The Other Black Girl(25)
I wished I could take back the word “flop” immediately. Something strange played out in Diana’s eyes as she studied me, her lips tightly pressed together. Only then did I notice that her burnt-orange lipstick was smudged. I motioned for her to fix it, prepared to ask her if she and Elroy had snuck a little one-on-one time in the coat closet, but Diana spoke again. “Hey—all of that is in the past now. What matters is the book got made, and we’re here.
“Besides,” she added, pulling a compact mirror from a clutch as white as her white asymmetrical minidress, “you know how it goes. A dozen nos before you get one yes, and that yes is the only one that matters. Everyone else can take their nos and shove them up their perfectly perfumed assholes.”
That made me smile. Very rarely did Diana talk about shoving anything anywhere. When all the girls in middle school started calling her “High-Yellow Di”—not really because of her skin, but because of her good grades, her perfect diction, and her love of I Love Lucy reruns—it was me, not Diana, who’d told them to go fuck themselves. For the most part, everyone had listened; granted, I was pretty sure my punching Geoffrey Harrison out in the fourth grade during a field trip to the Montclair Art Museum had something to do with that.
I eyed my friend, who was having a hard time standing in one place for more than a few moments. Clearly, she’d helped herself to more than a couple of glasses of wine, which explained the messy lipstick, the “perfumed assholes,” and the fact that she was again linking her arm in mine—this time, more forcefully. “I can’t believe I’m the one telling you this,” she said, “but Kendra Rae Phillips, you need to chill the hell out and take a deep fucking breath.”
“You know how I hate breathing.”
“I do. But humor me. C’mon, now. Innnn…”
I pouted, but did as I was told.
“Now, out. See? Don’t that feel good? See!” She patted me on the back without waiting for my response. “Hey,” she said, sniffing the air, her naturally turned-up nose twitching like that of a puppy on the prowl. “You smell that?”
I frowned. “No. What am I supposed to be smelling?”
Diana beamed. “Money, honey. Not just white folks’ money, neither. You wanna know what I did with the first check I got from Wagner?”
“I’m guessing the answer isn’t ‘deposited it in the bank.’?”
“You guessed right. No, I just put it down on the kitchen table and stared at it for a good long while. Forty minutes, maybe an hour. I kid you not. And when Elroy got home from work and tried to pick up the check and see it, would you believe what I did? I barked at him, honey. I’ve never done that in my life.”
It was all just too much. We both howled. I mean, really howled. And that was all it took to bring us back to back in the day. We were high schoolers again, getting ready to go roller-skating at the Eight Skate in downtown Newark with the rest of the girls. We were drinking red juice and whatever liquor Imani could sneak from her parents’ stash. Singing Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain while either Ola or I pressed Diana’s hair—her real hair—and I was usually the one doing the pressing, because unlike Ola, I knew to quit grooving when I had someone else’s head and a hot piece of metal in my hand. Half-knowing that soon more than just our outfits would have to change.
We would be splitting up—Diana and Imani would be off to Howard; Ola to Oaxaca, where she would meet a man and start a family and a nonprofit, all in the span of one year. And I’d be off to Harvard, where I… what exactly would I do there? Pick up a man here, drop him off there. I’d miss New Jersey; try—and fail—to love Boston. I’d be pulled deeper into books.
And I’d be pushed further away from white people.
This recollection, although not a new one by any means, was sobering enough to chase away any joy a Chaka Khan–playing jazz quartet could bring me. At the same time, I detected a white couple nearby that seemed noticeably concerned by our laughing fit. When I met the man’s eye, they hastily feigned interest in one of the many literary awards that Richard had requested be temporarily affixed to a wall for this swanky affair.
I didn’t let them off the hook, though. I gave each of them a disdainful up-down, my eyes remaining transfixed upon the string of diamonds around the woman’s fine porcelain neck. Five seconds later, they wandered over to the far side of the room for air.
“Oh, for God’s sake. Girl.” Diana’s words had no semblance of softness this time, and when she finished rolling her eyes, I knew she was going to say what she’d been trying not to say for quite some time. You’re beyond saving. Or, maybe, You’re bringing me down.
Instead, she pointed at my drink and ordered me to get another. “Then, once you’ve finished it, meet Richard and me over by the fish tank in five.”
Hearing my boss’s name killed my buzz for an instant. “Ah, is that it? Richard sent you to summon me? I already said hello when we got here, and I’ll say goodbye and thank you when it’s time to go home. I don’t think I should have to—”
Diana shook her head. “No, stupid. There’s a guy from the Times here who’s doing a write-up on this and he wants to take a photo of the three of us. Seriously, girl—why do you hate Richard so much? It’s getting kind of old, you know.”