Chapter Twenty-Five
A few days after seeing Cam in the canteen, Anika grabs her glass of water and switches off the kitchen light, padding through the dark flat to her bedroom.
She’s been trying to push the encounter out of her mind for now to varying degrees of success, but tomorrow is an important day.
She nailed Tuesday’s interview, where she laid out some of her initial ideas for the role and why she’d be a great fit for it, but tomorrow is when she needs to seal the deal.
Anika climbs into bed and reaches over to pick up the diary, nestling it on her bent knees as she begins to write.
Today I was looking fit. (And ‘hire me’ worthy.)
Today my commute was seamless.
Today nobody pissed me off (not that I couldn’t handle anyway).
Today I won the lottery. (Come on, come on, come on.) (Seriously!!) (EUROMILLIONS THEN?)
Today I had some Friday Fun.
Today I also thought of every good music-related idea I’ve ever had …
Second and final interview for the curator position today with Ashley W, and I absolutely fucking nailed it …
And drinks with Mum and Philip this evening were thankfully swift and as smooth as possible – nothing too annoying, no awkward questions, just chill and lovely to see her. And Philip too, I suppose. She’s happy. That’s the most important thing, right? Sometimes I wish we could talk about
Things are moving in the right direction. Sunup to sundown, things went my way, satisfying and delicious.
Friday 3rd August
‘OK, last thing, Anika. To sum this all up, is there one sentence you’d give us to say why you want this role?’ Ashley Worth, the unassumingly cool SpinRadio station head smiles at her encouragingly.
Anika thinks for a moment. ‘Ever since my father gifted me my first record, I’ve wanted to make other people as happy as I have been made by music.
And I can’t imagine any job that would give me a better platform to do that than this one.
’ She pauses, then laughs a bit. ‘Sorry, that was two sentences.’
Ashley joins in her laughter, waving a hand dismissively. ‘No, that was brilliant. To be honest, since earlier in the week I’ve been convinced you’re the perfect person for this. I’m really excited to offer you this role.’
‘Seriously? Just like that?’
‘I don’t see any point in waiting. There’s nothing better than excavating talent from within the walls of our own business. Here you were under our noses the whole time, eh?’
Anika stands up from her chair and reaches out to grip her soon-to-be boss’s hand, grinning with relief.
Despite ‘success’ having been the focus of almost every word she wrote in her diary, she can’t help feeling surprised at just how well things have gone.
It never even occurred to her to suggest she’d be offered the job on the spot. ‘Thank you so much,’ she says.
‘I’ll let the team know straight away and I’ll get Raj to start arranging the transition and the paperwork.
I can’t wait for you to join us up here on the fourteenth floor,’ Ashley says loudly as she opens the meeting room door to see Anika out, making some of Anika’s soon-to-be colleagues look up with interest.
She’s still grinning to herself as she heads down the stairs and back to her desk, the emails on her screen dancing with meaningless words. This is actually fucking happening. She tries not to cackle hysterically. I’m headed to where I’ve always dreamed of being.
Noticing a message icon on her phone screen, Anika dials into her voicemail and her good mood sinks momentarily.
The hospital has been calling, trying to arrange an appointment.
‘It’s important we follow up—’ She shuts off the message and deletes it when the robotic voice invites her to.
She’s not looking to bring down her mood with medical admin right now.
Instead, she quickly replies to the back-and-forth that she and Wendy have been having over meeting for lunch ‘sometime soon’, and then the rest of the afternoon moves in a blur.
As Anika makes her way towards the building’s exit a couple of hours later, the hot smack of the outside air is unanticipated after the cool air-conditioning of the office.
Still, as she pulls up SoundCloud on her phone, cues up another of her DJ mixes and settles her earbuds in, she’s thrilled that she has some genuinely good news to share with her mother when they meet up.
Philip has bought him and his wife eye-wateringly expensive tickets to see some jukebox musical and her mum suggested they meet beforehand.
Feeling the imminent cash injection of a pay rise, Anika decides to treat herself to the indulgence of a passing black cab.
Settling into the back of the taxi, Soul II Soul’s ‘Keep On Movin’’ begins to play in her ears and Anika is catapulted back to her childhood.
She totally forgot she even included the song in this mix, and it takes everything she has not to start harmonising badly to Caron Wheeler’s iconic vocal in the back of the cab, picturing her mother doing just that in their tiny kitchen back in Streatham.
It was one of Nella’s favourites. Emotion begins to warm her chest. So much has happened since it was just the two of them dancing in that kitchen.
Indulgences like cabs or theatre trips wouldn’t have even crossed their mind back then, not even when Nella moved them down to Sussex after marrying Clive.
Now she’s with Philip, Anika senses a level of comfort and security coming off her mum in expensive waves of Chanel perfume every time she sees her.
Finally found the right white man, Anika thinks – and then immediately feels terrible.
It pains her to admit it, but her mother is probably in love, which is more than Anika can say.
Her mind darts to an image of Cam and she flushes with embarrassment.
Of all the things that Anika has been focused on in her diary, a relationship hasn’t been one of them.
She’s been an epic romantic ever since she was teenager, but, given how indefinable their talk in the canteen was, she hasn’t found the right words to write about him in the last few days …
Anika doesn’t like to examine her mother’s romantic relationships too deeply – or her father’s, for that matter.
Is it strange that both of her parents chose white partners ultimately?
Anika isn’t sure. Maybe deep down she does feel a pinch of resentment about it, wondering if their choices disrupted her impression of her own desirability as a young Black woman.
But if this whole crazy ride since the hospital has taught her anything, it’s her own worth.
Anika does feel beautiful now – sexy, desirable – but the romantic examples laid out for her were skewed at best. Perhaps the fact that her parents’ relationship was an affair made it harder for Anika to believe in the idea of love enduring.
As a kid, her father showed her that love was sporadic, too.
He was in and out. Being alone so much in her childhood meant Anika had to rely on herself for love so much of the time.
Just then, a sensual SZA song slides into the mix, the low baseline accentuated by fingersnaps and the singer’s lazily sensual vocals.
Speaking of self-love … The song raises a smirk on Anika’s lips as she thinks about how much self-loving she’s been up to since the one-time hook-up with Mo unlocked that side of things for her.
She thinks about who she’s been picturing as she does, and her expression sobers again at how ambiguously things were left with Cam …
Anyway, perhaps now is the time she’s meant to start sending some love outwards.
Not necessarily romantically, even; her brother has been on her mind a lot lately.
She fucked up worse than she’s ever cared to admit all those years ago.
Kwesi was only a kid then, after all. Anika wonders again if she should try to get in touch with him, but she’d need to carefully navigate what she writes in the diary for the day she plans to do that. If she plans to do that …
The driver calls back to her. ‘Here you are, love.’
They pull up and she pays gratefully before stepping out and heading towards the bar, glad that at least today’s events have been pre-written.