The Other Black Girl(13)
But this felt different. Who was Nella not to tell Hazel the truth?
She looked up at her cubicle wall and cast a bit of side-eye to the empty space where that Diversity Town Hall email had once hung, a story her father had told her about his very first job floating back to her. He’d walked into a Burger King and seen a brother sweeping the floor, and a brother at the register, too. Behind the register, there was a brother preparing the orders.
“No white people in charge? Looks like a pretty good gig you guys have going on here,” Bill Rogers had said to the Black guy behind the register, who turned out to be the brother—the actual brother—of her father’s classmate, Gerald Hubbard.
Gerald’s brother had smiled and handed her father a job application. “We practically make our own hours,” he said, “and you know what—you’ve come just in time. There’s going to be an opening.”
Five days later, he found himself on the register. He made it an entire two shifts without screwing anything up. It wasn’t until his third shift that a white man in a sharp suit and tie walked in and introduced himself as the owner. On its own, this would have been fine—Bill hadn’t forgotten that the owner was white, and he could handle white people as well as any Black person in those days. But the owner had ended up being a modern-day Simon Legree. And as it turned out, Gerald’s brother had been finishing his very last shift at Burger King when he told Bill a position was opening up.
Nella’s father continued to work there for three weeks, which was how long it took him to decide that if a boss had to call him “boy,” he might as well be making more money for it. A few weeks later he started working as an attendant at a fancy hotel on the other side of town.
Years later, at a neighborhood picnic, her father asked Gerald’s brother why he hadn’t warned him. “I don’t know,” he’d said, nibbling on the gristle of a rib somebody’s mama had spent all morning cooking. “Same thing happened to me when I applied.”
Nella had heard this story several times, and she always felt the same way when her father reached the end. She always swore that if she ever found herself in a similar situation, she wouldn’t behave as selfishly as Gerald Hubbard’s brother had. And now, here she was, finally in a position where she could be transparent with someone other than Malaika about what it was like to be a Black person working in an all-white office.
As though she sensed Nella was about to break, Hazel sucked her teeth. She was still staring at Nella, except now her eyes were cool, serene. “C’mon, sis,” she said quietly. “You can be real with me.”
The diminutive washed over Nella like balm on a tight knot in her neck. Nella felt her joints loosen as she released a tiny whoosh of air from her lips. “Honestly… your boss is so good at what she does. Everyone who knows her respects her, especially since she’s willing to edit all the science books nobody else wants to touch. But.” She lowered her whisper to lip-read-only level. “She’s a little high-strung. Like, for real.”
Hazel didn’t flinch. She just nodded. “I kind of had a feeling,” she said after a moment. “And tell me: How do they feel about Black people in these parts?”
Nella looked around to make sure no one happened to be lingering nearby. “I’ll just put it this way,” she said, widening her eyes dramatically. “They don’t ‘see’ color here at Wagner.”
Hazel didn’t respond. For a moment, it was unclear she’d caught the playfulness in Nella’s voice. Maybe she hadn’t even heard her at all.
But then that coolness in her eyes turned up, and a knowing grin overtook Hazel’s face. “Yeah, that’s the vibe I got. It’s always good to know what you’re working with, right?” She smiled a little, all lip but no teeth, before turning back to her desk and starting to type.
Nella turned her chair back to face her monitor and grinned to herself. Sis, indeed.
* * *
Hours later, Nella dabbed at the layer of condensation that had gathered at the bottom of her glass with her pinky nail, then deposited the water onto her already-saturated napkin. “Did I tell you she lived in Boston for a few years? Boston.”
Malaika shook her head. “No shit!” she shouted as the opening notes of “Juicy” started to flow through the speakers above their heads. Tonight’s spot was 2Big, a Bed-Stuy bar that exclusively played songs by Tupac and Biggie in a rather belated attempt to, as their website stated, Bring Two Coasts Together.
“And Maisy and Vera just kept going on and on about Boston like they always do whenever they get on a roll. Building it up like it was this magical kind of city, or whatever.”
Malaika shrugged and took a sip of her rum and Coke. “Magical for some folks, maybe. What is it Jesse Watson calls it? ‘The White Man’s Mecca’?”
Nella assented, remembering the segment Jesse had done on the city just a few months earlier, after attending his first—and last—Celtics game.
“God, I’m gonna miss that man. With Jesse on his weird hiatus, how will I be able to tell the difference between a microaggression and a sheet with holes in it?” Malaika joked wistfully. “By the way, is Vera resting easy now that he’s gone forever?”
Last year, Nella had suggested they invite Jesse to contribute to Wagner’s Forty Under Forty anthology, but Vera had tutted at the thought. Literally, and quite loudly, at that. “Between you and me,” she had whispered, “some people see him as an emotional terrorist—and I can’t say I don’t agree with them.”