The Other Black Girl(68)
Nella understood this. Her college roommates had dragged her to so many white frat parties that, when she’d first met Owen online, it’d been impossible not to be skeptical of him herself. Being one of the only Black girls at these parties often meant being noticed immediately—and if she was alone, which was fairly often, it meant being eagerly approached. She knew what these bros saw as they walked over: a long-legged Black girl wearing a tight crop top and even tighter high-waisted jeans. A long-legged Black girl on her own, drinking. An easy target. Nella would endure the bros’ chitchat about what year she was, and how she’d gotten into the frat house (her roommate, Liv, usually; she practically lived in the student center). But to the bros’ surprise, and often disappointment, Nella would ask real questions back—not just where are you from but what are your favorite books and what’s your favorite way to get to the quad—and suddenly a bro who thought they’d eventually end up in a bathroom, the zipper of her high-waisted jeans between his teeth, was instead having a clean heart-to-heart about one of his favorite literary characters. He would find it baffling, but he’d play along, sometimes opening up more than he’d probably ever opened up at a frat party…
… Until he realized that Nella’s zipper had no intention of coming down. That was usually about the time the bro’s lights went out, his cup ran dry, and he ran off. A horse in search of easier pastures.
When Nella was a freshman and sophomore, this flip of the switch had disappointed her. In those days, she still held on to the idea that she might meet someone in college—maybe in the dining hall, when a guy asked her for the chair she wasn’t using, or on the grounds, when she was deep in thought, contemplating that A-minus. Maybe even at a frat party, eighteen-year-old Nella supposed, because this was what happened to girls in movies and television shows.
Then she graduated, moved to the city, and grew up. She downloaded a few dating apps on her phone and didn’t try so hard at bars. Many men still flipped that switch when they met her—not just white men—and eventually she found one who didn’t. From their first exchanges on OkCupid to beers at The Jeffrey, it was clear to Nella that Owen had nothing to shift to. Blessedly, he had just one gear—“thoroughly interested”—and once he’d stuck around long enough to prove that their relationship was anything but just an itch he was scratching, Nella’s feelings for him crystallized.
Malaika’s reins had loosened, too. She didn’t stop calling him Nella’s Latest White Boy, but she did treat him as a worthwhile suitor, even started to joke about his blind spots as a white cis man in front of him. In return, Owen seemed—somewhat paradoxically—at ease. If people were making fun of him, he preferred to be let in on it, which was why Nella felt comfortable repeating Malaika’s CP Time joke directly to him.
“Guess you’re rubbing off on me,” he quipped back, laughing. “Hey, how was work? And how did it go with the literary agent? Is she going to start sending you lots of cool ‘commercial-but-still-literary shit’? Her words for the genre, not mine,” Owen added in response to Malaika’s raised eyebrow.
Nella avoided eye contact with her friend, knowing the look on Malaika’s face was less about Owen’s genre mash-up and more about the truth. “Work was fine,” she lied. “And I’ll tell you all about it on our way home.”
“That’s great.” Owen unzipped his black bomber jacket and took a good look around the space, examining first the crowd of forty or so guests, then the row of four hair-washing sinks brimming with ice and cans of Red Stripe and PBR. “Innovative. Do you think I have time to grab a drink?”
Their three sets of eyes traveled together to the front of the room, where the line of chairs that had been reserved for Hazel and the readers sat unoccupied. Another appraisal of the white people sitting in the audience suggested that Richard hadn’t arrived yet, either.
“You’ve got plenty of time,” Nella sighed.
Owen didn’t look convinced. “That’s not Hazel?” he asked, bobbing his head in the direction of Juanita. She was leaning over a patron a few rows down, laughing and still poking back hair with various glittery fingernails. The pink liquid in her clear plastic cup sloshed around in her other free hand every few moments, threatening to spill over onto her outfit, but she did not seem bothered by this. Nor did she seem bothered by the fact that Hazel still hadn’t arrived yet.
“No. That’s the woman who owns Curl Central.”
“Ah.” Owen stood up. “Okay, then. I’m going to get something to drink. You ladies doing okay?”
“Another Red Stripe? Please?” Nella squeezed his thigh again, this time a bit pleadingly. If Owen felt her nails dig a bit too deeply into his leg, he didn’t notice, because he said, “Got it. Mal?”
“I’m good, but thanks.”
Owen climbed over Nella and then the four women again, who were far less forgiving than they were the first time around. Everyone was beginning to get antsy. The people sitting in front of them had long since run out of things to talk about with their neighbors, and they had gotten to the point at which they were tired of trying. It was a quarter after seven, and Juanita had yet to make an announcement acknowledging what everyone else seemed to know: that they were running behind.
“Does he know anything about all the stuff that’s been going on at work?” Malaika asked.