The Other Black Girl(22)
“That’s wild!” Vera’s eyes danced as she put her hands up in her hair to scrunch her bob. “Why’d you keep going over there?”
“Because they had MTV!”
The room dissolved into a fit of cheerful laughter, even though the cause of it had been a highly dysfunctional family whose fate did not seem particularly promising. “We’ll have to tell the publicity team that story,” Vera said, looking over at Nella pointedly. Nella nodded once, then jotted down flying spaghetti. “Maybe that can be part of an interview or something. Like, the backstory of where this all came from.”
“Certainly. I could certainly work on that.” Colin gazed out the window for a moment, already imagining himself beneath a sea of lights at McNally Jackson, retelling this story. “But, c’mon, seriously—I can take some criticism, Nella. I’ve been around the block enough to know that even the best writers can keep refining, keep pushing.”
“Always! Here, Nella—I’m handing the metaphorical microphone over to you now,” Vera said, pretending to zip her lips shut.
Nella would rather knock herself unconscious with an actual microphone than proceed.
“Wow, thank you, Vera! But I’d be happy to let you take the lead—and then I’ll chime in?” She had hoped that tangent about Colin’s inspiration had let her off the hook, just as she’d been let off the hook last week, when Maisy had brought Hazel into Vera’s office and foiled The Shartricia Conversation. She kicked herself for not bringing up her concerns with Vera before this moment. There’d been times when she’d seen an opening, but a stray phone call or something else “urgent” had swatted the ball out of her hand before she could properly position herself to just do it. She had even tried a Hail Mary just the evening before, when Vera was packing up her things, but then her own phone had started to ring.
It was as though the gods were trying to tell Nella something. And now, days later—when she found herself being stared down by two very influential white people—she convinced herself this something was, It’s time, Queen Tell it now.
Colin gnawed on his ice expectantly, the crunching noise still audible through his closed lips. Above his head, she saw a headline for an imaginary Buzzfeed article: “COLIN FRANKLIN’S WELFARE QUEEN: WHERE WAS THE SENSITIVITY READ?”
“Alright,” Nella said, her voice deepening, “there was this… one thing… that I do think could use some work.”
“Hit me with it!” he said spiritedly, although his hunched back and his fingers, white from being clamped too tightly at the knuckles, implied that he was thoroughly prepared to be hit by a sharp, blunt object rather than her honest thoughts.
“Shartricia Daniels.”
Colin nodded, picked up his pen again. “Okay! Great! Let’s talk about her.”
“Great idea,” Vera chimed in, although she didn’t quite look ready to hear what Nella had to say. “You were mentioning to me the other day that something about her didn’t quite work for you?”
“Yes,” Nella said. It took everything she could find deep within not to lose steam, even though she knew that at this point, it was all or nothing. “I’m not sure we really finished that conversation. But yeah.”
Don’t look in your lap, said her inner Angela Davis, and then another Davis spoke up. Viola. You is kind. You is smart. You is important.
Nella met Colin’s eye. “So… I do think it’s super important that she’s in this. Because it’s good to show how people of color have been ravaged by the epidemic.”
“That’s what my thinking was when I suggested he add some more diversity in his second draft,” Vera jumped in. “Especially because the media overlooks their plight so often. And the media ignored their plight in the past, especially with crack in the 1990s, even though all kinds of diverse people are affected by drugs.” She looked pointedly at Nella. “Right? That’s what you mean?”
“Yes. Exactly that. So… it is great that there is representation here of a Black person going through this.”
“It’s so great, Colin,” Vera added.
Nella regarded her boss more sharply. Vera’s face looked like it had been pinched at its edges—particularly at her temples, where her skin was slightly purple.
Colin’s eyes went over to Vera, too, although they cut back to Nella in a flash. “I agree. I really wanted a Shartricia kind of character to be in this. Once we got to talking about diversifying this book and its cast of characters, it seemed vital that I go beyond my comfort zone a bit.”
“To show all diverse sides of the experience,” Vera clarified.
“Right!” Nella said, trying to ignore how many times the d-word had been dropped in the last few moments. “But, Shartricia… I have to say… she feels a bit off to me. She didn’t quite strike me as particularly… authentic.”
“Oh. Oh. Could you give Colin some specifics?” Vera commanded.
“Yes,” Colin said, as though she’d just told him she’d accidentally thrown his page boy cap onto the train tracks. “Please, do say more.”
“Well… to be honest, it seemed like she was based off an idea of what a Black person suffering due to an opioid epidemic in Ohio would be like. She felt like a collection of tropes… all of the unflattering ones… and by the time we get to the end of the novel, she never becomes a redeemable character at all. She’s still stuck.”