The Other Black Girl(57)

Vera said that she understood, although something in her last word turned down a bit.

Nella looked away. She realized she was crossing her arms, so she uncrossed them. “I can give him a call, I guess.”

“Actually, it may be better to do it via email? He’s in California now, doing film stuff for his last book. But hey, send me an email of it first, just so I can look it over?”

An apology over email was exactly what Nella didn’t want to do. She preferred to do it verbally, partly because she wasn’t sure how to word it, and she imagined hearing Colin’s tone on the phone might help. But she also felt that it was something her mother would have found a way to resist. Never let your boss have anything in writing, she always said.

An image of Colin printing out her email and putting it up on his refrigerator for all his guests to see, all while wearing the multi-fabric cap, flashed through Nella’s mind. But she could wear poker faces, too. “Got it. Will do,” she said brightly.

She held this brightness in her face all the way to the bathroom. It was only when she’d latched the stall door that she let herself break.



* * *



Nella had to work hard to convince herself she was alone in the office later that evening. It was almost nine p.m., and she hadn’t seen a coworker pass by her desk since seven…

But what was that whistling sound she’d heard at the end of the hall?

She paused her music and peered around. There was no whistling. No sounds. They were all in her dizzy, dizzy head. But those notes that had appeared in her bag and on her desk hadn’t been all in her head. They were as real as the two hundred pages of Steeled Heart that she still had left to read. And if the person who’d sent these very real notes was indeed a coworker, they knew by now they’d have to be extra sneaky if they wanted to slip her note number three.

Still, a week had passed since she’d gotten anything else.

Nella collapsed into her seat and went back to finding a GIF to send to Owen. She wanted one that said I’m still in the office but I’m sorry and I love you and please say hi to your parents for me, but the best she could do was a clip from a messy dating show she’d roped him into watching a few times. She pressed Send and hoped it’d get a laugh. Then she went back to the book Vera had asked her to read, scowling at how many pages she still had left: hundred ninety-nine.

The read was slow going. The author had tried and failed to blend nineteenth-century ideals with modern-day tech speak. But Nella preferred pushing through the clunky robot dialogue over writing the Colin apology. Both tasks needed to be finished before she left the office, but the latter was so utterly demoralizing that she couldn’t bear to start it. And whenever she did finally finish everything, she’d have to ride the train home knowing that she’d missed hanging out with Owen and his parents, and what would she have to show for it? Comments on a shitty book, and an apology to a shitty writer?

The more Nella thought about it, the angrier it made her. It made her so angry that after a few frustrating minutes of not absorbing anything she was reading, she went to YouTube and searched “Jesse Watson + apologize for what.” Since the office was empty—even Donald had gone home already—she didn’t bother putting her headphones in. She sat back in her chair, put her feet up on her cluttered desk, and turned the volume all the way up.

“Tell me, please, what on god’s green earth do you want from us? ‘I’m sorry my skin’s so black, my hair’s so thick’? ‘I’m sorry you’ve been killing my people for generations—gen-er-a-tions, people—and the Black people you haven’t killed, you’ve left financially debilitated, without any wealth to pass along to their children’? ‘I’m sorry you brought my ancestors over on those ships and forced me to live with your people’?”

Nella watched it twice, relishing in the way Jesse’s indignance radiated off her cubicle walls. Then she created a new file and started to type.

Dear Jesse Watson,

I’m sure you get many notes like these, every single day, and I’m sure that right now you’d rather do anything than read an unsolicited email from someone who wants something from you. But before you delete this, I want to assure you: I don’t want anything from you. I want something for you. For all of the young Black readers out there who don’t feel like the book industry sees them.

I think there’s a book inside you that could

A light brush skittered across her leg. She yelped and thrashed, noticing a moment too late that it was just Pam, the sweet Chilean woman who cleaned the building afterhours, trying to empty her trash.

“Oh, Pam,” Nella cried, clutching the woman’s arm. “I am so, so, so sorry!”

Pam politely removed her hand. “It’s okay, honey,” she said, reaching again for Nella’s trash can. “This place gives me the creeps, too.”





11


September 26, 2018

The main Wagner conference room was abuzz with watercooler chitchat as dozens of employees stocked up at the breakfast bar, then filed into their rightful seats—editors and other upper-level employees at the big stone table; everyone else in the four rows of chairs that faced the big stone table.

Nella and the other Wagner assistants were posted up in “Assistants Alley,” close enough to take notes on the first marketing meeting of the season, but far enough to zone out undetected. They weren’t quite in the nosebleeds. That was the last row, which was taken—almost out of protest—by the e-books team, an underappreciated department that was never taken as seriously as it should have been, and Leonard, the grumpy cover designer. Nevertheless, Hazel had expressed disapproval of the Assistants Alley seats Sophie had saved for her and Nella when they’d arrived a few minutes earlier. There are seats open up front, she seemed ready to say. But then Sophie had suddenly and very loudly praised Hazel’s updo, leaving Hazel no choice but to accept her third-row seat with a smile.