Chapter 37 You can’t fly jets if you’re a bitch
You can’t fly jets if you’re a bitch
The marketing team is huddled around the table, deep in discussion about the branding of the new shoe brand Arch Ink.
Their main collection revolves around shoes and boots with cow print.
The design team came back with their vision, proudly detailing their choice of font and colours for the social media campaign.
The team is listing the KPIs that different individuals will be responsible for tracking, when I lift my hand up.
‘Yes, Fuko?’ Martin from the design team smiles.
‘You have low-lighted the a and r in arch.’
‘Yes, well, the reason for the design choice—’
‘It now spells c-h-i-n-k.’
That comment made me enemy number one of the office, causing potential delays with the entire campaign. Despite that, people were grateful, commenting on my keen eye. It’s hard not to notice things when you have been called that word a couple of times in your life.
But that’s not the issue. No one is seeing how funny that is—to have a cross-team with an accidental slur being the climax of everyone’s hard work. Toby would have laughed with me. He would have sent me a message to say that I am the only one in the room who’s allowed to point it out.
Steven told me that Toby will be working from home for the foreseeable future. He also started telling me about something of little interest and importance to me and to shut him up, I bowed and walked away. The bow was important as it confused him enough to leave me alone.
Now, with a small container of katsu curry, I plop the cutlet on a spoon with my chopsticks, tasting absolutely zero flavour. Fawzia sits next to me, quite cautiously.
‘You all right?’ she asks.
‘Never better.’
I keep thinking about all the things that fell together like dominos for me to end up in this situation.
For Toby to have been so constricted his entire life, making him believe in fate, and how cancer is some sort of divine order and a way for him to crumble out of existence.
I think about his sister, who told me that Toby’s childhood was just as bad, but wrapped in different packaging.
Sometimes, I’d see specks of his dark thoughts and downplay them in my head.
And I get so angry with everything. If he really believes in his fate the same way I believe that his luck will make him enter remission after his first course of chemo, we are at an impasse.
I don’t know how to fix this, and one might say it’s not my responsibility to do so.
But if I fail, I can make things so much worse.
‘What are you eating?’ Maahni walks by, her kitten heels clicking on the floor.
‘Japanese katsu curry.’
‘Nice! Did you buy it from Itsu or Kokoro or something?’
‘No, I made it.’
‘You can make Japanese food?’
‘Yeah.’ Fawzia comes in. ‘She made me some last time as well.’
‘Why do you know how to make Japanese food?’
‘I am Japanese.’
‘But you don’t look Japanese, at all.’
Fawzia snorts out a guffaw at the audacity. I do not share the humour, snapping, ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’
It’s come out more aggressively than I wanted, with Fawzia holding onto my elbow with caution. I shake her off.
‘I just didn’t think you were Japanese, silly.’ Maahni bulges her eyes out and looks at Fawzia for reassurance.
The only other Asian girl in the office and she decides to challenge me today? Nah, I’m not having that. ‘What, do I need to speak with a Japanese accent for you? Or wear a kimono? How the fuck am I meant to take that weird comment? And stop calling me silly.’
I huff out an angry sigh and cross my arms. Maahni wobbles on her feet and runs out of the kitchen with tears in her eyes.
This is really not my proudest moment, but I do not know how I am meant to exercise patience and understanding when every solution to my current problem—Toby fucking dying—is unattainable.
If he didn’t care for me enough to get treatment when we were still together, why would he suddenly change his mind now that he’s ended things to die in peace?
‘What on earth—’ Fawzia starts.
‘Toby has cancer, and he broke up with me,’ I interrupt before I get a lecture. The immediate shame and guilt stir within. It’s really wrong of me to air his business like this, but I do not know what else to do.
‘I know.’
‘You know?’
‘About the cancer part. You remember my sister? She is an oncological nurse and can’t drive because of her epilepsy. I picked her up one day and saw Toby coming out of the unit. Stopped him, asked a few questions. I wasn’t meant to know.’
‘So, you knew.’ I repeat for no one but myself.
‘Yeah.’
I run my fingers through my hair. It’s coarse, dry, but somehow oily and knotty. Did I brush my hair today? I don’t think I did. I forgot to brush my own hair this morning.
‘I don’t know what to do. He won’t get treatment. And he broke up with me.’
‘We will workshop something together. But I would go and apologise to your colleague first. You can’t do things right when you are actively doing wrong,’ she says. Then she adds, ‘She deserved it, though.’
Hollow sobs are echoing in the corridor from the women’s toilets. Seana is embracing Maahni when I walk in, giving me the dirtiest look her sweet demeanour could ever produce.
‘Hey, Seana, is it okay if I speak to Maahni for a second?’
Seana looks at the girl and releases her only after she gives her a meek nod. I am certain that she is weighing whether to barge me in the shoulder and somewhat wishes she killed me off with that almond cheesecake.
‘I am sorry for snapping at you. It’s been a rough couple of weeks, and your comment just sent me over the edge.’
Maahni’s bottom lip overhangs in a painful-looking pout, arms wrapped around herself for self-soothing. I wait to see her react or to say something, but she does neither. We just awkwardly stand by the sinks.
‘I should have been more careful. Mars did enter my third house.’ Not a complete lie. She made me download an astrology app that sends me daily horoscopes. Today’s was ‘conflict on the horizon’.
‘Oh.’ She perks up. ‘That makes sense, then. Mercury entered my third house, and because we are so similar, it must have caused a spat.’
That worked? Well. Good. I am glad I found a way.
‘I’m sorry for saying you don’t look Japanese. You are taller than the Japanese women I’ve seen.’
‘That was your reasoning?’
She nods, and I laugh in her face. ‘You know what? Fair.’
‘And... I am sorry I’ve said that you are silly. I’m not very good at making friends, and... I think you are one of the smartest people here. I guess I just talk to you the way I do with my cousins.’
‘It’s okay, and again I’m sorry about making you cry. I promise to do better next time.’
‘Me too.’
I stretch out my hand for a handshake, and she accepts, walking out with me back to Fawzia’s table.
‘I think I know what to do,’ I announce to her, sending a message to Malik that I never thought I’d send.
If the only way to get through to Maahni was by playing the game she had set up on her board, maybe there is a way for me to convince Toby.
But I’ll need all the luck I can get for this to work.