The Other Black Girl(56)
It had been a while since Nella had really felt like laughing, but she had to hold in a gasp when Vera turned to register the image Nella had handed her and said, “No, sorry—not this. Can you hand me the printout of the very first cover, please? I can’t remember what it looks like.”
“Oh, sure. Here.” She handed Vera the first cover.
“No—thanks, but I want to see the very first cover Leonard proposed, side by side with these five.”
“Absolutely,” Nella said, although she didn’t know what “very first cover” Vera was referring to. She remembered Leonard making five covers, not six. She hastened to stand, picking apart her brain for a memory she knew didn’t exist. “Of course. I can try to print that for you right now. I have a quick meeting downstairs with production I have to run to, but I can—”
“That’s alright, just leave it for me this afternoon, please, when you get a minute.” Nella exhaled as Vera folded her hands matter-of-factly. “What the man really needs is an ultimatum. Leonard has been overworked as it is these days, and Sam should understand by now that we’ve got some pretty qualified folks here.”
Nella had nodded. She’d known all of this—or at least, a small part of her knew—but putting her foot down with Sam hadn’t ultimately felt like her decision to make. What if it had backfired in the same way the Colin Franklin meeting had? After all, the air was still thick with remnants of the Colin Incident, given Vera’s tone and fickle eye contact.
Nella watched Vera return to her screen and started to leave. But before she crossed the doorway, she pivoted and said, offhandedly, “There was one more thing I wanted to mention.”
“Yes?” said Vera into her computer.
I’ve been getting these notes from some stranger telling me to leave work. They’ve been freaking me out.
But she couldn’t do it. “I just finished reading The Lie.”
Vera’s chair sounded like it was going to fall apart from how quickly she spun around. The radiance coming off her smile was mesmerizing. “That’s great! And? What do you think? You loved it, right?”
“Well… I missed my subway stop for real while I was reading it, so if that’s any indicator…” Nella trailed off, her eyes wide from mock awe. The Lie was fine, nothing she deemed worth figuring out comps for, but Vera didn’t need to know she felt that way. “Want me to send you my report?”
Vera nodded. “Please! That’d be great. I’m really thinking of making an offer on it. I can’t believe I forgot to send it to you—Hazel shared it, I assume?”
There it was: an apology. Kind of. “She did. It’s nothing. Really.”
“Goodness, I’m so embarrassed.” Vera paused, clutching at her neck. “Hey… since you were able to get to that one so quickly, any chance you’d be able to read another one by tomorrow? I’ll send it to you right now, promise. Steeled Heart. It’s really, really good. It’s Pride and Prejudice meets I, Robot.”
Nella nodded and said that of course she could, even as she remembered that she and Owen had plans to meet his moms, who were visiting from Denver, at the High Line that very evening. She turned to leave, praying the book was short, when Vera called out, “Nella? One more quick thing.”
“Yes?”
“I know I haven’t really been present lately. And I know you must be thinking it’s in regards to the… Colin situation.” Her voice was low and measured.
Nella clicked her pen open and closed awkwardly, staring at Vera from the doorway.
“And maybe it is about that, a little. I’m not sure. Things have just gotten really crazy… I’m just feeling like I’m busier than I’ve ever been… anyway, this is my own inadequate way of saying that I apologize if I made you uncomfortable at all. In any way. I asked you for your opinion, and I’m glad you gave it.”
Nella smiled. “It’s all good. I’m sorry, too, that it all happened the way it did.”
“Great.” Vera let out a deep breath. “I’m so glad we could clear the air. I’ve been talking to Colin almost every day, getting a sense of how he’s feeling about things, and I will say that I think he feels pretty bad about the way everything happened, too.”
“He does?”
“He does. But I do think…” Vera squeezed one set of fingers with the other. “I do think that it’s not a bad idea to apologize to him again. Just a small apology. And then, tabula rasa.”
Nella stopped clicking her pen.
“What do you think about that idea?”
I think I already apologized to him before he left the office, four times. “I have to say… I may need to think on it,” Nella said, realizing how hollow her voice sounded. “Respectfully, that is. I’d kind of thought we’d moved past it by now.”
“Well, respectfully, Nella, I’d have to say that your apology was a little…” Vera wobbled her head from side to side. “?‘I’m sorry you thought I called you a racist’ is a little bit like saying ‘I’m sorry you thought I ran over your puppy with my SUV.’ It’s… a bit empty. You know what I mean?”
Do you know what you mean? “I’ll do some serious thinking about it,” Nella repeated.