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Just a few years older than me, she signed me as her first client when she was an associate agent. As a multi-generational South Londoner who was the first person in her family to attend university, she got what it was to claw out space for yourself in places where you were told you didn’t quite fit.
Nina could be severe or sweet depending on how she wanted to use it.
‘It’s just how can we move within that power, you know? So we were thinking how about we widen that magical specificity, to include other artists who are more central to cultural attention in this moment
Excuse me?
I bumped into Kitty St James. You came up – she just adores you. You know, her sex and dating column at the Journal is really gaining traction, and she was thinking you two could join forces – wouldn’t that be cute? Kind of cross-cultural dating examination. You know her, right?’
Katherine ‘Kitty’ St James, Tatler It Girl, the daughter of former Minister of State Agnes St James (who increased the use of stop-and-search in her tenure) and writer of the impressively named ‘Look What the Kat Dragged In’. It was a dating column described as ‘edgy, irreverent and brimming with girl power’, which of course meant she swore a lot in it and her author photo was of her wearing a pink crop top that read ‘Big Clit Energy’ to display said edginess. She recently wrote an article about how racism in ‘this day and age’ is a concept that can be ‘dick-constructed’.
She got dragged in the Black parishes of social media, but of course Verity must have missed that. Shortly after it was published, she hard-launched her boyfriend – a well-known Black actor – on Instagram with two ice-cream emojis, one vanilla, one chocolate.
throat. ‘It would, uh, be with the view of making her a permanent co-host, but of course we would take care
side! You would be . . . maximising your joint
BARF!
sweet. ‘My show isn’t a safari or a gap year to add some spice to someone’s resumé, and also it is mine.
Verity went the colour of Mac’s Ruby Woo and I don’t actually remember the rest of what she said because my blood was pounding in my head so hard that it clouded coherency. All I could feel was rage, that they had the ability to take my dream and warp it whilst having the audacity to ask me to put my name on it. All I remember is that I interrupted Verity with a bark of laughter, and a ‘No.’
‘You know what? Maybe it’s for the best. How long were you going to do a podcast for anyway?’
Wooooow.
It was impulsive, sure, but my impulse is always rooted in real. I don’t do impulsive unless pushed to do so by emotions that are screaming to be heard.
When I said ‘no’ in the Thought Womb, it’s because deep down I knew if I stayed in that place, watching my dream be dissected and manipulated, a part of me would die. There would be no point continuing with the podcast because its purpose would be defeated.
All my ambitions sound small in his mouth. That hasn’t ever happened before. He’s always said that it was necessary, that people need a place to feel and I help to give them that.
This is how we serve the culture. By allowing ourselves to be understood’
Excuse me?
How would you feel if someone came to Oynx – which is supposed to aid the Black community – and said you had to partner with someone white for it to be legitimate?’ ‘I would do it, Keeks. In fact, I’m about to do it. I’m about to close a deal with a French company.
It occurs to me that Bakari didn’t even entertain the potential of the podcast finding new life elsewhere. I own the rights. I could if I wanted to. I would lack the budget and the resources, but I could if I wanted to.
I didn’t need an MBA spat back at me. I needed someone to see my dreams, pick them up and feel the heft of possibility.
Bakari sighs in a way that makes me wish I’d told him that the sauce in the lobster linguini needs some more richness, maybe a knob of butter cut with some sugar, and a little more salt. More flavour.
This is an odd tenor of our relationship – we don’t do this; we don’t argue – and now I’m realising it’s because we don’t have enough to argue about, and this fact is almost making me as uncomfortable as every single thing else about this conversation.
I mean, theoretically, we work. You care about me and I care about you – so much that I am willing to have you be part of my company, which in a way is kind of a bigger deal than marriage—’
She smooths a hand over her sleek ponytail and pushes it across the shoulder of her oversized tweed blazer, an action that really serves to display the Jupiter-sized rock on her finger.
‘I’m not saying he isn’t good-looking, Keeks – he is. For a skinny man. He looks like LaKeith Stanfield but cleaner. I’m just saying he’s not good-looking enough to be doing all this. Like, who does he think he is, undermining your ambition like that?’
I hadn’t told my parents about my issues with Bakari because that would necessitate telling them that it was because he offered me a job, and then they would ask why he’d offered their eldest child a job – practically ensnaring her to a life of servitude to a man.
Though my parents know I stepped back from the podcast, what they don’t know is that my savings are fast dwindling and my job search is getting increasingly frantic.
In any case, on account of not wanting to worry my parents about the exact degree of my joblessness just as they’re about to sell up the restaurant and retire, mine and Bakari’s situation needs to be kept under wraps.
We’re wildly different, and it works, a symphony and rhythm unto ourselves. It fits; we click.
‘Um, whilst you know how I feel about the institution of marriage – no offence, Aminah.’ Aminah nods imperiously. ‘None taken. You know how I feel about the institution of thrifting and wearing clothes that could potentially carry evil spirits.’
‘Babes, if you have to exorcise your clothes before you wear them, maybe you’re doing something wrong.’
‘Anyway, you kind of said no to the idea of marrying him, which I totally agree with, but knowing the cis straight male ego . . .’
Aside from not wanting to distract from Aminah’s news, this is precisely why I hadn’t told the gang for a month. My friends – who I adore – simply wouldn’t understand, and would make the situation seem more problematic than it actually is.
The argument had got heated for us, but in the grand scheme of passionate fights it barely hovered above two English people jostling for a place in a queue. Besides, when I went to his to pick up my favourite bra that I’d left there, we ended up making out for three minutes as he said goodbye. Proof that this is not a clean break.
Mine and Bakari’s romantic relationship is such that we work around each other, our lives overlapping in very specific ways in which we both agree. We don’t do random, sporadic sleepovers – we plan ahead. We don’t ‘hang out’ – we have activities. Dinner, co-working, movies. Specifically, movies that he’s read about and confirmed are good before we go. Movies slated to be Oscar-nominated. He wants to be sure we wouldn’t be wasting our time. If any of our friends has a birthday party, the other is not obliged to come. We don’t talk to each other about work unless for a specific reason – an
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He continued: ‘It’s like my life algorithm is off. I’m meant to slip on a lipstick on the floor of my bathroom whilst shaving, or tune out Trysts in the Topics whilst sending an email and I know I don’t like cuddling, but it’s strange stretching out at night without finding you there. And now I might be a cuddling person.’
Ugh hush.
Bakari is measured, and so in his head he calculated that this was the appropriate amount of intimacy for two people who currently need space, but who are still theoretically romantically interested in one another.
I smile fondly at Olatunde Banjo, a curious mind who reads everything and anything – including showbiz news – and speaks like a professor.
Separation is separation. I thought I was going to die. I was sweating at night like I had malaria. I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. My whole body was just weak. I even went to the doctor. Dr Lawrie in Camberwell. He looked at me like I was mad and said malaria-carrying mosquitos were “quite rare” in London. Anyway, I had no choice but to believe that my affliction was love.’
She was fine, though. Saw her at a friends’ party the following week with a new hairdo. She asked me why I was looking skinny. I just had to beg her.’
In my mum’s version of the story, she convinced her friend to have a party just so she could bump into my dad. She got her hair cut especially for the occasion, borrowed her friend’s miniskirt.
‘Kofi is a smart young man. I’ve seen you two together. He knows when to be quiet. You’ll be fine. Just don’t be afraid of the work. Love each other enough to do the work. The biggest mistake people make is thinking a relationship should be easy just because loving the right person is easy.
He doesn’t do alterations to his menu for just anybody – ‘Do people think I just cook without thinking? Am I a fool? Is this a drive-thru?’ – but he loves to indulge my friends as if they’re adopted daughters.
Well, I’m glad that my food kicks.’ I suppress my smile. ‘It “bangs”, Daddy.’
I love Mr. Banjo.
A Gail’s has replaced the old phone-repair shop where Mr Abdi fixed my smashed phone screen for free when I was twenty-two. A cheese-and-wine shop has nestled into the place where Ms Eunice used to tell us, with a straight face, that she was out of jerk chicken. There’s a SpiritCycle opening a couple of doors down, which is especially insulting because it’s a knock-off of another brand of workout class where you ride a stationary bike as someone shouts at you.
Gentrification!!!
All of this means less customers, less income, staff cutbacks and more of me helping out where I can.
‘Theoretically, if anyone’s second-wife material, it’s me. Not in relation to Kiki’s dad, because, gross.
Heat flares through my body and my stomach makes moves that make it seem like Simone Biles can only do cartwheels.
I just thought that Malakai wasn’t going to be able to come because of work. You said he was going to come closer to the wedding. Which is in, like, ten . . . months.’
I did say that, but Kofi told me last week that Malakai has some meeting in London that’s around the time of the engagement party . . .’
We know every white lie, every secret, every kink in our truths, every hurt behind a razor-edged comment and every swear word behind a smile, and so it’s bewildering to me that she would keep the fact that in a month’s time my ex would be in the same city as me for the first time in two-and-a-half years.
Yes, the ex I haven’t spoken to in two years is the best man at my best friend’s wedding. It’s not a big deal! We’re adults!! Who used to have sex! We can co-exist and work together! Sophia Bush did fine working with Chad Michael Murray on One Tree Hill!’ Shanti raises a brow. ‘Is that another one of your American white-people shows?’
Oof.
