“Sorry, yes! The shoes?” I said.
“Yeah, so eventually I was like, ‘Stop dropping hints, why do you wanna know my shoe size?’ He says he’s in Selfridges buying me shoes as a late Christmas present, so I rushed there in case he was gonna get me a pair that I don’t like, like the guy who bought me the nude Louboutins that were nude, but for a white girl.” Kyazike shook her head in disappointment. “Anyway, I get there, I’m trying on the shoes, I hand them to him, fine. Twotwo’s, we’re at the register and he’s trying to haggle with the store girl, then he tried to pay with four cards, none of which were in his name!” Kyazike turned to look at me. I looked back at her flatly. “Are you all right, fam? You usually love my stories,” she said, disappointment and worry etched across her face.
“I’m fine, just sleepy,” I said. “Sorry.”
“All right. Anyway, I’m locking it off, fam. He’s some wheeler-dealer! I’m not asking for much from my Mr. Right, you know, but believe, employment is essential. Plus, this guy’s phone only seems to be on when he wants to link me, and the dates are all spontaneous. Like he’ll call me and say, ‘Come out for dinner,’ like I’m constantly sitting at home ready with my eyebrows drawn on. Like makeup isn’t expensive.” She kissed her teeth. “Maybe I should try white guys like you. They’d treat me better.”
“You think?” I asked her, the last few months of gross mistreatment flashing before my eyes.
“Yeah. They wouldn’t like me, though.” Kyazike shrugged. “I’m too black for them. They don’t want a dark black girl.”
“Don’t be stupid. I’m proof that they don’t want us, whatever shade.” I sighed heavily. “Why can’t I just have a happy ending, Kyazike?”
“You joking, fam?” Kyazike laughed. “You think life is a film? Even if it was, fam, we’re black. ‘Whatever shade,’?” she said, mimicking my voice, “we’d be first to die.”
* * *
I finished Kyazike’s hair and she went to start cooking, brave enough to endure the cold kitchen flooring. I wrapped the blanket around me and felt myself drifting off, but didn’t try very hard to fight it.
I slept, but I could hear everything that was happening at Kyazike’s: I heard when she finished cooking, waking up just enough to say no when she offered me dinner; I heard when she ate and watched EastEnders; I heard the squeeze of dish soap and the clatter of dishes and splashing of water when she did the washing up. I heard her go on the balcony when the shoe guy called; I heard her tell him that she wasn’t leaving the flat because “your whole essence is too short-notice, and I can’t be going out with no fraud boy!”
I heard Kyazike’s mum come home; I heard the argument they had about having the fan heater on; I heard her mum get in the bath to get ready for her second shift of the day.
At midnight, Kyazike shook me gently and handed me a headscarf and nightie. I put them on and lay on the sofa. It was warmer now. “Here’s a quilt,” she said. “See you in the morning.”
* * *
When I woke up, Kyazike had already gone to work. When I got to the office, I had several e-mails from Gina asking me to see her in her office immediately. I knocked on the open door.
“Come in,” she barked. “Oh, Queenie, are you seriously wearing the same thing you wore yesterday? Close the door behind you.”
“Yes, sorry,” I said. “It’s only because I stayed at a friend’s house.” I shut the door and walked over to the chair that faced Gina.
“Now. I’ve got some bad news for you,” she told me.
“What?” I asked, my heart beginning to pound in my ears.
“You’re being suspended.”
“What?” I blinked. “What?”
“This extreme crush that you’ve had on Ted Noman, well . . . it’s not appropriate. He’s filed an official complaint with HR, and everyone thinks it’s best that you’re not in the office while it’s investigated.” Gina lowered her voice, embarrassed for me.
“An extreme crush?” I asked, bewildered. “On Ted?”
“He’s spoken about it to HR confidentially, and says that you’ve been paying him a lot of attention, saying suggestive and inappropriate things, following him around, and that it’s making him entirely uncomfortable and stressed in his place of work,” Gina explained.
What was going on? “Suspended for that? But he, no, he’s the one who—I have the e-mails, and the messages, he’s the one—” I stuttered, desperate for her to understand that I wasn’t the one at fault.
“We have to take that sort of complaint seriously.” She paused briefly. “Plus, you already had an official warning on your file.”
“But it’s not true, Gina! Can’t you tell them that it’s not true?” I begged her. “And that I just come in and do my job?”
“Queenie, how can I prove to them that there’s a role here that you’re actually fulfilling? You don’t come in on time. When you do get here, you spend every second distracting Darcy, who has managed to do her job alongside the chatting, by the way. You aren’t focused, you aren’t committed, and when I asked you to contribute to the paper, which you wanted all along, you didn’t do it, and when I gave you that tiny responsibility, to look after an intern, you can’t even do that. Word gets around, Queenie, and Chuck’s father is the head of the U.S. paper, come on!”
“I’m sorry, Gina, it’s just that there’s been a lot going on. I am sorry, I just let it get away from me and I’ve been distracted, but I will do better, I promise.” I pleaded with her as panic started to rear its ugly head.
“Queenie, we all have things going on,” Gina started. “Between me and you, my ex-husband refuses to look after our children, my lover has been telling me he’s going to leave his wife for the last six years, my mother has been moved into a hospice, and my father doesn’t remember who I am, but still I have to keep going. What is it I told you all those months ago? You’ve got to keep one foot on the ground! You focus! But you haven’t, even though I’ve been giving you chance after chance.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I can’t believe I’ve let this happen.”
“So here’s what you’re going to do.” Gina crossed her arms. “You’re going to leave the office at the end of the week. I’ve managed to swing it that you’re going to be on paid leave for two weeks, as you haven’t taken any of your holiday, which brings you just past the end of the month. Then after that, no pay, and we wait to see what happens. I’ll keep you posted on the investigation.” Gina paused. She surely knew that this was my only source of income. “Chuck will be filling in for you, Queenie. He’s done some brilliant work. He did a redesign of the culture pages, and everyone is very impressed.”
“But I told him to do that,” I said bitterly. “Is this because my dad isn’t the head of a paper? This isn’t fair!”
“Queenie, not much is!” Gina said heavily. “Yes, people like Chuck have it easier than you, but instead of complaining about it, you’ve got to do better!”
“I understand, Gina,” I cut in. “Twice as hard to get half as much, right? I grew up hearing this, but never thought I’d hear it from you.”
“This isn’t because you’re black, or because your family is poor!” Gina pointed a finger at me. “He’s got it easier than most of us here, for God’s sake. Frankly, if you’d kept your eyes on the ball, then you wouldn’t be in this position. I am so sorry, kid.”
I started to shake violently. Gina uncrossed her legs and jumped up from her seat. She put a hand on my shoulder and asked if I was okay. I couldn’t respond. She left the office and came back seconds later with Darcy.
“Queenie? Queenie, are you okay?” I could see and hear my friend, but I still couldn’t open my mouth to speak.
“Darcy, who is her next of kin?” Gina panicked, picking up her phone. “Boyfriend? Shit, she doesn’t live with her boyfriend anymore, does she?”
“No, it’ll be a family member.”