The Other Black Girl(55)
I grimaced as he took the paper back from me, placing it at the foot of the bed. “Not ideal, I know. But this ain’t good, Di. That’s all you need to know for now. Kenny done stepped in it. Now you just gotta make sure she didn’t track it all over your living room.”
I shook my head, woozy from the thought of having to play pretend for a few hours even though I knew Elroy had a point. I needed to pack this worry away and slip on my shoes.
Just then, the phone rang.
“Don’t answer it,” Elroy said.
We stared at each other during the second ring and the third. On the fourth, I lunged for it, pushing Elroy’s hand aside. “It could be Dick,” I insisted, ignoring the way my husband wilted at the sound of this name. I put the receiver up to my ear, and waited.
And waited.
“Di,” the voice on the other end finally whispered. “We need to do something. Now.”
10
September 14, 2018
“So, I printed out the five email replies from Sam Lewis about the five proposed cover options for Crystal Soul. This one on top is the last note I have from Sam, dated from Tuesday.” Nella sifted through the pages in her lap, tracing her finger across the body of the email. The ex–rock musician had sent her more than five emails, one of which contained nothing except an expletive for its subject line. But for the purposes of this conversation, these other replies didn’t exist. “He told me on the phone this morning that he didn’t like this layout as much as he liked the second one, but he did like it more than the fourth one.”
“?‘Five’? Wow. Okay. Enough.” Vera had asked Nella to print everything out in hi-res on glossy paper and bring it into her office, but that hadn’t stopped her from opening each of the attachments Nella had emailed her and scrolling through them slowly.
Nella stared at the five printed covers, silently bemoaning how much ink had been wasted not with just this task, but with every single task she’d ever been asked to complete at Wagner. Nine times out of ten, the pieces of paper would end up in the garbage. How much money had she had a hand in throwing away over the last two years? Enough to pay back her college loans? Enough to buy grown-lady shoes? “And I’m not sure if you remember, but the last time we spoke to Leonard I’m pretty sure he said, ‘I’m not doing any new cover designs for Crystal Soul.’ So. Do we think he’s being serious?”
“Yes. The man cornered me in the elevator last week and I’m still traumatized from it.”
The mental image was just too good: five-foot-three Leonard in his trademark red-and-blue checkered shirt with a golf pencil behind his ear; five-foot-eight Vera in all black, glowering down at him. Nella had to swallow a chuckle. “That sounds terrible. I’m sorry.”
“It was. You didn’t forward him Sam’s emails, did you? Please tell me you—”
“Definitely not. Nope. No. I reworded every single thing.”
“Great.” Vera sighed, massaging her temple. “You’re so good at that. Thanks. But anyway, bottom line is, we’re going to have to work to get Sam to pick from one of the ones he has already. That or outsource, which we can’t afford to do. Not enough money in the budget for that.”
“Right. That’s what I figured. Here’s what I think—and let me know if this sounds crazy, and I hope you don’t mind me making this suggestion—but I think we should really try to push the second cover Leonard drew up.”
Vera said nothing, but the look in her eye didn’t say stop talking, so Nella ahemed before continuing on.
“Because it fits more with the covers from Sam’s last two books, and Sam’s response to that one seemed a lot milder.” It’s got a real smell to it, he’d said over the phone, although what kind, he hadn’t specified. Nevertheless, Nella had taken this as something of a positive appraisal. “Does that sound good?”
“What?” Vera asked. Her computer had dinged and she’d turned to see what had caused it.
“Pushing for the second cover? The one with the stars. Maybe Leonard can change the font size or something so that it’s technically a ‘new’ version, and we can send that to Sam? Is that okay?”
“Yes! Wait. No.” Vera held out a hand, her eyes still fixed on her screen. “Can you just hand it to me, please?”
Nella leaned forward and handed her the top page. She swallowed and said, with as little meekness as possible, “If you want, I’d be happy to run over to Leonard’s desk and tell him that we should maybe take some of what was on the fifth cover and sort of meld it into the second one instead. Because Richard was a big fan of five, right?”
Vera stared at her screen for another thirty seconds, as though Nella hadn’t just offered to stick her neck into the cage of an underfed lion. Nella seized upon this distraction, surveying her boss’s office without her noticing. She peeked at Vera’s collection of pens and pencils for the millionth time that week—no colors but black. The clear plastic box of stationery sitting next to the zen garden was a new addition to Vera’s desk, but those were expensive and fancy, definitely not what Nella had received. Briefly, she imagined the perpetrator standing in the Papyrus store, shrouded in black, deliberating over which blank card would best convey their racist little message.