The first time, Hazel had waved a silent hello to her before continuing her conversation with a woman who appeared to be one of the students’ parents. Nella let her be.
The second time, about fifteen minutes later, she saw Hazel head toward the bathroom in the back corner of the shop. She excused herself from Malaika and Owen and claimed she had to go to the ladies’ as well. She thought she’d wait in line for Hazel and then pounce. But a tug on her arm when she was a mere five steps away from the bathroom deterred her from this mission, and she suddenly found herself in a conversation with Juanita and a young light-skinned Black man she’d seen putting out the folding chairs before the event started. He had a case of straight-up baby face, capped with a high-top fade and rounded out by what appeared to be a grill on his bottom set of teeth.
“Hey, girl! I thought maybe you’d be able to offer Andre some pointers,” Juanita said to the space above Nella’s head. She was clearly drunk, maybe even a bit coked out, and the pink liquid that had been in her hand earlier was replaced by a Miller High Life. “Andre, this is Stella. She works with Hazel-May at Wagner. Nicole, this is Andre—he’s one of my best sweepers here. He’s a freshman at Brooklyn College and he’s trying to get his novel published.”
“Sophomore,” Andre said, at the same time Nella said, “Nella.” They both stared at each other blankly, unsure of what the other had just said, but not in any particular need of clarification.
“Perfect! So how about you two chat. Talk! Converse! Parlez! I have a feeling this will be very productive.” Juanita patted them each on the back and wandered off.
Nella had liked Andre’s calm vibe—he reminded her of her baby cousin a little bit—and so she gave him fifteen minutes. It was long enough for him to tell her the synopsis of his book—“sort of like Do the Right Thing, but it’s a sequel, and it’s like, what would happen if Mookie killed Sal after Radio Raheem was killed by the cops, instead of helping him, and if it took place in Baltimore”—and long enough for her to tell him what she told any writer who pitched his or her novel to her, which was to get an agent first, before he paid some rando on the Internet eight hundred dollars to design a “dope-ass” cover.
Nella wished him luck and started to walk away, still unsure if that glint in his mouth was a grill or just a few golden teeth. But then he asked her if she’d take a look at his writing. When she said yes and gave him her work email, he grinned. She went back over to Malaika and Owen feeling vindicated, and much calmer than she had fifteen minutes earlier.
“Cool,” Malaika said flatly, when Nella told her about Mookie’s Revenge and, more importantly, Andre’s grill. “But have you talked to homegirl yet? It’s getting late and I want to start thinking about how I’m going to get home.”
Nella reached over for Owen’s arm to check his watch. It was getting close to ten and the trains were all rerouted thanks to late-night construction. With every passing minute, their way home was becoming less of a trip and more of an odyssey. “I need to talk to Hazel. Just give me ten minutes, okay? Owen, is that okay for you?”
Owen ran a hand across his jaw. “Aw, Nell. I’m so tired… and you know I have to wake up early tomorrow morning…”
“Ten minutes,” promised Nella. “If I’m a minute longer, I’ll pay for the car. Alright?”
Malaika raised her eyebrows.
“For all of us,” Nella clarified.
“Fine,” said Malaika. “But only ten. I have an early morning tomorrow, too, with Igor.” Malaika scanned the crowd, which didn’t take too much time since it had thinned out to about one-third of its original size. Many had started to trickle out roughly half an hour earlier, once they’d walked up to Hazel to give her a hug and wish her well. “Snake’s over there.”
Nella turned. Hazel and Juanita were standing by the windows that faced out onto the street, giggling into tightly wound fists about something. “Thanks. I’ll be back.”
“Let me know if you need anything, girl,” Malaika said, pretending to take off her earrings again. “What?” she asked, when Owen made a face.
“Why is she a ‘snake’? Do you have a problem with her or something, Nell?”
“I’ll tell you all about it in the car,” Nella said, an echo of herself. Again, this was a part truth. She would tell Owen about how Hazel had screwed her over with Shartricia, but not about the letters.
He was still eyeing Nella closely, like he could sense that she was lying. Because of course he could. They did live together, after all. “I feel like there’s something else I’m missing here,” Owen said, slowly.
Poor Owen: a man whom Nella loved, but who would almost always be one half step behind. “She’s just been a little shady lately, babe,” she said as soothingly as she could. “I just want to talk to her about a couple of things at work and then we’ll go.”
She started to walk away, but Owen spoke again. “Shady? That seems hard to believe. She seems pretty…” He trailed off, his eyes fixed on Hazel and Juanita.
That stopped Nella in her tracks. She didn’t like the irritation that tinged every single part of her being, and she especially didn’t like the way Owen was looking at the two Black women by the window. It was her own fault. She’d created this anxiety—not tonight, but weeks ago, when she’d first met Hazel and felt envious of Hazel’s clothes and Hazel’s sense of self-confidence.
And then there were Hazel’s locs. About a year into dating, as Nella and Owen stood in line for hot dogs at Coney Island, he had asked her if she’d ever considered locking her hair. You’d look pretty sexy with them, he’d reasoned.
It hadn’t been out of the blue: Standing in front of them had been a slightly older woman in a tight body-con dress with long, thick locs that went all the way down to her butt.
Nella had been impressed by her hair, too. Before Owen had commented on it, she’d even considered asking the woman if she did them all herself. But this comment—somewhat mitigated by Owen’s loving hand on the small of her waist—had made her feel self-conscious about her own hair, her own sexiness. She’d been free from relaxers for only so long at that point, and her hair, all two inches of it, was still deciding on a curl pattern. The last thing Nella needed was the possibility of her boyfriend imagining her with long hair—whether it was Black natural hair he was imagining or not.
“ ‘She seems pretty’ what?” asked Nella. “How would you know?”
“We chatted for a bit. When you were off… I don’t know what you were doing… she mentioned maybe joining forces between YBL and App-terschool Learning on a future project, and I thought—”
“ ‘Joining forces,’ ” Nella parroted again, incredulous.
“She just seems really chill. And she seems really optimistic about being at Wagner, too—”
“Unlike me, right? Because I complain about my job all the time. Right?”
She crossed her arms. She hated the way she sounded—short, curt, one of those obsessive girlfriends Owen’s friends always complained about—but she didn’t appreciate the way her boyfriend was talking about Hazel right now.
Owen tore his eyes away from her just a little too quickly. “I’m just saying she seems nice. That’s all. Never mind. Go.”
That broke the spell. “I’m sorry, O,” she said, stepping toward him so she could grab his hand. “I shouldn’t have… I…”
“It’s all good. Just go,” he repeated, but this time the command was much gentler. He looked down at his watch. “The countdown begins.”
Nella nodded. She’d have to be kinder to him later on. Then, she turned and made a beeline to where she’d seen Hazel and Juanita standing a moment before. Except now it was just Hazel, her arms resting loosely at her sides. She stared straight at Nella as she came closer, a statue of tranquility, as though she’d expected this very thing to happen at the exact moment it did.
“Nella! You made it.”
Hazel always seemed so calm and composed, but it still stunned Nella how excruciatingly e
ven her voice was. She tried to think of the right thing to say, suddenly feeling stupid for not having planned it on her way over. Nothing came to her.
“I’m glad at least one of my colleagues could be here tonight,” Hazel continued. “Damn. Gina and Sophie had both sent me sorry can’t make it after all texts, like, the minute they left the office this afternoon. Pretty whack, right? I think they were too scared to come out to Bed-Stuy after dark.”
Nella had forgotten about them. They’d seemed so excited to come earlier. The three of them had even exchanged phone numbers, something she’d never considered doing with Gina or Sophie before.
“What did you think of the reading?” Hazel asked. For the first time, Nella noticed she had switched out her eyebrow stud piercing for a tiny hoop. “And the space? Pretty great, right?”
Nella took a half step forward and whispered, before she could lose her nerve, “What the fuck is your deal?”
“Sorry?”
“What the fuck is your deal? With Richard, and those notes, and with Colin’s book…” Nella was shaking now; she couldn’t help it. It upset her that her embarrassment had taken precedent over all of her other emotions, tenfold, and she wanted to start this interaction all over again. She was supposed to go through every one of her grievances calmly, one by one. She was not supposed to say “fuck.” It was just that she and Hazel weren’t in the kitchen or at their cubicles, and the expletive had flowed out of her mouth so easily, so fluidly.
“What? I’m sorry, girl, but you need to break it down for me a bit more.” The gleam in Hazel’s eye was too knowing, too deliciously pleased, to suggest that any explanation was necessary.
But Nella continued on. “And all that stuff about Richard. Is that true? Is he really going to try making Wagner more diverse?”
“Yes! We’ve already started talking about ways we can recruit for people of color.”
There. Her presumptions had been right. That list she’d found on the printer had been a list of Black young women Richard was thinking of hiring.
Hazel squinted at her. “What? I didn’t hear you.”
Nella hadn’t realized she’d spoken her thoughts aloud. “I said,” she repeated, “I don’t get it.”
“Don’t get what?” A trace of a grin hovered just beneath the surface of Hazel’s nonplussed demeanor. “Let’s slow down here. You must be referring to the marketing meeting thing today.”
“I looked like an idiot,” Nella said. “What made you change your tune so soon?”
Hazel laughed. “That wasn’t about you at all. I finally finished Needles and Pins this morning, and guess what? I didn’t hate it. Here, let’s sit and talk for a minute. Is that cool? You got a minute?”
She gestured toward the folding chairs that had been set up for the reading. Andre had started to put away a few of them, but had been thrown off his task by the only Young, Black ’n’ Lit Girl who’d stuck around after the main event. The two of them shared sips of something pink that was almost certainly not lemonade in the corner, moving closer to one another by the minute. Against Nella’s better judgment, she sat down in the chair across from Hazel.
The only other person still in earshot was the woman who’d said something about Jesus during Hazel’s speech. She glanced over her shoulder for just a second to see who had joined her in the seating area, then went back to looking at her phone. On the right side of her closely shaved head, Nella was able to make out a medium-sized pink scar. It was the shape of a small crescent, as though someone had taken their gel-manicured fingernail and dug it deep into the back of her head. The thought alone made Nella’s own scalp hurt.
Hazel looked over at the girl, too. She frowned for a second, perhaps taking in the pink scar, too, before taking a seat. “Nella, I’m gonna be real with you, okay?” she said, her voice softening. “Black girl to Black girl. That Shartricia book isn’t great. Real talk, it’s pretty badly written. Contrived. Caricature. You know that. I know that. And I’m pretty sure anybody outside this place who has any sense will pick up on that, too. That shit’s offensive. It’s embarrassing.”
Nella swallowed. After the marketing meeting, a handful of colleagues had poked their heads into Vera’s office so they could talk to her about how much they loved Colin’s books. These same colleagues had then poked their heads into Hazel’s cubicle, asking her personal questions about herself and her parents’ lives growing up in the ’80s in Harlem—questions that seemed invasive to Nella, but ones that Hazel had seemed more than happy to answer.
Nella had eavesdropped awkwardly from a few feet away. She’d tried to remember the last time anyone had asked her about her own personal life and decided it had probably been when she herself was the new girl—but even then, those questions hadn’t really gone beyond Where are you coming from?
“So, wait,” she said, confused. “What you said in the marketing meeting was—”
“An act?” Hazel said. “No, not quite.”
“Then why do it?”
“Fine.” Hazel looked around. Satisfied with how far out of earshot they were from anyone, she lowered her voice. “I’ll tell you everything. But you can’t tell anyone about this.”
“Fine.”
“Not even your friend. Or Owen.”
Nella bit her lip. Hearing his name in Hazel’s mouth wasn’t any more normal now than it had been at the marketing meeting earlier.
“I mean it…” said Hazel.
“Fine. Just go ahead and say it.”
“Okay. This is going to sound crazy, so just hear me out, okay?” Hazel twisted one of her locs and looked up at the ceiling. After about five seconds of this, she said, apprehensively, “There’s this thing. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it.”
Hazel peeked over at the back of the girl sitting nearby. The scar was still facing them, her face now deep in her cell phone. “This thing—it’s a kind of social phenomenon. It’s called…” She inhaled deeply, then exhaled through pursed lips and leaned forward. “ ‘Code-switching.’ ”
The tips of Nella’s ears started to burn as Hazel dissolved into a bout of giggles. “Never mind,” she grumbled, starting to stand.
Hazel wiped at a tear. “Sorry, sorry. C’mon, you gotta admit that was funny. It was just too easy.” Seeming to notice Nella wasn’t smiling, she added, “So, what? You have regrets about saying how you felt about Colin Franklin’s book now? Is that what’s going on?”
“No,” Nella said. At least, she didn’t think she did. What was really bothering her, when she thought long and hard about it, was the feeling that Hazel not hating the Colin Franklin book—and actively looking at Nella while not hating it—had broken some sort of unspoken, inherent promise. Inherent should have been Hazel’s hate for the Colin Franklin book. And the unspoken promise was that Hazel would more or less publicly back Nella up on all racial matters that arose in the office—or at least, would confer with her about it first. Wasn’t that what Black people were generally supposed to do: stick together? Hadn’t Hazel implied such loyalties when she’d first asked Nella for the scoop on Maisy?
Nella didn’t know what to say. “I just wish I had known you were going to talk it up so much.”
“I didn’t realize it would mess things up that badly with Vera,” Hazel said with a sigh. “I’m sorry. And don’t worry. I’m going to definitely tell Vera which Shartricia places Colin can do a bit better on. I’m just going to be a little gentler with him, that’s all. That’s the only way he’ll listen.”
Nella stared at Hazel impassively.
“If you want, you can send me your notes and I’ll incorporate them into mine before I share them. What do you think? I won’t tell Vera they’re yours.”
Nella didn’t like the idea of not getting credit for all of the time she spent reading the manuscript, even if Hazel was trying to be a bit helpful. She was also still feeling uneasy about Hazel in general. Was it possible that Hazel was so good at code-switching that she could switch herself into
someone who wrote hate mail to her fellow Black coworker? Nella wasn’t sure.
She was sure that it was getting late, and she needed to go home. “I have to go,” she said simply, getting up from her seat. “My friends are waiting.”
“I understand. But Dick is here now, in case you wanted to pop over and say goodbye to him on your way out.”
“Who?”
“Ack, sorry…” Hazel mimed a facepalm as she stood, too. “I meant Richard.”
“He’s here?” Nella spun around. Sure enough, Richard Wagner had just strolled in, a dark denim jacket casually thrown over his right shoulder. He was walking steadily toward them, as though he hadn’t shown up three hours late to the main event, as though it didn’t matter, since he had donated ten thousand dollars to the organization.
“Richard! What’s going on?”
“Hazel, hello!” he said cheerfully, his eyes never quite making it over to Nella. “So sorry to miss this. I made the mistake of getting into a long conversation with an author about the pros and cons of including the word ‘the’ in the beginning of the title of his next novel. Needless to say, it lasted for over an hour, and then I had a few other legitimate things to take care of and… well, time just flew away from me.”
“Wow!” exclaimed Nella, just as Hazel said, at the same exact time, “Was it Joshua Edwards?”
Richard laughed and patted Hazel’s shoulder. “You guessed it.”
“Joshua Edwards? What a piece of work!” Nella heard herself say, a bit too loudly, her tone brightening considerably.
Richard looked over at her—for the first time, really—and smiled wanly. “Nella! What a pleasant surprise.” Then he turned to face Hazel once more, his eyes two polished sapphires. “Please tell me you recorded a video of these girls reading. I think I’d like to include them on our website at Wagner somehow, maybe incorporate them into our social media.”
“That sounds great! I think Juanita recorded everything. I’ll introduce you to her soon.”
Richard clapped his hands again. “Great. By the way, this place? Even better than you made it sound. You know… being here kind of reminded me of that film. What was that film that came out in the nineties, with the young African American man who’s a poet, and the woman he falls for is a photographer?”
The Other Black Girl: A Novel Page 22
