The Other Black Girl(21)
“And she just drags the paintbrush all over the carpet,” Vera said, dabbing at a tear in her heavily mascaraed eye. “It’s just the cutest thing!”
“What a precious pooch!” Colin put his hands together once, then kept them there. For today’s meeting, he had worn his multi-fabric page boy cap, the one made up of spirals of denim, leather, satin, khaki, and lace fabric. It was the cap he always wore when he wanted to get the writing gears “a-turning,” which was a piece of information he’d shared with Nella the first day they’d met; he’d also shared it with his couple of million online followers. Once, for kicks, she had looked it up to buy for Owen as a gag gift. She quickly changed her mind when she discovered it would cost her seven hundred dollars. No laugh was worth that much—not on an editorial assistant’s salary.
Nella hadn’t seen Colin wear the cap since she’d made this discovery; now, she peered at the designer accessory suspiciously, as though it might get up off his bald head and slap her in the face. But even if it had, it wouldn’t have made a difference, because neither he nor Vera seemed to see her sit down in the only empty chair left in the room, hands folded in her lap.
After a few moments Nella coughed and said, brightly, “Fun! What’s our boy Brenner up to now?”
“Oh, Nella! Thank you for this.” Colin picked up his coffee and took an indulgent sip. He munched on one or two of the bite-sized ice cubes before winking at her. “Perfect, as usual.”
“I was just showing him Brenner’s latest video. They’re finally painting the addition to our kitchen in Nantucket—finally!—and Brenner of course saw this as an opportunity to be viral.” Nella tried not to flinch at how clunky those last two words sounded as Vera exited out of Instagram and placed her phone aside. “Now. Time to talk about Needles and Pins.”
“Yes! At last!” Colin stood up and whipped out a small, green spiral notepad. “I really can’t wait to hear what you two think. I’ve kept my wife up the past few nights talking out all the things that might be wrong with it.”
“Aw, Colin… well, we love it!” Vera gushed, bringing a fist down onto the pages. “It’s topical, it’s direct. It’s the perfect thing to get people talking about the nasty opioid epidemic that’s sweeping across our country.”
Nella bobbed her head up and down in agreement, mouth sealed shut. One of the things that Nella loved about working for Vera was that even though she didn’t necessarily take all of her opinions, she did give Nella as many opportunities as she could by bringing her to every meeting and telling her when an agent was and was not being an asshole. She treated Nella like she was competent, which was more than what many other assistants could say of their bosses.
But what Nella appreciated most of all—what she most respected and internalized—was her boss’s knack for speaking to authors about their writing. Vera had a way with phrasing; she could still make you think the second half of your book deserved a Pulitzer even after she told you that the first half needed to be completely rewritten.
“And the cast of characters is just so great,” Vera continued. “You really implemented my suggestions on your first draft about bringing out the diversity of this community, and I think that will have your book speaking to a lot of people.”
Nella stiffened, but kept her pen to paper.
“Perfect! That’s exactly what I was going for.” Colin jotted down a few notes that Nella couldn’t make out. But given Colin’s eager-to-please complex, she was willing to guess it said something along the lines of They like it! Thank fucking god.
Vera and Colin traded compliments for another couple of minutes. When that portion of the meeting was finished, and the actual criticism part of the meeting was supposed to begin, Colin unexpectedly turned to Nella, readjusted his cap, and said, “Now, I’d really love to hear what you think. Vera mentioned there were one or two things you felt need fixing.”
Nella froze. Critiquing the book after her boss had lavished him with praise wasn’t a part of the script. She looked over at Vera, but her boss was stone-faced, not an eye spasm in sight.
She faced Colin once again. “Well, I think it’s a great read. Like Vera said, it’s so important.”
“Thanks!”
“And there’s just such a wonderful driving force pushing this story,” Nella continued. “The consciousness of the voice of this town is just so… so powerful. And it gets louder and louder until… suddenly the town is just screaming, you know? And by the end of the book you’re just, like, Wow, how is the rest of the world not seeing this? How is this town hanging by a thread and yet meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, people are sitting all comfy-cozy in their own homes, worrying about coffee and parking spaces and playground bullies? Like we are right now. I mean, not the bullies. Although, maybe we are worried about the office bullies around here.”
Vera chuckled.
Nella put a fist to her chest. “And that chapter that takes place at the dinner table? Just… wow.”
“Thanks,” Colin said, smiling. “That bit was so fun to write. The kid who grew up next door to me in Connecticut had a family like that. His older brother, mother, and father were drunk out of their skulls all the time. It’s not opioids, but still. And I swear to god, they’d just throw food at each other whenever they got tired of hearing someone else speak. Hot food. Too much politics? Womp, spaghetti and meatballs. Sick of talking about money? Boom, sausage in your eye.”