The Other Black Girl

by Zakiya Dalila Harris

  “And she just drags the paintbrush all over the carpet,” Vera said, dabbing at a tear in her heavily mascaraed eye. “It’s just the cutest thing!”

  “What a precious pooch!” Colin put his hands together once, then kept them there. For today’s meeting, he had worn his multi-fabric page boy cap, the one made up of spirals of denim, leather, satin, khaki, and lace fabric. It was the cap he always wore when he wanted to get the writing gears “a-turning,” which was a piece of information he’d shared with Nella the first day they’d met; he’d also shared it with his couple of million online followers. Once, for kicks, she had looked it up to buy for Owen as a gag gift. She quickly changed her mind when she discovered it would cost her seven hundred dollars. No laugh was worth that much—not on an editorial assistant’s salary.

  Nella hadn’t seen Colin wear the cap since she’d made this discovery; now, she peered at the designer accessory suspiciously, as though it might get up off his bald head and slap her in the face. But even if it had, it wouldn’t have made a difference, because neither he nor Vera seemed to see her sit down in the only empty chair left in the room, hands folded in her lap.

  After a few moments Nella coughed and said, brightly, “Fun! What’s our boy Brenner up to now?”

  “Oh, Nella! Thank you for this.” Colin picked up his coffee and took an indulgent sip. He munched on one or two of the bite-sized ice cubes before winking at her. “Perfect, as usual.”

  “I was just showing him Brenner’s latest video. They’re finally painting the addition to our kitchen in Nantucket—finally!—and Brenner of course saw this as an opportunity to be viral.” Nella tried not to flinch at how clunky those last two words sounded as Vera exited out of Instagram and placed her phone aside. “Now. Time to talk about Needles and Pins.”

  “Yes! At last!” Colin stood up and whipped out a small, green spiral notepad. “I really can’t wait to hear what you two think. I’ve kept my wife up the past few nights talking out all the things that might be wrong with it.”

  “Aw, Colin… well, we love it!” Vera gushed, bringing a fist down onto the pages. “It’s topical, it’s direct. It’s the perfect thing to get people talking about the nasty opioid epidemic that’s sweeping across our country.”

  Nella bobbed her head up and down in agreement, mouth sealed shut. One of the things that Nella loved about working for Vera was that even though she didn’t necessarily take all of her opinions, she did give Nella as many opportunities as she could by bringing her to every meeting and telling her when an agent was and was not being an asshole. She treated Nella like she was competent, which was more than what many other assistants could say of their bosses.

  But what Nella appreciated most of all—what she most respected and internalized—was her boss’s knack for speaking to authors about their writing. Vera had a way with phrasing; she could still make you think the second half of your book deserved a Pulitzer even after she told you that the first half needed to be completely rewritten.

  “And the cast of characters is just so great,” Vera continued. “You really implemented my suggestions on your first draft about bringing out the diversity of this community, and I think that will have your book speaking to a lot of people.”

  Nella stiffened, but kept her pen to paper.

  “Perfect! That’s exactly what I was going for.” Colin jotted down a few notes that Nella couldn’t make out. But given Colin’s eager-to-please complex, she was willing to guess it said something along the lines of They like it! Thank fucking god.

  Vera and Colin traded compliments for another couple of minutes. When that portion of the meeting was finished, and the actual criticism part of the meeting was supposed to begin, Colin unexpectedly turned to Nella, readjusted his cap, and said, “Now, I’d really love to hear what you think. Vera mentioned there were one or two things you felt need fixing.”

  Nella froze. Critiquing the book after her boss had lavished him with praise wasn’t a part of the script. She looked over at Vera, but her boss was stone-faced, not an eye spasm in sight.

  She faced Colin once again. “Well, I think it’s a great read. Like Vera said, it’s so important.”

  “Thanks!”

  “And there’s just such a wonderful driving force pushing this story,” Nella continued. “The consciousness of the voice of this town is just so… so powerful. And it gets louder and louder until… suddenly the town is just screaming, you know? And by the end of the book you’re just, like, Wow, how is the rest of the world not seeing this? How is this town hanging by a thread and yet meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, people are sitting all comfy-cozy in their own homes, worrying about coffee and parking spaces and playground bullies? Like we are right now. I mean, not the bullies. Although, maybe we are worried about the office bullies around here.”

  Vera chuckled.

  Nella put a fist to her chest. “And that chapter that takes place at the dinner table? Just… wow.”

  “Thanks,” Colin said, smiling. “That bit was so fun to write. The kid who grew up next door to me in Connecticut had a family like that. His older brother, mother, and father were drunk out of their skulls all the time. It’s not opioids, but still. And I swear to god, they’d just throw food at each other whenever they got tired of hearing someone else speak. Hot food. Too much politics? Womp, spaghetti and meatballs. Sick of talking about money? Boom, sausage in your eye.”

  “That’s wild!” Vera’s eyes danced as she put her hands up in her hair to scrunch her bob. “Why’d you keep going over there?”

  “Because they had MTV!”

  The room dissolved into a fit of cheerful laughter, even though the cause of it had been a highly dysfunctional family whose fate did not seem particularly promising. “We’ll have to tell the publicity team that story,” Vera said, looking over at Nella pointedly. Nella nodded once, then jotted down flying spaghetti. “Maybe that can be part of an interview or something. Like, the backstory of where this all came from.”

  “Certainly. I could certainly work on that.” Colin gazed out the window for a moment, already imagining himself beneath a sea of lights at McNally Jackson, retelling this story. “But, c’mon, seriously—I can take some criticism, Nella. I’ve been around the block enough to know that even the best writers can keep refining, keep pushing.”

  “Always! Here, Nella—I’m handing the metaphorical microphone over to you now,” Vera said, pretending to zip her lips shut.

  Nella would rather knock herself unconscious with an actual microphone than proceed.

  “Wow, thank you, Vera! But I’d be happy to let you take the lead—and then I’ll chime in?” She had hoped that tangent about Colin’s inspiration had let her off the hook, just as she’d been let off the hook last week, when Maisy had brought Hazel into Vera’s office and foiled The Shartricia Conversation. She kicked herself for not bringing up her concerns with Vera before this moment. There’d been times when she’d seen an opening, but a stray phone call or something else “urgent” had swatted the ball out of her hand before she could properly position herself to just do it. She had even tried a Hail Mary just the evening before, when Vera was packing up her things, but then her own phone had started to ring.

  It was as though the gods were trying to tell Nella something. And now, days later—when she found herself being stared down by two very influential white people—she convinced herself this something was, It’s time, Queen Tell it now.

  Colin gnawed on his ice expectantly, the crunching noise still audible through his closed lips. Above his head, she saw a headline for an imaginary Buzzfeed article: “COLIN FRANKLIN’S WELFARE QUEEN: WHERE WAS THE SENSITIVITY READ?”

  “Alright,” Nella said, her voice deepening, “there was this… one thing… that I do think could use some work.”

  “Hit me with it!” he said spiritedly, although his hunched back and his fingers, white from being clamped too tightly at the knuckles, implied that he was thoroughly prepared to be hit by a
sharp, blunt object rather than her honest thoughts.

  “Shartricia Daniels.”

  Colin nodded, picked up his pen again. “Okay! Great! Let’s talk about her.”

  “Great idea,” Vera chimed in, although she didn’t quite look ready to hear what Nella had to say. “You were mentioning to me the other day that something about her didn’t quite work for you?”

  “Yes,” Nella said. It took everything she could find deep within not to lose steam, even though she knew that at this point, it was all or nothing. “I’m not sure we really finished that conversation. But yeah.”

  Don’t look in your lap, said her inner Angela Davis, and then another Davis spoke up. Viola. You is kind. You is smart. You is important.

  Nella met Colin’s eye. “So… I do think it’s super important that she’s in this. Because it’s good to show how people of color have been ravaged by the epidemic.”

  “That’s what my thinking was when I suggested he add some more diversity in his second draft,” Vera jumped in. “Especially because the media overlooks their plight so often. And the media ignored their plight in the past, especially with crack in the 1990s, even though all kinds of diverse people are affected by drugs.” She looked pointedly at Nella. “Right? That’s what you mean?”

  “Yes. Exactly that. So… it is great that there is representation here of a Black person going through this.”

  “It’s so great, Colin,” Vera added.

  Nella regarded her boss more sharply. Vera’s face looked like it had been pinched at its edges—particularly at her temples, where her skin was slightly purple.

  Colin’s eyes went over to Vera, too, although they cut back to Nella in a flash. “I agree. I really wanted a Shartricia kind of character to be in this. Once we got to talking about diversifying this book and its cast of characters, it seemed vital that I go beyond my comfort zone a bit.”

  “To show all diverse sides of the experience,” Vera clarified.

  “Right!” Nella said, trying to ignore how many times the d-word had been dropped in the last few moments. “But, Shartricia… I have to say… she feels a bit off to me. She didn’t quite strike me as particularly… authentic.”

  “Oh. Oh. Could you give Colin some specifics?” Vera commanded.

  “Yes,” Colin said, as though she’d just told him she’d accidentally thrown his page boy cap onto the train tracks. “Please, do say more.”

  “Well… to be honest, it seemed like she was based off an idea of what a Black person suffering due to an opioid epidemic in Ohio would be like. She felt like a collection of tropes… all of the unflattering ones… and by the time we get to the end of the novel, she never becomes a redeemable character at all. She’s still stuck.”

  Vera put down her pen and crossed her arms as if to say You’re on your own on this one.

  Colin’s pen was down, too, and he was frowning and no longer chewing his ice. He took his cap off, then put it in his lap and crossed his legs. It was an act that sent his pen falling to the rug, precisely halfway between his chair and Nella’s chair. He didn’t move to grab it.

  Nella reached up and gave a nervous tug on one of her curls as she reached for buzzwords that were less critical and more meaningful. “I didn’t quite connect with her. She felt a bit flat, I think. One-dimensional. Like one generalized experience—a particular swath of experience—that didn’t feel entirely genuine to me. She read more like a caricature than an actual living and breathing character, and I think a lot of Black readers will find her unsatisfying.

  “And, I mean, the chartreuse thing felt too much like a joke. It felt like her mother was being mocked for not knowing how to spell, and I know that’s not—”

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Colin interjected. He looked worriedly at Vera, gesturing for his manuscript. “Is that in there? Did I put that in there?”

  Vera shook her head, handing the pages to Nella instead. “I’m not sure what she’s talking about, either. Nella, could you please point out a specific scene where you think Colin is mocking Shartricia?”

  A few seconds ago, saying the word “unsatisfying” to Colin had felt really, really satisfying. Now, Nella wasn’t so sure. “Um… I can’t remember exactly what page the name thing appears on. I’m not even sure there’s something specifically said to point out. It’s just a feeling.”

  “A feeling.”

  “Yes. And ‘LaDarnell’? ‘DeMontraine’? That just read like caricature to me, too. And did she really need to have seven children?” Nella added, realizing how unhinged she was starting to sound. But she couldn’t stop. Rip off the Band-Aid! Angela commanded angrily. She was on a roll and didn’t feel like getting off it until she’d said everything she needed to say.

  “I mean, isn’t that exactly what we’d expect from a Black woman who’s addicted to heroin? You couldn’t be a little more creative with your one Black protagonist?”

  Colin was still paging through his book, a half-crazed, feverish blaze in his eye.

  “Um, Nella,” Vera said, cocking her head diplomatically, “just to play devil’s advocate—couldn’t one say that’s just a tad bit racist of you to say?”

  “I do kind of feel like she’s calling me a racist,” Colin agreed. “Or perhaps she just feels like I’m racist.” He wiggled his fingers around in the air, insinuating that the feeling of racist tendencies was akin to voodoo. His eyes never left Vera the entire time, as though it were just the two of them in the room now.

  And that was exactly how Nella felt—like she’d slipped and somehow gotten lost beneath the hideous wall-to-wall carpeting. This wasn’t what she’d wanted. She hadn’t expected Colin to massage her calloused feet and apologize for all the sins of his ancestors, but she had thought he’d be somewhat grateful to have her take on his Black character. How many other writers published by Wagner had the benefit of a sensitivity read they didn’t have to seek out on their own?

  “Colin, I’m sorry,” said Nella. “That’s not what I meant to—”

  “I chose one particular depiction of a Black woman having a hard time. That was her hard time. Not an actual person’s hard time,” Colin said, each new word louder than the one before until Nella was sure, without a doubt, that people outside Vera’s office could hear the chaos. She wondered if Hazel was listening to everything from her desk, unsure whether it would be better or worse if she was. “I’m the writer. Jesus. I’m not a racist. Do I need to make her hair curlier, too? Or make her skin a little bit darker? Should I make her speak like… like Sidney Poitier, instead of a Black girl who grew up in rural Ohio without a father? Whose book is this, anyway?”

  Vera finally found her voice. “Now, Colin, I wouldn’t—”

  “No, Vera. No. Just a moment.” He pressed his multi-fabric cap with his fingers and closed his eyes, taking three or four deep yoga breaths. After the fourth, he stood up and plopped his pages on Vera’s desk.

  Then, to Nella and Vera’s horror, he walked out.

  Nella swallowed, unable to tear her gaze away from the wide-open door. A reprimand was coming; she was sure of it.

  She waited. And waited. When nothing came, she retrieved the ballpoint pen Colin had dropped on the floor earlier and placed it on Vera’s desk.

  Vera remained silent. She was still staring down at Colin’s pages.

  And suddenly, it’s the end of the fucking world for these people.

  “Vera,” Nella started after a few more seconds of gut-checking silence. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Not now, Nella,” Vera hissed. She wouldn’t look up at her. “Please. Not now.”

  Part II

  Kendra Rae

  September 1983

  Antonio’s

  Financial District, Manhattan

  “ ‘Indian descent’ or not,” I said with a yawn, “My point is, if you saw Ben Kingsley walking down the street, you wouldn’t think, ‘There goes an Indian man.’ You would think, ‘There goes a white man.�
�� ”

  “But, what was Kingsley supposed to say? ‘No thanks, Sir Richard Attenborough, but I don’t have brown enough skin to play one of the greatest leaders of the free world?’ Kingsley was nothing before, I promise you, and taking that role was the smartest choice he could’ve ever made.”

  Rather than eye the glob of melted cheese that had been stuck in Ward’s bushy mustache for the majority of our debate, I glanced down at my depleted drink, disappointed that I hadn’t ordered a double but happy about my extra olive. I plucked the wet fruit up with my fingers and shoved it into my mouth, pretending to work through a thought as I chewed.

  Only when Ward seemed convinced he had won did I say, food still in my mouth, “Sure. But what if Billy Dee Williams—”

  “Who?” Ward interrupted.

  “Star Wars. Lando.”

  The confusion left his face. I’d been right in thinking he’d seen it—maybe more than once. “Ah. Go on.”

  “Let’s say Billy Dee Williams is going to be Mozart in that new film that’s coming out next year. Would you be okay with that? Would that sit well with you?”

  The speed with which Ward’s face twisted back upon itself was so satisfying that I paused before grabbing the last glorious olive to take it in. I’d seen that face at Harvard many times before, from professors to thesis group colleagues to my thesis adviser himself. But that didn’t lessen the effect of such incredulity upon my ego.

  It fueled me.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “Now, that’s different. Billy Dee Williams isn’t… well, it’s just not… that would be utterly—”

  “Ridiculous,” I finished for him. “Yes. Yes, I thought so, too.”

  Ward loosened his tie, an angry red blush blooming from his collar as he tried to decide whether I was being sarcastic or not. “Now. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go check on my wife.”