The Other Black Girl(44)
She hadn’t found this funny. She’d just shaken her head. “You fucked up, girl. You said too much.”
That was when she started rummaging around her small brown leather purse. It was this whole big production—or at least, it must have appeared as such, because a twentysomething white guy nearby who happened to be holding the same issue of the New Yorker I held was giving us his attention. I started to smile at him in solidarity, but before my lips could complete the motion, the mysterious girl cleared her throat, evidently displeased. And when I looked back at her, she was frowning at the white man—at least, that’s what it seemed like she was doing beneath her sunglasses.
I felt the piece of paper tuck itself into my hand before I heard her say, “Take this.”
“I’m flattered,” I said, my face growing hot, “but I’m not into—”
“Shani,” she had said, firmly. The sound of my name in a stranger’s mouth loosened my grip on both the piece of paper and the magazine, which fell onto the dirty floor of the T. “You need to get over yourself. I’m not trying to fuck you, for fuck’s sake. I’m just trying to help.”
The train came to a slow stop. “I have to go back to Harlem tonight. But text me at this number after you leave work. You’ll want to after today. Trust me.”
She’d slipped off before I could get her name from her, leaving me no choice but to stoop down, feel around the pair of Sperry boots I’d bought upon discovering how unforgiving Boston winters really were, and retrieve the stained card.
Lynn Johnson resists, it read. Google told me even less when I searched for her on my work computer. I intended to let the incident go.
But it didn’t take long for shit to hit the fan, just like Lynn had promised. The article was circulated. My boss went in on me in front of everybody. I was fired… in front of everybody. And that was it for me and Cooper’s and that story I’d worked so hard to complete.
I texted Lynn on my way home from the office, finally ready to listen. There was no point in denying she knew something I didn’t, and I ate every crumb she fed me from her home in New York: the lists, the charts, all compiled by Lynn and the rest of the Resistance over the last five years—and the promise that she’d tell me more once I got there. A bus ticket that came with an interview at a subpar café in Manhattan where I would be… sweeping floors.
I eased up on the handle of my broom. It had grown nearly as hot as my palms from my tight, anxious grip. If you ever cross paths with an OBG out in the wild, blend in, Lynn had told me. You’ll do a lot better knowing where she’s at if she doesn’t know where you’re at.
Had she seen me? Did she know I worked here?
I quickly went back to sweeping a far corner of the room, listening as she tried to convince Christopher that Maroon 5 had indeed gotten better with time. Figures. Back in Boston, she’d been willing to die on a hill for John Mayer.
The memory of this sent me over the edge. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and snapped a photo as nonchalantly as I could. When it came out blurry, I snapped another one—then another, just in case. Taunting the bull, you could say, but I didn’t care.
The third photo seemed to do it. Thanks to the angle at which she had suddenly flirtatiously tilted her head—she’d always been good at angles, I’ll give her that—the late-afternoon sunlight creeping in from the dirty front windows of Rise & Grind clarified her deep brown skin and high cheekbones so well that Lynn could definitely compare the photo with the one in her own files.
Quickly, I stashed away the phone and went back to my sweeping. But it was no use. My broad, scattered strokes across the red tiled floor were doing more harm than good as I waited, anxious for the reply.
It came minutes later, after I’d moved into the bathroom to check soap levels.
Yep. It’s her. It’s Eva.
8
August 30, 2018
Nella couldn’t get Hazel’s cold, icy look out of her brain.
It wasn’t normal for her to feel so possessive when it came to her boss. She’d never needed to be. None of the other assistants had any reason to curry favor with Vera. “You two seem well-suited for one another,” Sophie had told her once, after showing up unannounced and reading one of their email exchanges over Nella’s shoulder. “You’re both perfectionists.”
How someone who knew Nella so little could read her so well was beyond her. But Sophie’d had a point: For most of their time together, she and Vera had worked more like a team than any of the other editor-assistant pairings at Wagner.
Then the Colin thing happened.
Nella flinched. Was that what that list of assistants on the printer was about? Was the list of new hires for Vera?
She sat with this new possibility, listening for any tidbits of conversation she could get through Vera’s closed door. She might have sat like this for the rest of the morning, but then she abruptly stood, refocused. It was obvious what Nella needed to do: talk to Richard. Sure, maybe she was sleep-deprived, and maybe she had no way of knowing if they really were potential hiring candidates—but sometime between seeing those names and being shut out of Vera’s office, a feeling of deep uneasiness had planted itself in her gut. A feeling that her boss was going to kick her out and welcome someone else in. A new and improved Black someone, so nobody could give them shit for getting rid of her.