6. Olivia
ONE DAY BEFORE THE OPENING CEREMONY
She looked good, she felt good, and for the next two weeks, Olivia would be joining the Olympic International Relations and Diplomacy team as their summer intern. She looked down at her phone to check the time. She was an hour early; everything was going according to plan.
When she got to the first security checkpoint, she showed the guard her email confirmation. He checked her passport and then pointed her in the direction of the long line for the next security checkpoint. Her feet began to ache after minute five, she regretted wearing heels after minute ten, and debated going barefoot after minute eighteen. But it was her first day, and she had to make a good impression. She wasn’t going to be the girl who took her heels off in the middle of the Olympic Village. She just needed something to distract her from the pain. So, she opened LinkedIn and began to type.
@OliviaNkomo: I’m so excited to share that I have the honor of spending the summer working with the OOC as their summer International Relations and Diplomacy intern.
She attached the photo of herself standing next to the Olympic rings, then posted it, feeling a spring in her step as she walked to the final security checkpoint. By the time she got to the front of the queue, her mum, who had push notifications for her, had commented, “From Harare to Athens! Incredible! Sharing this with my students!” Olivia shook her head and laughed, knowing that a screenshot was probably already making its way through one of the many Zimbabwean auntie WhatsApp groups her mum was a part of. But, for once, she didn’t mind. Wasn’t every daughter of immigrants’ tale an underdog story?
“Welcome to the Olympic Village, please scan your QR code ID,” said the bored security guard from inside a glass booth. But Olivia didn’t have a QR code ID. She scrolled through her emails and searched through her spam, but there was nothing.
“What department did you say you were in again?” the security guard asked.
“International Relations and Diplomacy,” she said.
“Hmm, you’re not on that list. Are you sure you have the right department?”
Olivia reached into her bag to pull out her confirmation letter, but as she did so, something shifted. The security guard gave her a strange look, picked up his walkie-talkie, and muttered some incomprehensible words into it. Instantly, Olivia was surrounded by a group of very serious-looking men who began to lead her away from the gate, creasing her perfectly steamed suit in the process.
“Hey! What are you doing? Where are you taking me?” she said as they rushed her along. Her heels were already aching, but being marched along the cobbled pavement was making them even worse.
“You have not been cleared by security to be in the Village,” one of the guards said sternly. “And from the looks of it, this is a fraudulent confirmation letter,” he added, looking at her suspiciously.
“Fraudulent… what are you talking about?” she asked. Olivia had studied foreign imprisonment for exactly two weeks in her second year of university and decided that now was the time to advocate for herself.
“You can’t detain me without cause! You’ve got to read me my rights!” she said, unsure whether any of the things she was saying applied to security guards. “You don’t even have police badges.” But they continued to escort her in the direction of a discreet building just outside of the Village. As she protested, she noticed a group of volunteers glancing over at her and then looking away. As if making eye contact with her would incriminate them too. She was mortified.
The guards passed her over to a female guard who made her take off her shoes, hand over her belongings, and walk through yet another metal detector. She was relieved to be able to get rid of the heels for a moment, but was annoyed that they’d made her part ways with her phone before she could google what she was supposed to do in a moment like this.
They put her into an all-white windowless room and seated her in a chair nailed to the ground. Was this Olympic jail? she wondered. Did she need a lawyer? Was she about to be interrogated? She was mentally mapping out scenarios and trying to remember what she’d learned about foreign imprisonment, when the door opened and a tall, gangly man with a worried look on his face walked in.
“First of all, I’m really sorry that they detained you like that,” he said, sounding panicked. “I am an ally of the Black Lives Matter movement and…” Olivia did her very best not to roll her eyes; of course, this conversation was going to start with a disclaimer. She wanted to tell him to calm down and cut to the chase. But the man was on a roll.
“It’s never acceptable to detain a person of color without cause, and those guards do not represent the values of diversity and inclusivity at the heart of the Olympic Games and the OOC, and—” Olivia could already tell that he’d played out the PR disaster he would have to deal with if anything bad happened to her. But she really didn’t have the energy to comfort a white person who was so clearly looking for reassurance that she didn’t think he was racist.
“Could you just tell me what’s going on?” she said with a sigh.
He looked nervous. “I’m Noah, head of recruitment here at the Athens Olympics, and there’s been a bit of a mix-up with your role this year.”
Olivia’s heart began to sink, the way it always did when she could sense bad news on the horizon.
“There were originally going to be two International Relations and Diplomacy interns. We sifted through hundreds of applications and went through a rigorous interviewing process,” he said.
Olivia nodded.
“However, we made a… clerical error.”
Olivia sat up straighter in the chair and frowned. Noah looked everywhere but at her.
“During the recruitment process, the team decided to make it a paid internship, but the department didn’t have the budget to fund two paid internships and so we had to cut it down to just one intern. And, unfortunately, the team decided to go with the other applicant. Though I take full responsibility for this mistake, somebody was supposed to get in contact with you and take you off the new-recruit mailing list, but unfortunately…”
Noah was still speaking, but Olivia didn’t have the heart to keep listening. She’d spent years planning her path to the Olympics and made pretty much everything in her life secondary to achieving her greatest dream. She’d dipped too deep into her credit card and pinned her hopes on this one perfect summer. But her vision was dissolving. She was already well acquainted with disappointment, but this one really stung.
“So, if I’m understanding you correctly… I flew to Athens for an internship that’s not going to happen?” Olivia asked calmly.
Noah winced. “I’m sorry, but yes, that is the case,” he said, looking up at the ceiling, down at the floor, and then over at the door to avoid making eye contact with her.
Olivia wanted to protest. To insist they’d got it all wrong, and to fight for the place she knew she deserved. She’d already made a mental list of questions that would pick Noah’s story apart. But as she looked around, she sighed. Just like when she’d driven the Mercedes to the house of the probable murderer and when she’d said nothing to the creepy snooker-table man who’d made her hate the smell and taste of limes, sometimes it was easier to detach and move on than fight. There was nothing to be gained from speaking her mind in a place like this. The “angry Black girl” label was the kiss of death, and she still wanted to get a job here one day. So, instead of fighting it, she decided to find a way around it. Her best option, she reasoned, was to convince them to give her something, anything. And then work her way up to the top.
“Well, Noah, I came all the way to Athens.” She did her best to maintain her composure. “There’s got to be something I can do for the rest of the summer, right?” She wanted to seem determined, not pushy.
God, all she ever did was try to seem determined but not pushy.
Noah fidgeted and looked around as if trying to find a solution in the walls. Then his face lit up.
“Yes, there is. We have one last space in another department that you can join.”
Olivia gritted her teeth and listened to what he had to say.