* * *
—
The first thing I notice when Derek escorts me to my newly assigned area is that there is no system. Well, unless you call “just make more of a mess” a system.
Lounging on a blanket are four volunteers, all wearing tracksuits. None of them look a day over eighteen. They’re sitting around the pile of leaflets as though it’s a badly made campfire. I watch them for a second. They wade through the pile finding one of each leaflet, then stuff a tote bag, crumpling the corners as they shove them inside, before flinging it in the general direction of a heap of tote bags that looks worse than a pile of laundry. Oh, dear.
Derek waves. “Hey, everyone. This is Yinka.” He puts a hand on my shoulder, and I stiffen. “Yinka’s going to be helping you guys out today.”
The four volunteers look up and stare at me like neutral face emojis.
“Hi,” I say cheerily, lifting my hand to wave, but also if I’m honest to shrug Derek off.
The teens murmur, “Hey,” as though they’d rather be doing anything else. I wonder if their parents forced them to come.
Derek turns to me, then says, “Right. Well, I’ll leave you to it.” Then suddenly his eyes shoot up to a spot behind me.
I turn around to see a tall Black man wearing a hoody with a picture of Nina Simone.
“Yinka!” he says.
I frown. Who is this guy?
“It’s Don. Donovan.”
My eyes widen. “Ohhhh. My bad, I didn’t recognize you. Long time. How’s it going?”
“Good to see you, man,” he says in his thick south London accent. Then to my surprise, he folds me into a hug and I get a waft of his Lynx body spray.
“Wow, you guys know each other?” Derek says, looking between us.
“Yeah . . .” My mind is still racing—is it really Donovan? He looks so different.
“We were on a gap year ting together,” Donovan is now saying, much more enthusiastically than me. “That was around, what, ten years ago? I’m surprised I haven’t seen you since, you know. You still live in south London?”
“Yup, Denmark Hill.”
“Sorry, what’s this gap year program?” Derek says.
As Donovan explains the charity work that we did in Peru, I cast a sneaky eye over him. I hate to admit it, but time has been good to him. He has bulked up considerably and he no longer wears braces. And he has hair! He had a low fade back then. My eyes graze Donovan’s Pinterest-y beard, then his equally Pinterest-y hair, which consists of two cornrows in the middle, the ends tied back into a topknot. But more than that, he’s being friendly.
“So, is today your first time, Yinka?”
“Yes, I’m here with my church.”
He tuts. “?’Course you are.”
Just when I was going to give Donovan the benefit of the doubt, he proves he hasn’t changed. Back in Peru, Donovan loved “debating” with me. He thought it was irrational that I believed in God, and stupid me engaged with his self-indulgent rants. That wasn’t the only thing about him that pissed me off, though. Donovan was the kind of person who had an opinion on everything. From politics to the environment to the existence of insects. When I made breakfast, I didn’t make the tacu tacu right. When I made dinner, the chicken slices were too large. When we went to bed in our dorm, I took too long to turn off the light. Apparently. Donovan had something to say about everything and anything. And I was so insecure back then, it really got to me. Unlike the other volunteers he took jabs at, I didn’t find it funny. God, I don’t know how his sweetheart girlfriend coped. I wonder if they’re married now—he used to go on about her. A lot.
I try to look at Donovan’s hands but they’re shoved in the pockets of his Nina Simone hoody. Woke, I can’t help but think as I stare at the iconic legend.
“So, how long have you been volunteering here?” I ask him, figuring I’ll be the bigger person.
“Three years.” Donovan seems proud to share this. “Man volunteers here every Wednesday and Thursday, innit.”
“Oooh.” Humble bragger, I think.
“Such a hater,” he says. “Anyways.” He swerves to Derek. “I thought I should let you know that Sashka and I have swapped roles, innit. So, she’s gonna oversee the mains section, and I’m gonna oversee this one.”
“Sounds good,” says Derek. Urgh, I think.
I don’t exactly want Donovan to be around when Alex gets here, asking me dumb questions or telling embarrassing stories about Peru. Sigh. Speaking of Alex, I pull out my phone and open WhatsApp. His status says, last seen ten minutes ago. I shoot him a quick message.
Hey Alex, how’s it going?
I’m at the outreach now
Call me when you get here
“You’re not here to be on your phone, you know.”
I blink up at Donovan, who has his arms crossed.
“Just playing.” He smiles, breaking the deadpan expression. “So you gonna give me a hand, yeah?”
* * *
—
The first thing I do after Derek wanders away is enforce order—thankfully, Donovan has swiftly excused himself to the toilets, leaving me in peace. I assign three of the grumpy teens a specific leaflet to find from the pile and allow them to listen to whatever music they want on Spotify using my phone data. And rather than a messy pile of tote bags, the other teen is stuffing them into large cardboard boxes, ready to be handed out at some point later on.
“Now, isn’t this better?” I say, looking around at the factory-style operation. The teens are working so harmoniously.
“Someone’s a natural leader,” says Donovan after he returns and stands by my side.
I laugh. “Donovan, it wasn’t rocket science.”
“Still. You’ve done better than most.”
I take the compliment—clearly Donovan’s decided to pretend to be nice again—and shrug. “Thanks. I did this kinda thing at work. Not stuffing leaflets, obviously. But thinking up better processes and training junior staff.”
“Oh, yeah?” Donovan turns to me. “So what do you do?”
“Believe it or not, I actually worked for an investment bank till recently. You heard of Godfrey & Jackson?”
“Yo, are you serious?”
Before I reply, one of the teens who’s wearing a matching Adidas tracksuit approaches us, carrying a box of toiletries.
“We just found these,” he mutters. “We forgot to put them in the bags.”
The next five minutes are spent shoving scented soaps and toothpaste into already stuffed bags while trying to convince Donovan that although my time at Godfrey was painfully stressful, it was worth it because they paid me well. I don’t think I succeeded.
“I’m telling you, Yinka,” he says as we sit opposite each other on upside-down drink crates which are just about strong enough to hold up our weight. The teenagers seem to have disappeared. Cheeky buggers. “I still can’t believe you went into investment banking. Sell ouuut,” he says for the umpteenth time. “Sell. Ouuut.”
“Why not?” I shove a toothbrush into a bag. I’d quite like to be shoving it up his backside. “And like I said, I was in the operations team. I wasn’t a trader. Even if I was, what’s wrong with investment banking?”
“Nothing,” he says, sniffing a bar of soap before putting it into a tote bag. “I just didn’t think that you of all people would go into that industry.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” My teeth chatter. The wind is getting under my blouse, so F it, I do up my coat. I’ll unbutton it when Alex comes. I look around. Surely he’ll arrive soon.
“I’m just saying.” Donovan tugs the ends of his hood-strings. “You kept banging on about how you wanted to work for a charity and whatnot, and how that was going to be the first thing you did as soon as you got back to the UK. You even cried about it, remember?”
I cover my face at the recollection of the memory. It was at one of our last dinners, when we all shared what our experience abroad had taught us.
“I believe I found my calling.” Donovan mocks me, putting on a tearful voice.