The Other Black Girl(118)
My weight shifted into my index finger—by my own doing or by divine intervention, I didn’t know. But it didn’t matter.
The message was out.
And it felt good. Damn good. Speeding-down-an-empty-highway-blasting-TLC-with-my-windows-down good.
I’d just opened a search browser and typed in Hazel’s name to confirm that she was still in New York and still working at Wagner when I heard the familiar ping of an email notification: Delivery Status Notification Failure.
“What?” I murmured, rechecking the email address. I’d responded to an enthusiastic note that Gwen had sent in response to my pitch just a few days earlier: Whoa! Wild. Be ready to provide a few more materials for cross-reference, but I 100000.00% believe this happened to you. (#BelieveBlackWomen!) Can’t wait to see what you do with it. xo.
I lifted my chin once more. Gwen’s light was still off. She hadn’t slipped in soundlessly, the way she sometimes did when she wasn’t ready to speak to anybody yet. I was considering other reasons she might have been held up when Reagan, a sprightly woman with dermal piercings in her right cheek, cruised by. Looking from me to Gwen’s office, she yelped, delighted, “You haven’t heard! Have you?”
When Gwen had taken me around to meet everyone a few months earlier, Reagan had given me a vise-grip hug and squealed, “Finally! It’s about time we changed our image.” She seemed even more thrilled now than she had then.
“Heard what?” I asked, chewing on the inside of my cheek.
“River told me this morning that Gwen got a crazy opportunity from one of those brainy magazines to study the effect of mass food hysteria upon the American public,” Reagan explained haughtily, as though she herself had been presented the opportunity. “You saw the article about that murder in Alabama over a fried chicken sandwich, right?”
A flare of heat wound up my lower back and wrapped around my neck. “What? When?”
“Hard to say; I get all the sandwich casualties mixed up. I think the Alabama one happened in—”
“No. When did Gwen find out about this?”
“Friday night, apparently. She packed up all her things over the weekend and word has it she’s already in Missouri.”
I sat with this explanation for some time. Gently, I asked, “When is she coming back?”
“Unclear when. Or even if. She’s been trying to work at a national publication for years now. And she’s not getting any younger,” Reagan loud-whispered.
I groaned. “Fuck. Great timing. I just finished a really important piece and I want her to take a look at it, like… now.”
“Aw, yeah—that sucks. But don’t worry!” Reagan said, patting my arm. “River says they’ve already hired an interim editor to take Gwen’s place. Actually… that might be her?”
My eyes followed Reagan’s. A young Black woman appeared to have entered from the parking garage side of the office. Holding a tote bag in one hand and a coffee cup in another, she’d already passed the potted ficus and the politics editor’s empty desk; now she was strutting past Printer Row, her hair cropped and glistening, and her sights set on me and Reagan.
“Sick! Another…” Reagan glanced at me, caught herself. “… young person.”
I didn’t speak. I was too concerned with this woman’s long, pronounced strides. She was making too confident of a beeline toward us for someone on her first day. Like she already belonged. Like it wasn’t a big deal that her shoes were four-inch heels, shoes that I’d never seen her wear before.
And her hair… oh, her hair. Wispy, fine, the color of a roasted almond. Fashioned into a chic, asymmetrical bob that was perfectly, painfully, straight.
“Ladies,” she said, casually running her fingers through the back of what could only be a full lace weave. “Hello. How are you this morning? I’m Delilah Henson—Gwen’s interim replacement.”
Reagan responded convivially. I only muttered my own response as I examined her painted-on eyebrows, her heavily contoured skin. When she waved, she brought a nauseating, syrupy odor with her.
“Could one of you please tell me where Gwen’s office is?”
She was looking at me, but I’d already returned my attention to that bounce-back email. It was the only thing keeping me anchored to my chair. Your email was not delivered because the email address you entered could not be found.
Reagan pointed at the small metal slab into which Gwen’s name had been engraved. “You’ve come to the right place! It’s right here.”
“Perfect.” The woman held up her coffee cup in gratitude. “And now, sorry, one more ask—can one of you tell me where Shani Edmonds sits?”
Reagan pointed me out before I could tell her not to. “She’s right here, too!”
“Stellar! Shani, we have so much to talk about. Gwen mentioned you’ve been working on a very important article that you’re planning on finishing today? I would hate for it to get lost in the transition.”
“Look at you, already hard at work!” Reagan said admiringly. “I’ll leave so you two can get acquainted, but Delilah, let’s do lunch? I’d love to chat more!”
“Yes! I’d love that, too. Name the time and the date and the place and I’ll be there with bells on, honey.”