The Other Black Girl(73)

She gestured toward the folding chairs that had been set up for the reading. Andre had started to put away a few of them, but had been thrown off his task by the only Young, Black ’n’ Lit Girl who’d stuck around after the main event. The two of them shared sips of something pink that was almost certainly not lemonade in the corner, moving closer to one another by the minute. Against Nella’s better judgment, she sat down in the chair across from Hazel.

The only other person still in earshot was the woman who’d said something about Jesus during Hazel’s speech. She glanced over her shoulder for just a second to see who had joined her in the seating area, then went back to looking at her phone. On the right side of her closely shaved head, Nella was able to make out a medium-sized pink scar. It was the shape of a small crescent, as though someone had taken their gel-manicured fingernail and dug it deep into the back of her head. The thought alone made Nella’s own scalp hurt.

Hazel looked over at the girl, too. She frowned for a second, perhaps taking in the pink scar, too, before taking a seat. “Nella, I’m gonna be real with you, okay?” she said, her voice softening. “Black girl to Black girl. That Shartricia book isn’t great. Real talk, it’s pretty badly written. Contrived. Caricature. You know that. I know that. And I’m pretty sure anybody outside this place who has any sense will pick up on that, too. That shit’s offensive. It’s embarrassing.”

Nella swallowed. After the marketing meeting, a handful of colleagues had poked their heads into Vera’s office so they could talk to her about how much they loved Colin’s books. These same colleagues had then poked their heads into Hazel’s cubicle, asking her personal questions about herself and her parents’ lives growing up in the ’80s in Harlem—questions that seemed invasive to Nella, but ones that Hazel had seemed more than happy to answer.

Nella had eavesdropped awkwardly from a few feet away. She’d tried to remember the last time anyone had asked her about her own personal life and decided it had probably been when she herself was the new girl—but even then, those questions hadn’t really gone beyond Where are you coming from?

“So, wait,” she said, confused. “What you said in the marketing meeting was—”

“An act?” Hazel said. “No, not quite.”

“Then why do it?”

“Fine.” Hazel looked around. Satisfied with how far out of earshot they were from anyone, she lowered her voice. “I’ll tell you everything. But you can’t tell anyone about this.”

“Fine.”

“Not even your friend. Or Owen.”

Nella bit her lip. Hearing his name in Hazel’s mouth wasn’t any more normal now than it had been at the marketing meeting earlier.

“I mean it…” said Hazel.

“Fine. Just go ahead and say it.”

“Okay. This is going to sound crazy, so just hear me out, okay?” Hazel twisted one of her locs and looked up at the ceiling. After about five seconds of this, she said, apprehensively, “There’s this thing. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it.”

Hazel peeked over at the back of the girl sitting nearby. The scar was still facing them, her face now deep in her cell phone. “This thing—it’s a kind of social phenomenon. It’s called…” She inhaled deeply, then exhaled through pursed lips and leaned forward. “?‘Code-switching.’?”

The tips of Nella’s ears started to burn as Hazel dissolved into a bout of giggles. “Never mind,” she grumbled, starting to stand.

Hazel wiped at a tear. “Sorry, sorry. C’mon, you gotta admit that was funny. It was just too easy.” Seeming to notice Nella wasn’t smiling, she added, “So, what? You have regrets about saying how you felt about Colin Franklin’s book now? Is that what’s going on?”

“No,” Nella said. At least, she didn’t think she did. What was really bothering her, when she thought long and hard about it, was the feeling that Hazel not hating the Colin Franklin book—and actively looking at Nella while not hating it—had broken some sort of unspoken, inherent promise. Inherent should have been Hazel’s hate for the Colin Franklin book. And the unspoken promise was that Hazel would more or less publicly back Nella up on all racial matters that arose in the office—or at least, would confer with her about it first. Wasn’t that what Black people were generally supposed to do: stick together? Hadn’t Hazel implied such loyalties when she’d first asked Nella for the scoop on Maisy?

Nella didn’t know what to say. “I just wish I had known you were going to talk it up so much.”

“I didn’t realize it would mess things up that badly with Vera,” Hazel said with a sigh. “I’m sorry. And don’t worry. I’m going to definitely tell Vera which Shartricia places Colin can do a bit better on. I’m just going to be a little gentler with him, that’s all. That’s the only way he’ll listen.”

Nella stared at Hazel impassively.

“If you want, you can send me your notes and I’ll incorporate them into mine before I share them. What do you think? I won’t tell Vera they’re yours.”

Nella didn’t like the idea of not getting credit for all of the time she spent reading the manuscript, even if Hazel was trying to be a bit helpful. She was also still feeling uneasy about Hazel in general. Was it possible that Hazel was so good at code-switching that she could switch herself into someone who wrote hate mail to her fellow Black coworker? Nella wasn’t sure.