The Other Black Girl(115)

“What I’m offering you here,” Hazel said, “is an opportunity to be a part of something that will allow you to let go, and go further.”

Nella scoffed. “Well, I don’t want it.”

“But you do. I know you, Nella.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do. I get it.”

Nella knew those three words and that earnest stare that Hazel was giving her were all simply fluff. A ploy. But when she tried to wrestle away this lilt of Black-girl solidarity, she felt a pounding in the front of her brain, like she was trying to drive a car up a brick wall, ramming into this same wall over and over and over again.

“You think you’re above what I do. But I see that drive you have,” Hazel continued, adamant. “Everything I did, I did because I have that drive, too. I always have. Look at yourself, Nella. You know it’s true.”

Nella refused to regard herself in the mirror. “We’re not the same,” she said, glaring at Hazel. “I have convictions. I speak out. I don’t ostracize other Black people. You’re just an—” Nella stopped herself, not because she wasn’t comfortable saying it to the girl’s face, but because that ramming feeling had returned—except this time, the car that had been repeatedly backing up and moving forward had transformed into a tractor trailer. It hurt so much that everything in her line of vision turned a bright, blinding shade of red.

“Just a what?” Hazel asked, a grin in her voice. “An ‘Uncle Tom’?”

Nella put a hand to her head, trying desperately to collect her thoughts. It didn’t work. “Your words. Not mine,” she said hazily.

“Sometimes we have to be in order to get what we want. Shit. Look.” She gestured abstractedly at the white tiled wall that Nella was now using to keep herself upright, but it was clear that she was also casting a hand at all of the time that had passed Nella by without so much as a promotion. All this time without her own title to edit. All this time, just to be surpassed by a cooler, shinier, and seemingly Blacker version in a matter of months.

“You’ve been working so hard for so long,” Hazel continued. “Don’t you want to just lean in? Make it easier?” She started rummaging in the black purse slung over her shoulder.

“I’m not…” The pain in Nella’s head was getting worse now; she could hear every thump of every artery pumping blood into her brain, louder than a bass drum. But even though she could feel the blood moving, pulsing around in her veins, something felt wrong. Standing upright felt wrong. She suddenly became very aware of how far away the ground felt—too far away, really, for her to feel comfortable collapsing on it. “I… I can’t…”

Hazel extended her hand. It seemed to take ages for it to land on Nella’s shoulder, but when it finally did it felt as though it were burning through to her marrow. “You can. Stop fighting the tide, Nella. Once you stop fighting—once you let this wave wash over you—you’ll see. It’ll wash over you so quickly, you won’t even feel it. You won’t feel the pain, the white supremacy. You’ll read those articles, watch the police footage, then go to work the next morning without feeling like another part of you has died. That heavy anvil of genetic trauma that’s been strapped to your ankle for all these years… gone. You’ll swim to the top and be free. You’ll be you. This is Black Girl Magic in its purest form.

“Just tell me yes. That’s all you have to do.”

Gasping for air, Nella mouthed a silent no.

“Don’t you want to be successful, too, Nella? Don’t you want to swim free?”

Yes, a voice inside of her said. But this woman’s voice sounded too tiny, too muffled, to be Angela’s. When was the last time she’d heard Angela’s voice, anyway?

“I…”

“Just a yes. That’s all I need. Just a yes, and it’ll stop. I promise.”

“Yes,” Nella finally whispered. “Yes.”

She felt weary to the bone, as though someone had picked her up and wrung her out from bottom to top. Even still, she felt better the moment the air finished traveling through her two top front teeth.

“Good.” Hazel cocked her head at Nella. “Now, don’t you feel so much better?”

Nella surrendered a small nod. She felt vulnerable, like she’d just gotten her first Pap smear and didn’t know how invasive it would feel.

“Wait,” said Nella, just now playing back the words that Hazel had said a minute earlier. “What did you mean before by ‘You’ve been using this stuff since Curl Central’?”

“I gave you that jar of Smooth’d Out at the YBL reading a month ago, and you’ve been using it. I mean… isn’t that why you apologized to Colin Franklin? You’ve already been converted.”

A slow-moving wooziness began to creep in. Nella tried to steady herself by placing a hand on the sink, straining to recall when she’d used Smooth’d Out on her own. Then she remembered that pea-sized bit she’d applied here in Wagner’s ladies’ room, and how much she hadn’t liked it. She’d much preferred the way Brown Buttah had melted into her roots. Ironically, she’d found Smooth’d Out a bit too clumpy; it had left specks of white in her hairline that she couldn’t massage out no matter how much she tried. Brown Buttah smelled better, too: Subtle. Less sharp, less chemical.