what you think when you finish—if you have the time, of course.”

  Vera’s door was slightly ajar, but the way her head peeked around the edge of it, and the way she was looking at Hazel—fondly, giddily—had reminded Nella of the way a bride-to-be might look at her maid of honor in a department store dressing room. Nella had never received such a look from her boss before.

  “Right. Just let me know if lunch works better for you tomorrow or Friday. Or coffee,” Hazel added, walking backward toward her desk so as not to ruin the precious moment they’d been having. “I know we’ll have even more stuff to cover then, even though we just spent… god, what time is it now, anyway?”

  It had taken Nella a moment to realize this question had been directed at her. Hazel was peering over at her warmly, as though all three of them had been chatting like old friends in Vera’s office. Vera was staring intently at Nella, too, the silver Rolex watch on her right arm glinting as she braced herself against the doorframe, but that giddiness from before had hardened.

  Nella looked over at the clock in the lower-right corner of her screen. “The time is ten twenty-seven,” she said stiffly.

  That was all it had taken for them to scatter. Hazel shook her head and whistled in amazement as she hustled back to her seat to check her phone messages; Vera stuck her head outside of her office just far enough to ask Nella, in a more recognizable tone, to kindly ask everyone to leave her alone for the time being. An author had just delivered a manuscript that required all of her faculties to edit, she’
d told Nella, and her door would be closed for the rest of the morning.

  It was a fair request. Nella would have done the same thing—especially given how many times Wagner employees saw open doors as green lights, and how many times she herself had wished for a barrier to protect her cube. A more solid barrier, like a big glass floor-to-ceiling wall that she could control with her keyboard. Then, at least, she wouldn’t have to feign a phone call or pretend to have to go to the bathroom to escape awkward, drawn-out conversations she didn’t want to have. It would be the second-best thing to having an assistant. Maybe even better.

  So, although Nella wanted some of her own time with her boss, she was patient as she waited for Vera’s office door to open once more, all the while taking her messages and printing out emails she worried her boss might miss in her inbox.

  But Vera’s door never opened. Not that morning and not that afternoon, after lunch. She hadn’t emerged a minute before four thirty, and when she did, she was wearing her raincoat and had her quilted bag slung over her shoulder.

  “Oy, what a day. Nella, I’m off to an appointment. Thanks for today! See you tomorrow.”

  In between bites of leftover honeydew she’d found in the kitchen, Nella had no choice but to say, in what was surely the most pathetic tone she’d ever mustered, “Good luck.”

  That had been bad enough. But when Hazel, whom Nella had hardly spoken to all day, proclaimed, “God, Vera is so awesome,” Nella had picked up the remaining plate of stale fruit and dropped it in the trash. She said nothing as she longingly ran a hand along the bottom of her empty emergency snack drawer.

  A whoosh of air brushed her ear. Hazel was suddenly at her side, holding a bag of Bugles out to her. An offering, maybe.