The Other Black Girl(72)

And then there were Hazel’s locs. About a year into dating, as Nella and Owen stood in line for hot dogs at Coney Island, he had asked her if she’d ever considered locking her hair. You’d look pretty sexy with them, he’d reasoned.

It hadn’t been out of the blue: Standing in front of them had been a slightly older woman in a tight body-con dress with long, thick locs that went all the way down to her butt.

Nella had been impressed by her hair, too. Before Owen had commented on it, she’d even considered asking the woman if she did them all herself. But this comment—somewhat mitigated by Owen’s loving hand on the small of her waist—had made her feel self-conscious about her own hair, her own sexiness. She’d been free from relaxers for only so long at that point, and her hair, all two inches of it, was still deciding on a curl pattern. The last thing Nella needed was the possibility of her boyfriend imagining her with long hair—whether it was Black natural hair he was imagining or not.

“?‘She seems pretty’ what?” asked Nella. “How would you know?”

“We chatted for a bit. When you were off… I don’t know what you were doing… she mentioned maybe joining forces between YBL and App-terschool Learning on a future project, and I thought—”

“?‘Joining forces,’?” Nella parroted again, incredulous.

“She just seems really chill. And she seems really optimistic about being at Wagner, too—”

“Unlike me, right? Because I complain about my job all the time. Right?”

She crossed her arms. She hated the way she sounded—short, curt, one of those obsessive girlfriends Owen’s friends always complained about—but she didn’t appreciate the way her boyfriend was talking about Hazel right now.

Owen tore his eyes away from her just a little too quickly. “I’m just saying she seems nice. That’s all. Never mind. Go.”

That broke the spell. “I’m sorry, O,” she said, stepping toward him so she could grab his hand. “I shouldn’t have… I…”

“It’s all good. Just go,” he repeated, but this time the command was much gentler. He looked down at his watch. “The countdown begins.”

Nella nodded. She’d have to be kinder to him later on. Then, she turned and made a beeline to where she’d seen Hazel and Juanita standing a moment before. Except now it was just Hazel, her arms resting loosely at her sides. She stared straight at Nella as she came closer, a statue of tranquility, as though she’d expected this very thing to happen at the exact moment it did.

“Nella! You made it.”

Hazel always seemed so calm and composed, but it still stunned Nella how excruciatingly even her voice was. She tried to think of the right thing to say, suddenly feeling stupid for not having planned it on her way over. Nothing came to her.

“I’m glad at least one of my colleagues could be here tonight,” Hazel continued. “Damn. Gina and Sophie had both sent me sorry can’t make it after all texts, like, the minute they left the office this afternoon. Pretty whack, right? I think they were too scared to come out to Bed-Stuy after dark.”

Nella had forgotten about them. They’d seemed so excited to come earlier. The three of them had even exchanged phone numbers, something she’d never considered doing with Gina or Sophie before.

“What did you think of the reading?” Hazel asked. For the first time, Nella noticed she had switched out her eyebrow stud piercing for a tiny hoop. “And the space? Pretty great, right?”

Nella took a half step forward and whispered, before she could lose her nerve, “What the fuck is your deal?”

“Sorry?”

“What the fuck is your deal? With Richard, and those notes, and with Colin’s book…” Nella was shaking now; she couldn’t help it. It upset her that her embarrassment had taken precedent over all of her other emotions, tenfold, and she wanted to start this interaction all over again. She was supposed to go through every one of her grievances calmly, one by one. She was not supposed to say “fuck.” It was just that she and Hazel weren’t in the kitchen or at their cubicles, and the expletive had flowed out of her mouth so easily, so fluidly.

“What? I’m sorry, girl, but you need to break it down for me a bit more.” The gleam in Hazel’s eye was too knowing, too deliciously pleased, to suggest that any explanation was necessary.

But Nella continued on. “And all that stuff about Richard. Is that true? Is he really going to try making Wagner more diverse?”

“Yes! We’ve already started talking about ways we can recruit for people of color.”

There. Her presumptions had been right. That list she’d found on the printer had been a list of Black young women Richard was thinking of hiring.

Hazel squinted at her. “What? I didn’t hear you.”

Nella hadn’t realized she’d spoken her thoughts aloud. “I said,” she repeated, “I don’t get it.”

“Don’t get what?” A trace of a grin hovered just beneath the surface of Hazel’s nonplussed demeanor. “Let’s slow down here. You must be referring to the marketing meeting thing today.”

“I looked like an idiot,” Nella said. “What made you change your tune so soon?”

Hazel laughed. “That wasn’t about you at all. I finally finished Needles and Pins this morning, and guess what? I didn’t hate it. Here, let’s sit and talk for a minute. Is that cool? You got a minute?”