The Other Black Girl(114)

Hazel studied Nella so hard, and so hatefully, that Nella was quite positive she was going to be slapped. But after a long, long second, Hazel blinked. “How sad,” she said thoughtfully.

“What?”

Hazel laughed. “How sad that Shani wasn’t able to fill you in.”

Nella resisted the urge to shield herself as Hazel reached for her purse and pulled out two jars: one bright blue; the other, hot pink.

Hair grease.

“This stuff is everything,” Hazel said. Her movements suddenly had a certain showman quality to them; it was as though someone had picked up a remote and switched her channel from Bravo to the Home Shopping Network. Which was strange, since Nella could still feel her nail on her clavicle. “Let’s call these… social lubricants. You remember this one, right? Smooth’d Out? Of course, you’ve been using this stuff since Curl Central… but not enough, I don’t think. Luckily, I applied a lot of it to your hair last night. Looking good today, by the way.” She winked.

Nella eyed it curiously, but didn’t reach for it.

“And this pink one—Kink Free—actually, maybe I’ll just give this to you. You only use a dab of this one. Just a dab. This one helps you hold on to your essence. Your Blackness. It’s optional—not all the girls worry as much about using it—but it’s good to have in situations like this Jesse meeting.”

“Slow down,” Nella said, finding her voice at last. “?‘Social lubricants’?”

“Yep. The contents within these jars are clutch,” Hazel was saying. “They’ll make you more amenable when it comes to working for and with white folks. But the best part is that they’ll preclude any guilt you may feel from doing so. You won’t feel like you’re compromising anything. No ‘selling out.’ No ‘public versus private’ disposition.

“It’s gonna numb your ventromedial prefrontal cortex. But it’ll also help you to do more with your time than you’ve ever been able to do before. Don’t stress! You won’t feel the numbing too much. Could be worse, too—I heard the original formula itched like a motherfucker and turned you into a babbling idiot.”

“None of this makes any sense,” said Nella bluntly.

“I was able to curry favor more quickly at work in a couple of weeks than most people—Black or not—are able to do in one year. That way, I didn’t need to spend all of my time going the extra mile when I wasn’t at work. And I’ve still been able to run YBL.”

“But even if that somehow all comes from a hair product—you’re still compromising who you are,” Nella pointed out weakly. At the same time, though, she was thinking about how she wasn’t even sure who she was. There were so many things she never had enough energy for—so many social interactions she’d gotten so incredibly wrong—because Wagner had sucked her dry of her confidence and her sense of self.

“What’s the difference if you don’t know who you are? What’s that saying—‘if a tree falls in a forest, but you’re not around to see it, does it count?’ Something like that.”

“?‘What’s the difference’?” Nella laughed. “You’re kidding, right? Your grandfather—”

She stopped herself when Hazel tittered, but pressed on. “Anyone older than us would be disappointed to know that you exist. That something like this exists.”

“No. They’d be envious. Think how much further they could’ve gotten, Nella. Not having to feel all the pain…”

“You never answered my question about Camille and Ebonee and them. Whether or not they really know what’s happening.”

“Ebonee would’ve been an intern at the Paris Review for another year, maybe two. She needed this. So she does. A few others know, too. But a lot were referred to Dick, who then refers them to me—and a few other Black girls—to fix. As time passes, though, they start to love it. Believe me.”

“So that’s a no. You don’t think that’s just a tiny bit fucked up? Changing these girls without their consent? Their… sober consent?” Nella asked, for lack of a better word.

Hazel shrugged. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

“What they don’t know will hurt all the Black people who aren’t doing what you do. And it’ll hurt the rest of the world, too, if everyone starts thinking that we’re all happy compliant mammies who ask ‘how high’ when we’re told to—”

“They already believe we’re all ‘Strong Black Women,’ though,” Hazel interrupted. “If they’re going to believe that stereotype, and if we’re going to continue to feed them that stereotype, then we might as well—”

But Nella did the interrupting this time. “How can we truly fix any of those stereotypes—those problems—if we’re not truly feeling all of the real things the world is throwing at us? Who are we as a people if we’re not… if we’re not…”

Hazel was giving Nella another once-over, but this time it was clear she didn’t like what she was hearing. “If we’re not what, Nella? Suffering? Is that what you want? To feel overextended? To feel worn down by every microaggression you experience in the office, and every injustice you see on the news? Are those the kinds of things that make you feel like you?