Chapter 5

Text exchange — Aleena Silva & her sister Preethi, 11:54 P.M-12:10 A.M.

Preethi: how was the second date

Aleena: she talked about racial capitalism for twenty minutes and I genuinely wanted her to keep going

Preethi: oh no

Aleena: what

Preethi: you really like her

Aleena: yes. but also sometimes she gets this look. like she’s composing a letter to someone she hasn’t met yet.

Preethi: Aleena

Aleena: I know

Preethi: do you want to talk about it

Aleena: no. I’m going on a third date with her anyway. goodnight.

***

I had tried telling Aleena I didn’t need breakfast, but she insisted I ate something before I left. As hurriedly as I could, I’d downed strawberries and cream-cheese-cinnamon-swirl pancakes. Then, as soon as I put my heels back on, she kissed me and promised to see me next week. I lingered for a second and breathed in the cinnamon-nutmeg smell of her kitchen like it was a heady perfume.

“Your Uber is here,” Aleena added and swatted me away.

My opinion of her hadn’t changed since last night. I was grateful she had let me sleepover and made me breakfast. But it seemed she felt we were closer than in reality. At least today, I didn’t have the heart to tell her we shouldn’t go on another date.

It took the driver thirty minutes to get to Bloom Press. The Sunday traffic was particularly bad in New York city. But I was still grateful—it would have been a much, much longer commute from my house outside the city. 

There hadn’t been any time to brush my hair or wash last night’s smeared makeup off. I hoped Jazmine hadn’t come in today. She would assume I had gotten laid and then the whole office would know by Tuesday. By Friday, I’d still have people asking me how good the sex was. A women-only company had its ups and downs.

I unlocked the glass doors with a code and slipped inside. The place seemed deserted.

It was a beautiful publishing house. I noticed new details every day I worked here. Layli had explained that Roman wanted everyone to feel comfortable in the work environment. It was decorated with a maximalist sort of aesthetic. Ornate designs trimmed the floors and ceiling. An entire wall was dedicated to crawling ivy. The chairs and the desks were all different and all colourful. Rugs littered the floor like patchwork. Plants crept out from office doors and climbed up the legs of the tables. Apparently Roman had commissioned several artists to work in tandem and design the space—Indigenous artists, South Asian artists, West and East African artists. Even the domed ceiling was painted with talent rivalling the Sistine Chapel. There were definitely perks to being ethically wealthy.

“Hello?” I called out. “Anyone in?”

The art made it feel like an altar of worship, where only silent prayers and gifts were welcome. Speaking felt like disturbing the divine peace.

It was almost nine a.m. Maybe it was a slow Sunday morning for everyone. Or maybe everyone had collectively taken today off and decided not to tell me. 

Roman allowed us a four-day work schedule and three-day rest. That meant we only had to come into the office four days of the week. Whichever four days that happened to be was up to us. I had expected at least one person to be here on Sunday, though. Was this the Lord’s holy day for my coworkers or something? I hadn’t pegged any of them as religious. 

All I had to do was grab my notes and leave. I’d forgotten them here on Friday and I needed them to get the latest round of manuscript editing done tomorrow. That meant I was going to reread them tonight to refresh myself. I hadn’t taken Jazmine’s warnings about the assistant editor curse lightly. I needed to be prepared for when Roman returned.

Her three-week book signing deal in Nepal had stretched into four weeks. I couldn’t believe I had worked at Bloom for almost a month without Roman ever seeing me. 

Somehow the carnival night felt like yesterday and a thousand years ago. Or maybe it had never happened at all and I had hallucinated it because of my dangerously intense crush on Roman. 

I padded softly past the desks and chairs, stepping over handmade carpets and rugs until I reached my office. I had left it unlocked. When I opened the door, everything was exactly how it had been. 

The morning sun burned my back through the window as I shuffled through pages of my handwritten notes to find the right ones. My own messiness had betrayed me. I couldn’t find anything. My searching grew more and more frenzied. 

I was so distracted I didn’t notice someone standing at my door until they spoke. 

“What are you doing here?” The tone was hard and accusatory.

I looked up. Roman Alvarez was standing in my doorway in all her beautiful glory. Her braids were different than I’d last seen them: almost to her waist and curled at the ends into little spirals. She wore a low-cut, pink, sequined top (DO NOT LOOK DOWN, I warned myself), a lacy, frilly, maxi skirt, several gold and beaded waist chains, and—fuzzy, bunny-shaped slippers? 

And she was wielding a giant paperweight like a sword.

“What?” It was possible I was having a premature heart attack. My heartbeat was not so much beating as spasming in my chest. “Roman? I mean—Miss Alvarez—I mean CEO Alvarez—” 

She looked so outrageously beautiful. The rays of sunlight glowed golden on her dark brown skin. I was having a hard time breathing. It occurred to me that it looked like I had been caught red-handed, erratically rummaging in a Bloom office like a thief. With my disheveled hair and streaky makeup and wine-stained dress, I probably looked like some kind of desperate, hardened criminal.

“What,” Roman repeated, brandishing the paperweight anew, “are you doing here?” 

“I’m—I know how this looks—I can explain—” 

“You have ten seconds to leave before I call the police.” Roman’s hand seemed to be shaking slightly. She noticed me looking and barked, “Five seconds.”

“Hear me out, please! This isn’t what you think—”

“I don’t know what kind of crazy things go on in your crazy stalker mind, but I want you out of my building now! Have you been stalking me since that night of the carnival?”

“Wait, what? You remember me from the carnival?” 

“Yes, well, how could I ever forget a face like yours?” Roman demanded. “Have you been stalking me since then? Yes or no?” Horror dawned on her face. “Have you been stalking me since before then? Was the carnival thing a trick to get me to talk to you? Did you plant a tracking device on me when you bumped into me? I’ve had stalkers before and I know how you people work!”

How could I forget a face like yours? Was that a good thing or a bad thing? 

“First of all,” I said, my cheeks growing hot. “By stalking, if you mean being interviewed by your recruiter Eva for a job as your assistant editor, then yes, I’ve been stalking you. And if I was a crazy stalker and I’d planted a tracking device on you, then I would have followed you to Nepal instead of waiting for a month for you to come back! But the only reason I even know you went to Nepal is because Layli and Iseul told me that, because I work here as your assistant editor!” 

I had started yelling at her as loudly as she had been yelling at me. Both our faces were flushed. Roman slowly lowered the makeshift weapon.

“You? You’re my assistant editor? Then the carnival was—” 

“A crazy coincidence! Believe me, I know! I’ve been thinking about you for weeks!” I had meant to say it, not you. I hoped she didn’t catch that. “Besides, all your four past stalkers were neo-Nazis! Do I look like a neo-Nazi to you? Because you can tell me honestly. Come on, do I look like a rednecked, white supremacist, swastika-tattooed, small-dicked evil little white man?” 

“The fact that you know who my past four stalkers are does not make for good evidence that you aren’t a stalker,” Roman said, but she didn’t move to attack me with the paperweight.

A beat passed in tense silence. I was breathing like I had run a marathon.

“I’m your new assistant editor,” I finally decided to say. “Kaalia Amoretta.” Hadn’t someone told me she’d read my CV personally and been impressed? I was going to strangle that liar.

“Kaalia Amoretta,” Roman repeated. “What was your experience again?”

“PhD from Yale.” This was progress. We were no longer yelling. But the tension felt fragile enough it could shatter with a bobby pin. “I’ve written a few things here and there. My dissertation was about literary reparations. Antiracism, decolonial justice, and the question of restitution in contemporary global Anglophone fiction.” 

“You.” Roman’s eyes lit up. “Yes, I remember you. You were the one who—” 

I didn’t want to hear her say it. I didn’t want it to be spoken out loud ever again. “Is this how you treat all your new employees?” I interrupted.

Roman glared at me. Even her glare was beautiful. “No, just the ones who creep into the office before nine a.m. on a Sunday morning when I know nobody is supposed to be here except me, and scrounge through desk shelves like an evil, haggard little criminal.” 

“Haggard? Is that because of my makeup and hair? Because I’ll have you know—” 

“For that matter, why does your makeup and hair look like that? Did something happen to you on your way here?” 

“No, and you shouldn’t even be asking that because it’s none of your business what I do on my time off!” I couldn’t believe I had the nerve to talk to Roman Alvarez like this. Some evil bratty spirit had possessed me. I was going to go home and scream into pillow and regret everything I was saying—I could see it in my future clearly. I added, “I had a date last night. Just so you know. But I could sleepover at the apartments of every single woman I go on a date with ever and catch a million STDs and it still wouldn’t be your business!” 

Something in Roman’s gaze flickered. Her jaw hardened. “You’re right. I don’t want to know your business. But if you did have an STD, that might affect your ability to work.”

“Oh, threatening to fire me on the first day you get back? Well, fuck you, I quit!” 

Did I just say that? Had I actually told the CEO of Bloom Press I quit? She hadn’t even sounded threatening—she’d sounded concerned.

I was too furious to back down. I shoved all my notes into my purse, crumpling them in the process, and began packing up the few things I’d set out on my desk. Pencils. Reminder sticky notes. A picture frame of my sister when she was two. I didn’t think I’d gotten everything before I marched away, but that was a problem for later. I shoved past Roman. 

Her fingers caught mine. She held me with a deceptively powerful grip, although it was still paradoxically as soft and gentle as it had been that night at the carnival. 

“Wait,” Roman said. “I’m sorry, Kaalia.”

I turned around. 

“I shouldn’t have treated you like a criminal,” she continued. “And I’m sorry I threatened to fire you. I have a bit of a temper sometimes.” 

I pursed my lips together but admitted, “I do too.” 

“I remember your CV. You were a hell of a candidate. I want you on my team.” Her grip slackened. Letting me choose. “Please stay.” 

My soul left my body yet again and I watched from above as I took Roman’s hand more firmly in mine and laced our fingers together. My voice was so quiet I could barely hear myself, but I knew from the way I felt myself looking at Roman what my answer would be. It seemed she did too. She was smiling before I even spoke.

“Okay,” I said.

“And please let me take you to lunch on Tuesday, as a formal apology for today.” 

Our fingers were still laced together. Why were they still laced together? I couldn’t look away. Her eyes captured mine gently, firmly, beautiful and black and unknowable. Her full lips parted, leaving a sliver of space between them. I wondered what it would be like to kiss those lips, to slip my tongue into her mouth through that space and taste her. Really taste her. 

“Okay,” I repeated. It seemed I had lost all other vocabulary. 

“Put your things back in your office,” Roman whispered. It somehow sounded seductive. Maybe I was ovulating. “And go home and rest. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” 

She unlaced our fingers. I still couldn’t tear my eyes away from her lush, glossy mouth. 

“Okay,” I said, to my own astonishment. It seemed the evil spirit had finally backed off from arguing. 

Or it was so enamoured with Roman after ten minutes of speaking to her that it would bend heaven and earth to do whatever she wanted. 

Both options meant terrible things for me.

***

Hope everyone is having a lovely day <3

Love,
Meera