Rootless

by Krystle Zara Appiah

All afternoon Sam makes phone calls. Most are to Efe, even though he knows she’s somewhere high above Europe or the Sahara, more miles threading between them with each passing second.

The tan blazer and the faint scent of rum on her skin tell him she’s come straight from a work event.

He’d made a comment about the tea she’d been drinking—more of a non-comment, a dumb question really. He’d expected her to nod and agree. Instead, she’d said nothing, only stared at him, as though she didn’t recognize him, like it was the farthest thing from her mind, so Sam had let it go, regretted saying anything at all. Six hours later she was gone.

“What do you think?” Aunty murmurs. Efe turns and gives Aunty a small smile and says thank you, just as she has been taught.

“Are you okay, dear?” Mrs. Andrews asks, retracing her steps to where Efe has frozen with her back against a wall. Efe is shaking, tears brimming, panic rioting through her veins. But she nods, not trusting herself to speak.

Instead, she’s stayed silent and kept her head down, only answering questions when called upon—and even then, always caught off guard, her voice coming out rushed and frantic.

During the previous summer, Nate’s mum had been bested by an inoperable cancer that had silently burrowed through her brain for years. Sam’s mum was simply gone, exiting stage left like an actress who’d taken her final bow, or worse, like a figment of Sam’s imagination.

“Me? What are you wearing?” The guys on either side of Nate chuckle. “I’m The Mask. Everyone loves The Mask.” Nate looks worried for a moment, then he runs his hand over the plasticky material and shakes it off. “Who’re you supposed to be?”

“Rah, that’s what I wanna do.”

He hasn’t been in a fight since he was fourteen, yet the adrenaline fizzing through his veins feels familiar, even comforting.

Taking care of Phoebe has been more his responsibility than his dad’s since she was a toddler, pretty much since the day his mum left, and that’s exactly what he’s been doing all summer while most of his friends have been on holiday. Home. Work. Carting his nine-year-old sister around from place to place.

“Screw the re-mark. None of this will matter when I’m a star,” Abbey says and splays her hands wide for emphasis. “All I need is talent. Give it five years. My name will be up in lights and you three will still be sitting exams.”

He looks from the stars doodled on Efe’s running shoes to her hand resting on the slats between them. He could reach out and hold her hand in his, cross the four inches of space. Carefully he stretches out his baby finger. He’s one inch closer already.

“You’re not staying?” Even as he says this, Sam feels the air go sour; Daphne simmers; even the sun ducks behind a cloud.

As they drive away from the airport, Efe notices all the subtle ways the city is changing. New buildings are springing up. A spattering of cranes looms over the beige-orange-green skyline.

“I like running,” Efe replies weakly, an answer which isn’t entirely untrue. Somewhere between feeling like her lungs are on fire and coming into her stride, she does start to enjoy the familiar strength of her limbs carrying her onwards and the sense that she is traveling faster than the world beneath her feet.

“It’s fine,” her dad replies, yawns widely and places both hands on his stomach.

“Want me to do your hair?” Efe smiles and sits in the space between Maame’s knees.

In the evenings, she delivers cups of Milo chocolate malted milk and steaming plates of jollof that Efe leaves untouched.

“You’re asleep? What time is it there?” Efe lifts her head to check the kitchen clock, just visible above the netted window dressing and floral curtains. “It’s one twenty.” “In the afternoon?” Efe rolls her eyes. There is no time difference and Maame knows this. She is making a point.

“That wicked woman, heh.

“I don’t believe it. My Efe’s never failed anything in her life. Ey! The enemy will not prosper. You will take the exams again. You will pass.”

Paa sighs a deep sigh—the sound of thunder rumbling—for a moment it drowns out Maame’s declarations, and when he begins to speak again his voice is slow and soft. “There are other universities. You’re still in the race, Efe. It will all be okay.”

Aunty Dora waits one more day before she decides she too has had enough. It is barely six when she throws the curtains open and rips the duvet from Efe’s body. There is no time to brace herself against the surge of frigid air and the pile of books that is dropped onto her legs.

“But what if I—” “No,” Aunty Dora says, cutting her off. “Whatever excuse you’re thinking isn’t good enough. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be you.”

She lets her feet carry her across the road, past the minimarket and internet café, into the store with the hand-painted julia’s NEW AND secondhand books sign. A bell announces her arrival and the smell is the first thing that hits her. The shop is saturated with the scent of aged paper, tinged with earthy coffee.

For weeks she’s felt cut loose from the world, without the strength or desire to tug herself back to the ground. Now, just like that, one foot brushes against the earth.

“I’m trying to ask you out.” “Oh.” Efe takes an unconscious step back, bumping into a rack of holiday-themed bookmarks.

She was charmed by the notion that beauty could not be isolated from its culture or history.

“Brian,” she asks. “How old are you?” “You go first.” “Twenty-one.” “Twenty-eighhhtt,” he replies. She raises her eyebrows. “Why did you say it like that?” “Because I’m lying. I’m thirty-two. Is…erm. Is thirty-two okay?”

Efe decides then that she’ll see him again. There are more lunches. Over the next few months they meet most days at the yellow-fronted café, slip into the table that’s always ready and waiting for them. And in the afternoons Efe glides back into the shop thinking about him.

“You’re beautiful. You don’t need to hide from me,” he says, his lips at her ear, so close Efe imagines his words slithering right into her mind.

“He’s going to ask permission,” Serwaa says dreamily.

Wow

“I’m not at school anymore,” Efe says, choosing her words carefully. “And what are you doing now?” An eyebrow inches upward. “I’m working.” Efe pauses. “In a bookshop.” “Oh!” Gifty lets the smug syllable hang in the air. Behind her, her followers exchange confused looks. “A shopkeeper?” one of them asks. “All this your learning to be a shopkeeper?”

The man’s large frame is only emphasized by the slightness of his wife, the sweet-smiling woman tucked into his side.

He gives her hand a firm squeeze and Efe worries he can hear her heart reverberating in her chest.

She distinctly remembers biting her tongue and playing the role of the good girlfriend while Brian’s university friends made comments about how “quaint” and “well-spoken” she was, remarks that could only be rivaled by the ones where they called her “exotic.” Maybe it was the shock of it, but Efe found herself laughing along in spite of how uneasy she felt, how much their words had left her wishing the ground would swallow her up. The only ones she’d liked had been his parents.

“What about your dad and Phoebe?” “It was a chance encounter. It’s not like she meant to find me.” He’s trying to sound chill, but his voice betrays him and wobbles slightly. “Now no one’s disappointed.”

“You should go,” Efe had said, already reaching for the almost-empty bowl of popcorn. And in a moment of clarity, Sam answered, “I could break up with her,” then squirmed in the prickly silence that followed.

For two hours Efe and Sam tactfully avoid each other. They spin in different orbits around the tiny garden.

There’s the sound of a commotion nearby. At the far end of the garden, children hyped up on fizzy drinks are bouncing in an excited circle around Sam, who is pretending to spar with pint-sized fists. Soon enough it’s five against one. The youngest ones, three- or four-year-old twins by Efe’s estimation, hang around a leg each. And more kids race across the garden, ignoring their parents’ half-hearted calls to leave Sam alone. It takes eight of them to bring him to his knees. Sam falls slowly, his cries exaggerated, one arm stretched toward the sky before he’s lost beneath the bundle.

“That’s Sam, r—” Brian begins, still watching the spectacle peter out, but something sparks in Efe and she cuts him off, makes a hurried excuse, and dashes inside to the bathroom. Upstairs, perched on the edge of the tub, she waits for the spark to die down.

He moves toward her, stops at the other side of the bed. “Are you packing all of your things?” “I have more things,” she says, “at my place.” “Your place?” He looks shocked for a second, then wounded.

“Did you hear me? I said I love you,” he says, frenzied now.

In the almost three years since Sam joined Barnard, Brand & Associates, he’s spent every day trying to set himself apart from the other junior members of the team. At work he’s assertive and focused, speaking up until false confidence solidified into something real, and his boss, Walter Barnard himself, had gone from nodding approvingly in meetings to seeking out Sam’s opinion and asking Sam to take the new intern, who happened to be Walter’s stepson, under his wing and show him the ropes.

They’re both a little drunk, speaking louder than necessary and flirting recklessly in full view of the cast and audience. David’s hand moves to Abbey’s lower back. Sam and Efe exchange a wordless look.

Efe looks to the door, silently hoping that Paa will make an appearance or one of the housegirls will burst in screaming about a fire. She prays for any interruption. Anything.