The Other Black Girl(3)
This meant one of two things: One of her white colleagues had started using Brown Buttah. Or—more likely, since she was pretty sure none of them had accidentally stumbled into the natural hair care aisle—there was another Black girl on the thirteenth floor.
Nella’s heart fluttered as she felt something she supposed resembled a hot flash. Had it finally happened? Had all of her campaigning for more diversity at Wagner finally paid off?
Her thoughts were cut short by the loud, familiar cackle of Maisy Glendower, a squirrelly editor who appreciated modulation only when someone else was practicing it. Nella combed through the bray, listening hard for the hushed voice that had made Maisy laugh. Did it belong to a person of a darker hue?
“Hay-girl-hay!”
Startled, Nella looked up from her desk. But it was just Sophie standing above her, arms wrapped snugly around the side of her cubicle wall, eyes as wide and green as cucumbers.
Nella groaned inwardly and clenched a fist beneath her desk. “Sophie,” she mumbled, “hi.”
“Haaaay! What’s up? How are you? How’s your Tuesday going?”
“I’m fine,” Nella said, keeping her voice low in case any more audible clues floated her way. Sophie had tamed her eyes down a bit, thank goodness, but she was still staring at Nella as though there was something she wanted to say, but couldn’t.
This wasn’t unusual for a Cubicle Floater like Sophie. As Cubicle Floaters went, she wasn’t the worst. She didn’t play favorites, which meant that your chances of seeing her more than once a week were slim. She was usually too busy hovering beside the cubicle of another assistant, her lazy smile reminding you of how good you didn’t have it. By the luck of the draw, Sophie worked for Kimberly, an editor who’d been at Wagner Books for forty-one years. Kimberly had edited her first and last bestseller in 1986, but because this bestseller had not been just a bestseller—it had been adapted into a television show, a blockbuster film, a graphic novel, an adult film, a musical, a podcast, a miniseries, and another blockbuster film (in 4DX)—she was granted a pass on every non-bestseller that followed. Royalties were nothing to laugh at.
Now nearing the end of her long career, Kimberly spent most of her time out of the office, and Nella suspected Sophie spent most of her time waiting for Kimberly to kindly retire already so that she could take her place. In a year, maybe less, it would dawn on Sophie that her boss wasn’t going anywhere unless someone told her to, and no one ever would. But for now, Sophie hung on naively, just as every single one of her predecessors had.
“Kim’s still out,” Sophie explained, even though Nella hadn’t asked. “She sounded awful on the phone yesterday.”
“Which procedure is she getting done this time?”
Sophie grabbed the taut bit of flesh between her chin and her clavicle and wiggled it around.
“Ah. The crucial one.”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “Yep. She probably dropped more on that than we make here in a month. By the way, did you see…?” She cocked her head in the direction of Maisy’s voice.
“Did I see what?”
“I think Maisy’s got another potential candidate in.” Sophie tossed her head again, this time adding in a suggestive, wiggling eyebrow. “And I don’t know for certain, but she seems like she might be… you know.”
Nella tried to keep from grinning. “No, I don’t,” she said innocently. “Might be what?”
Sophie lowered her voice. “I think she’s… Black.”
“You don’t have to whisper the word ‘Black,’?” Nella chided, even though she knew why Sophie did: Sounds, like smells, carried over cubicle walls. “Last time I checked, that was a socially acceptable word to use. I even use it sometimes.”
Sophie either ignored her joke or didn’t feel comfortable laughing at it. She leaned over and whispered, “This is so great for you, right? Another Black girl at Wagner? You must be so excited!”
Nella withheld eye contact, turned off by the girl’s intensity. Yes, it would be great to have another Black girl working at Wagner, but she was hesitant to do a celebratory Electric Slide sequence just yet. She’d only believe that the higher-ups at Wagner had finally considered interviewing more diverse people when she saw it. Over the last two years, the only people who’d been interviewed or hired were Very Specific People who came from a Very Specific Box.
Nella looked up from her desktop at Sophie, who happened to be one of these Very Specific People, and who was still chattering on. Over the course of just a few minutes, Sophie’d managed to talk herself onto a train of social awareness, and it was clear she had no intention of getting off anytime soon. “It reminds me of that anonymous op-ed BookCenter article I sent you last week—the one I swore you had to have written, because it just sounded so you—about being Black in a white workplace. Remember that piece?”
“Yeah, I do… and for the tenth time, I definitely didn’t write that article,” Nella reminded her, “even though I can obviously relate to a lot of the stuff that was in it.”
“Maybe Richard saw it and decided to do something about the lack of diversity here? I mean, that would be something. Remember how hard it was just to get people talking about diversity in one place? Those meetings were painful.”
To call them meetings seemed gratuitous, but Nella wasn’t in the mood to go down that slippery slope. She had more important things to pursue. Like how to get rid of Sophie.