Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘I knew he was going to match you!’ Lucy squealed when I showed her Noah’s message on Monday morning. My stomach had been churning non-stop since he got in touch and I had barely slept all night. I had waited for this moment for so long and now that it was almost here and I was on the cusp of finally seeing him again, I felt sick with anticipation. So much so that I hadn’t replied to him because whenever I tried, my mind either went completely blank or filled itself with nonsense.
‘How shall I respond?’ I whispered, my eyes darting around the office until they landed on Sheila, who was walking across the open space with a mug in her hands and her earphones in her ears. Still, for all we knew, she was pretending to be on a call and was secretly listening in to our conversations.
‘Let’s chat later,’ Lucy murmured nervously as Sheila got closer to our desks. I needed to talk to her about my working hours, but I had been putting it off for days because the thought of approaching her and asking for something was too frightening a task. It was scarier than the prospect of seeing Noah again, but until I did, I wouldn’t be able to decide whether to do the degree full-time or part-time.
‘Sheila, do you have a moment?’ I said, getting up and following her across the room, trying to keep up with her long strides. She stopped abruptly and spun around to face me, her eyes narrowing.
‘Make it quick,’ she snapped and continued to stalk towards her office with me trailing behind like a toddler.
Sheila’s office was a lot like her: cold and functional. Everything was steel or chrome, or whatever that silver-coloured metal was and what wasn’t silver was a brilliant white. There were no plants, no pictures, nothing personal at all. Closing the door behind me, I waited for her to tell me to take a seat and when she didn’t, I stood awkwardly, shifting my weight from one foot to another.
‘Well? What is it?’ she said, raising an eyebrow expectantly. It didn’t lift much and I wondered if it was because she’d had Botox. That would explain her lack of expression most of the time.
‘I wanted to talk to you about my working hours,’ I said, trying my best not to stammer and to look her in the eye. ‘I’m starting an LLM in September and I want to do it full-time so I can finish it quicker.’
‘Right. So how are you planning to work here at the same time?’
‘It’s in the evenings,’ I said quickly, my throat dry. ‘If I do it full-time, it would be two evenings a week. The classes start at six, so it means that I would have to leave at five to get there on time. But I’d make sure to come in at nine on those days, so I won’t be doing fewer hours than I’m contracted to do or anything.’
Sheila sighed and looked away while I waited for her to respond. For someone who was in a hurry and didn’t have time to talk, she was taking a long time to reply.
‘Well, Maya,’ she sighed. ‘You do know that this isn’t a nine-to-five sort of job. What am I supposed to do if I need some photocopying or filing at five and you’ve gone off to uni?’
‘Erm, ask Lucy or Arjun?’
Sheila glanced at me sharply and I wished I hadn’t answered her rhetorical question.
‘And if you do it part-time?’
‘It’s one evening a week. But I’d really prefer to do it full-time so I can finish it quicker.’
‘What’s the rush? I think I can manage to let you go once a week despite the inconvenience, but twice a week? That’s too much and it’s not fair on Lucy or Arjun to have to pick up the slack. You don’t need a master’s degree in Law to perform your paralegal duties. I’ll email you later with the confirmation.’
With that, she began typing on her computer, signalling the end of the conversation and my cue to leave her space.
I turned around and left, my legs unsteady and my insides simmering with a quiet fury. Did she really say I couldn’t do it full-time in case she needed me to photocopy? Angry tears burned at the back of my eyes and I blinked them away, determined not to let her see how much she had upset me. She didn’t even say that she would think about it.
‘What happened to women supporting women?’ I asked Fareena in therapy later that day. ‘What happened to sisterhood? Uplifting each other? I didn’t ask for any time off! I’ll still be working what I’m contracted to do. Why is she being like this? Why does she hate me so much?’
‘It’s not about you,’ Fareena said calmly. ‘I doubt she hates you. Sheila’s projecting her own issues onto you. The question isn’t why is she being like this, it’s how are you going to navigate the hurdle?’
‘What can I do? She’s said it now. She’s ruining my entire future.’
‘Let’s figure out all your options,’ Fareena said. ‘What can you do besides accept it?’
I thought for a moment. ‘I could speak to HR, but then she’ll make my life more difficult. I don’t think I could bear that.’
‘What else? What other options are there?’
I sat silent for a minute as I pondered the alternatives. ‘I could resign,’ I said after a moment. ‘I could apply for a part-time role somewhere else and then resign. Or apply for a full-time job somewhere that’s more flexible.’
‘How would working part-time impact you?’
‘Not much, to be honest,’ I shrugged. ‘I don’t have rent or anything to worry about and I have loads of savings. In fact, it would probably be better for me as it would give me more time to study properly.’
‘Is it an option to work part-time at your current place?’
‘I’m not sure, I guess I could find out. But I can’t bring myself to speak to Sheila again. Last time was torture.’
‘You could always email her instead, so you will have a paper trail and everything documented properly. That way, she’ll have to be careful in how she responds as well.’
Fareena and I moved on to talking about Noah’s message until the hour was up. She made me think about why I hadn’t replied to him yet, having spent days waiting for his response. She asked me what I was afraid of. He was someone I had already met before and had connected with. He had shown interest in me then and was still showing interest in me now. Why was I still afraid?
‘I guess I’m scared that he won’t like me if we spend longer than half an hour together,’ I admitted at last, picking at the skin around my fingernails. ‘I’ve thought about him so much over the past nine months or so and it could have all been for nothing.’
‘Why would it be so bad if you met and didn’t connect in the same way?’ Fareena asked. ‘Fear of rejection can stand in the way of so many wonderful opportunities, relationships and connections in life. You won’t know which way it will go unless you do it. And if it doesn’t go well, at least you’ll know. And I’ll be here to help you process your emotions afterwards. We’ll do it together.’
With Fareena’s words echoing in my ears, I decided to reply to Noah while waiting on the train platform:
MAYA: Hey Noah, sure, coffee sounds good. How’s Thursday after work? I’m in north London but I work in west London, so anywhere in-between works for me.
The rest of the Tube journey was excruciating. Every time I got a patch of Wi-Fi, I checked my phone to see if there was a response. In the end, I took out his notebook and thumbed through the pages; all his little scribbles accompanying the items on the list and my doodles and notes beneath his. His messy scrawl next to my neat print. How could I give him back his notebook now that it was full of my own drama? Under ‘1. APPLY FOR A PHYSIO COURSE’ I had written, No thanks .?.?. I’m gonna do something relevant to ME. LLM? SQE? SQE too hard esp as haven’t studied in a while. Research MAs, find the easiest one that isn’t at a shit uni. Look for funding opps.
It wasn’t too incriminating, but it wasn’t something I would want Noah to read. I turned to the next page and read what I had written under ‘READ ULYSSES’. What a load of effin’ BS. Can’t believe I wasted so much of my life on this overrated piece of shit. That bloody Noah is a pretentious git. Probably wants to use the fact that he’s read this tome as a chat-up line. Ouch. No. I definitely couldn’t give it back to him, not unless I Tipp-Exed the whole lot.
Now that I had arranged a date, as per the list’s requirements, I moved on to number twenty. Noah had written ‘Donate ￡500 to charity’. Next to it was a giant tick and, ‘Done. Donated to Save the Children. Hope they don’t add me to their mailing list though.’ OK, that was easy enough. I wondered if I needed to do this. As Muslims, we are required to donate 2.5 per cent of our wealth every year to charity, which is called Zakat. I usually did it every Ramadan and the amount increased every year, since my savings tended to grow every year.
I decided that donating extra money could only be a good thing. Since I’d already given to Islamic Relief and Cancer Research when I did the trek and the run, I would donate to each of them again as soon as I had access to Wi-Fi.
I liked how Noah had charity on the list and not just poncy stuff to improve his own life and clout. Only good, kind people bothered to give to charity, so he must be both. I shut out the voice in my head reminding me that Zakariya didn’t just donate to charity, he volunteered as well.
Number twenty-one, however, wasn’t as simple:
21.GET A TATTOO
Bloody hurt more than I thought.
That’s all he had to say about it. There were no descriptions of where it was, what it looked like or which artist had done it for him. How was I supposed to get a tattoo? Ma would kill me, no doubt about it. I could get it somewhere she wasn’t likely to see, but even if she couldn’t see it, God could. As far as I knew, any sort of permanent alteration to our bodies technically wasn’t allowed in Islam, unless it was for medical reasons. With a sigh, I closed the notebook and stood up as Turnpike Lane approached. I could either defy God and my mum in order to stick to the list, or I could alter it and make it more Muslim/Bengali/Ma friendly.
While I was walking home, enjoying the fact that sunset was getting later and later, my phone buzzed. Hurriedly pulling it out of my bag, I saw a message from Noah.
NOAH: Thursday is perfect and guess what – I also live in north! Whereabouts are you?
Smiling, I typed out a quick response:
MAYA: Turnpike Lane. Not the most glamorous location but I like the kebab shops.
NOAH: Oooh kebab, stop talking dirty to me! I’m not far from you, a little further north in Southgate. Anywhere in particular you want to meet?
MAYA: Will coffee in Crouch End work?
NOAH: Done. 6 p.m.?
MAYA: Assuming I get out of work at 5, yes. But my boss is a nightmare. Shall we make it 6.30 to be on the safe side?
NOAH: It’s OK, I don’t mind waiting for a good thing. I’ll be there at 6 – see you in front of the clocktower x.
Staring at the little kiss at the end of the message, I couldn’t stop my smile spreading into a huge grin. I was finally seeing Noah again! OK, he didn’t seem to remember me from our Tube encounter, but that was fine. To be fair, I did look completely different. And he wasn’t the one who had been perusing my notebook for almost a year either. If he had, the memory of our meeting wouldn’t have faded so quickly.
Putting my phone back into my bag, I started down Turnpike Lane and towards my house with a silly smile still on my face. I would have to ask Lucy to help me come up with the perfect casual date outfit. As I continued down the main road lined with shops on either side, going through all the items in my wardrobe one by one, I spotted a familiar car drive past. It looked like Malik’s Beemer, but as I lifted my arm to wave at my brother, I thought I saw a mane of either light brown or possibly blonde hair in the passenger seat. I hurriedly dropped my hand and watched the car disappear down the street.
Malik arrived home an hour or so after me and I grabbed hold of him when he came upstairs, before he could lock himself in the bathroom for an hour and yanked him into my room.
‘Malik! I saw you on TPL with your girlfriend!’ I whispered as he stumbled into my room, holding onto the door frame to stop himself from falling over.
‘W-what?’ he stammered, visibly paling before my eyes. ‘What did you see?’
If Malik had turned white, I’m certain I turned green at the thought of him doing something he didn’t want me to see.
‘Ew, why would you get up to no good on your doorstep? If you don’t want people you know to see you with a girl, you shouldn’t be driving down the ends with her!’
‘I was dropping her home,’ he mumbled, edging away from me. ‘It’s not a big deal.’
‘What’s going on with her then? Have you sorted out your issues?’
‘Dimple, do you mind?’ he snapped, in a way that suggested that they hadn’t sorted anything out. ‘I just got home, I need a shower and I don’t fancy being interrogated right now!’
With that, my brother stomped into his room and slammed the door behind him, leaving me baffled on the other side.