The Other Black Girl(82)

Nella grunted. Then she dropped the spoon in the sink and made a break for it down the hallway.

“Nella, hey—I’m so sorry, again, for the mix-up,” Sophie called out from behind her.

Nella didn’t turn around and she didn’t miss a beat. “All good, Gina,” she replied curtly, and after delivering this final blow, she moved faster, indifferent to the drops of hot tea that splashed on her hand with each step.



* * *



When she walked into the cover meeting a few minutes later, she wasn’t at all surprised to find Hazel sitting in what was supposed to be her seat, swiping through Vera’s phone.

“That paintbrush! Vera, he’s so cute. And how old did you say little Brenner is turning tomorrow?”

“Five.” Vera leaned over so that she could see which photo Hazel was looking at, as though she hadn’t been the one who’d taken it in the first place, and grinned.

“He’s such a precious size! And how long have you had him for?”

Vera beamed. “Three years. And every new day is a new adventure with him, even still.”

Nella assessed the lousy seating situation. She hadn’t arrived early enough. Amy, Josh, and Richard had already taken their usual places at or near the head of the table; to the left of Amy sat Vera; on the other side of Vera, Hazel. The only empty seat close enough to the action was on the other side of the table—across from Hazel, and beside Grumpy Leonard.

Nella reached for the chair while Leonard remained hunched over his notepad, one hand covering half of his face, the other squeezing a golf pencil. He didn’t seem like he wanted to be bothered; he might have even been asleep. Even still, Nella softballed a How’s it going, Len as she slid into the chair beside him. She was desperate for some kind of normal human contact, and damn it, she was going to get it.

Leonard glared up at her. She swallowed, taking in his bloodshot eyes, the furious black scribble on the paper in front of him. “How do you think it’s going?” he snapped. “This place has been running me into the ground as usual. That’s how it’s going.”

Nella nodded in commiseration.

Vera looked up. “Oh, Nella! Hi!”

“Hey, Vera,” Nella said as cheerfully as she could, studying her boss. Today’s outfit was a long, baggy burlap sleeveless dress layered over an eggshell-white sweater. Her dress was super cute—very cozy-looking, very 1993, very something Nella would buy if she thought she could afford it, though she was almost certain she couldn’t. But Nella was quite positive that, just like the freshly cut blunt bangs that stopped halfway down her forehead, it was yet another Hazel influence. The last time Vera had worn something that didn’t perfectly fit her tiny waist, she’d had pneumonia.

Vera herself had seemed aware of this fact, too; she kept running her hands up and down the burlap straps as though checking to make sure the fabric was still there. “I’m so glad you could make it. You weren’t at your desk a couple of minutes ago, so I decided to be a little selfish and ask Hazel if I could steal some of her time for this meeting.”

Nella had heard this particular song before. She and Vera had been passing ships in the night for weeks, communicating mostly via email and telephone, always just barely missing each other in person. Whenever Nella did happen upon Vera sans closed door, she was either asking Nella to do something, talking to Hazel, or talking about Hazel to another colleague. Compliments on her new wardrobe, which had gradually shifted from black and navy to include a few earthy tones and even some patterns that bordered on “whimsical,” were due to Hazel. Those deep burgundy highlights in her hair, visible only in very particular types of lighting, but still visible? Hazel’s doing, too.

Never before had Nella seen her boss open up to any lower-level employee at Wagner.

“Selfish?” Hazel asked Vera, her eyes still trained on a photo of Brenner. “Not selfish at all. I’m absolutely thrilled to be sitting in on this.”

“Me too,” Nella said, through gritted teeth.

Vera smacked the table with her palm. “That’s the spirit! I remember when I was first starting out here, I always sat in on every cover meeting I could.”

“That’s true. Every single one,” Amy chimed in from the head of the table. “She started a couple of years after me, and I remember how she always used to steal my chair. Frankly, I wanted to kill her.”

Richard snickered, tossing back his head. “That’s true, too,” he said, less to Hazel and Nella and more to Amy and Vera. “I still remember when Amy marched right into my office and asked, ‘Where did you find that Velma chick? Wherever you found her, you can send her right back.’?”

“Agh, yes,” Amy said, coloring a little bit. “Not my finest moment. But now look at us! We’re the best of friends.”

“The best of friends,” Vera agreed coolly.

“Mmm.” Hazel set Vera’s phone down on the table. “Seems like a little bit of competition can be a good thing, huh?”

“You’re right,” said Amy.

Josh finally stopped checking his teeth for stray flecks of granola in his front-facing phone camera. “Probably wouldn’t be here without it.”

Nella glanced up at the clock as Amy clapped her hands, then slid off her tinted glasses. “Okay everybody, ready to get started? This is going to be a quickie—Len, you got Alexander’s note about having to reschedule his cover meeting today, right?”