The Other Black Girl(30)

“He knows where twenty-five percent of him comes from? Lucky him,” Hazel remarked once she’d finally found a home for her salad. They started walking toward their desks. “White boyfriends are always such a trip.”

Nella perked up. Was Hazel speaking from firsthand experience, or just assuming? “If you don’t mind me asking,” she started, “is Manny w—?”

“Ah! There you are, Nella. Finally.”

Vera was standing above Nella’s desk with a manic gleam in her eye, cheeks flushed, hands planted firmly on her hips. Her terse smile suggested that she was trying not to lose it, and had been trying for quite some time. “Hi, Hazel.”

Hazel slipped into her desk chair and murmured a soft hello.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Nella said, searching for an excuse that she couldn’t find.

“Yes. Next time, please send me an email, a text, a smoke signal… something. Just so I know. Okay? Thanks. I mean, the morning has been insane.”

Nella was speechless. Yes, she could have sent her an email. But she had been late to the office a handful of times in the two years she’d worked at Wagner—both reasonably and unreasonably—and none of these prior infractions had ever warranted such a showy confrontation. Sure, Nella had realized she was going to be about twenty minutes late when she got on the train, and when she got off the train, and when she stopped in the lobby to chat with Hazel and India. She’d again noticed it in the elevator, somewhere between the second and third floor. But Vera usually spent the early part of the morning inside of her office with her door closed, taking advantage of that time to accomplish the things she never could once everyone began to float in and out of her office for all sorts of reasons—to ask for editorial advice or opinions on a new cover design; to introduce new hires; to shoot the shit.

That morning, however—for Colin-related reasons, Nella suspected—Vera’s door was wide open. And as far as she was concerned, the opinions she had aired out during the Shartricia conversation were still very much alive and dancing in the air between them like little hell-bent demons.

Perhaps sensing the demons, too, Hazel—in that same respectful whisper she’d used for her hello—volunteered a complaint about New York City’s muddled subway system. “We were just talking about how we both had problems this morning—someone threw themselves on the tracks, I think. My train was stuck underground for twenty minutes, easily.”

Nella stole a quick glance at Maisy’s darkened office. The only person who would call Hazel out for being so late wasn’t even in the office yet, but Hazel had helped Nella out anyway. She made a note to thank her later and added, “Mine took twenty-five. In the tunnel.”

“In the tunnel,” Vera repeated.

“Y-yes. In the tunnel.” Nella’s temperature rose a few degrees, a by-product of either the lie she’d just told or Vera’s I don’t believe you stare. She suddenly remembered that her sweater was still on, so she slipped it off and dropped her stuff on top of her chair.

Vera bit her lip before breaking the silence. “All good.” All was not good, but she moved on to briskly ask Nella if she’d print out two copies of Needles and Pins. Then she disappeared into her office and closed the door.

Nella looked over at Hazel’s desk. Hazel looked back at her.

“Oof. What was that about?”

So, she hadn’t heard. Fine. Nella cast a glance at Vera’s closed door to make sure it was completely shut. Then she rolled over to Hazel’s desk.

“Colin flipped,” she whispered. “He went batshit.”

“What? Why?”

“I was real with him about Shartricia. I decided to be honest, like we talked about at Nico’s. He said I called him a racist. Just like I thought he would.”

“Well, did you?”

“Of fucking course I didn’t call him a racist,” Nella said, offended Hazel could think she’d make such a heinous mistake. “But he got the impression that I did, and I can’t undo that. It wasn’t my finest moment, but I apologized when he finally came back from the bathroom.”

Colin had returned to Vera’s office about twenty minutes later, his cap restored, his jaw squared, and his eyes more than a little bit red. I’m sorry that you thought I was calling you a racist, Nella had conceded, trying her best to move her mouth without vomiting. The words had felt flat on her tongue, like she was apologizing to a man for pulling out her pepper spray on him after he’d followed too closely behind her on an empty street. But she’d said it. Because at the end of the day, she was sorry—just for slightly different reasons.

“He was gone from Vera’s office for a while, right?” Hazel asked. “Like, twenty minutes? Such a long time.”

“I guess that makes two of us who were counting,” Nella murmured. “God, I’m so mortified.”

Hazel shrugged her shoulders. “I felt the chill from my chair the moment he opened her office door. I’m so sorry, girl. From what I heard—”

“Wait.” Nella paused. “So you did hear what happened?”

Hazel shook her head. “Bits and pieces, but not all of it. I was in my own world, handling some stuff for Maisy. But the more important thing here—judging by what I did happen to hear—is you did everything right. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.”