The Other Black Girl(14)
Nella winced now as she’d winced then. “Not sure how tuned in she is to Black Twitter,” she said, “but that doesn’t matter, anyway. There’s no way Jesse’s actually ‘gone forever.’ He likes the spotlight too much.”
“True.”
“Besides, I bet he made that announcement about going offline so that when he returns with his big Beyoncé-sized creative drop, it’ll be that much bigger. People like him do that all the time.” Nella stated this like she didn’t care one way or the other, although Jesse’s announcement about taking a break from social media—especially his reason of wanting “to work on some things”—had fascinated her, too. Vera might have said no to Nella’s Forty Under Forty suggestion, but she hadn’t said no to a book written by Jesse and Jesse alone. If Nella found a way to contact him, maybe she could get him to write an outline so irresistible Richard and Vera would have no choice but to sign him on the spot.
She had meant to fly this idea by Malaika earlier, maybe even spitball what kind of projects he’d come back from hiatus with—A memoir? A doc? A gospel album? But the Jesse news had gotten lost in the Hazel shuffle.
“Anyway, going back to this new Black girl,” said Malaika, reading her mind. “White Man’s Mecca or not, the important question I have for you is: Do you think you’ll be friends with her?”
“For sure!” said Nella. “Mal, you know how long I’ve been waiting for this moment! And Hazel seems cool. Probably way too cool for me, actually.”
“Impossible.”
“She’s from Harlem. She’s natural—long locs. Ombré.”
The ombré locs invoked an ooooh, followed by a raising of Malaika’s glass. “Okay, maybe she’s a little bit cooler than you. But now,” she said, pulling away when Nella tried to flick her arm in protest, “a toast: to no longer being the Only One.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Nella clinked her almost empty beer with Malaika’s drink. Then she threw back the second-to-last sip and put her glass down, surveying the other people who had decided to grab a drink on a Wednesday evening. For the most part, pairs of twenty-and thirtysomething-year-old women dotted the high barstools, sipping and laughing and shaking their heads with unabashed delight. She felt a warming touch of solidarity as she took in the dozen or so women in their business casual ensembles, mouths full of gin and juice and post-work exasperations.
Nella thought about the gripes she’d planned to bounce off Malaika, mostly about her anxiety toward having to address the Shartricia thing. It just didn’t seem fair. Only a few months earlier, Colin had finally stopped misspelling her name in his emails; weeks earlier, they’d even had a brief bonding moment over growing up in Connecticut. The two of them weren’t ride-or-dies by any means, but Nella did feel as though they’d made quite a bit of progress in their author-assistant relationship. And now, she had to look him in the eye—Colin Franklin, an award-winning author who was on a first-name basis with Reese Witherspoon—and tell him that she had issues with his book?
She’d been saving this Colin thing for last as she listened attentively to her friend kvetch about Igor Ivanov, the fitness guru she’d personally assisted for the last eight years. Nella didn’t want to hog too much of the conversation, especially given how much time she’d spent complaining to Malaika about Shartricia already. So instead of pivoting to Colin when Malaika finished recounting Igor’s latest tirade about her calves, Nella raised her glass again. “I’d like to propose another cheers: to not being confused with the new Black girl. Thank god she has locs,” Nella joked.
Malaika snorted. “Oh, I can drink to that.” She finished the last of her rum and Coke, plopping it down on the table harder than necessary. She had that real talk look on her face that Nella knew so well, her big brown eyes unblinking and opened wider than usual. “Locs or no locs, though… you know one of your coworkers is gonna mix you and the new Black girl up at least once. I promise you.”
3
August 20, 2018
Nella yawned and wrapped her arms around her shoulders, a feeble attempt to stop herself from grabbing at the coffee before the machine finished spurting. The thing had been dying for about a week or so, which meant Jocelyn—Wagner’s business manager and the only employee who knew how to coax sweet nectar from the snarling kitchen Keurig—was visiting family in Germany.
Nella needed her back. Now. Her head was pounding something awful, thanks to the fact that Owen had ended up joining her and Malaika at 2Big the night before. They’d left the bar at an hour far too late for three people who knew they had to get up early the following morning.
Nella was trying to remember what time she and Owen had finally slipped into bed when a new smell disrupted the scent of her coffee and, subsequently, her thoughts. She sniffed the Keurig curiously, unable to name the sweet culprit until she looked over her shoulder. Hazel had breezed into the kitchen, coffee mug in one hand, Tupperware container in the other. She was wearing a bright yellow scarf heavy enough to hinder the aggressive air-conditioning of the subway, but light enough to stick in her bag while enduring the sweatiness of the platform, and a pair of those big white movie-star sunglasses that looked like the ones Nella had tried on the last time she’d gone shopping. With her own small, round face and lack of ample chin, she’d looked like a Chihuahua playing dress-up in the convention center glow of the Herald Square H&M. But Hazel’s bright red lipstick and oversized silver hoops managed to tip the scales in her favor.