IT’S 8:00 P.M. AND I’M IN A BATHROOM STALL ON THE fiftieth floor of the IDS Center building, wriggling into a pair of pantyhose. Grogan’s pull-out-all-the-stops cocktail reception to celebrate the acquisition of Air Trek is about to begin.
The main bathroom door squeaks open. The scent of Melanie’s Chanel No. 5 announces her entrance.
“Toni? Are you ready? Per just arrived!”
“Coming!” I shimmy my red Alaïa bandage dress down over the hose and reach behind my neck to tuck the tag into my bra strap. The dress goes back to Nordstrom next week, along with the Manolo Blahnik black pumps I slip onto my feet. I don’t trust any item of clothing I own to give me the confidence I need to exude tonight, and thanks to my brand-new six-figure debt, I’m without a wardrobe budget for the foreseeable future.
I open the stall door to see Melanie in front of the bathroom mirror, searching her own face for anything that needs fixing. Nothing does. She’s everything I want to be someday: brilliant, respected, gloriously single; her outfit—ivory silk blouse, black velvet palazzo pants, stilettos—perfectly balanced between professional and goddess. Even her skin looks expensive.
A career like Melanie’s, filled with mundane rules and regulations, might look like a yawn from the outside. But I see something else when I watch her: Control. Certainty. A haven from the dreams that still shake me from my sleep. The one where I’m reaching for my mother to pick me up, but she floats away, carried into the night sky by giant wooden clothespins while dust glitters all around. The one where she feeds me sour cabbage from a green plastic spoon with a metal handle; I want her to stop, I hate it, but she shoves more into my mouth, and more, until I wake in a sweat, gagging on nothing, tears running down my cheeks.
No. Melanie’s work is a pathway to mastery, filled with handholds and footholds I can use to climb even further away from the little girl I used to be, the one who still invades my nightmares, even two languages, twenty years, and ten thousand miles later. And away from Thebes, where every twist and turn of King family drama rises to epic reality-television levels of intrigue among the locals.
Half the town blamed me and Paul for what happened to Eddie after he brought us back from Bosnia. The stress of raising those foreign orphans alone was too much for that poor injured man, they whispered to each other when they saw us with Christopher and Evelyn at church. We heard. We knew. And sometimes—okay, most of the time—I blamed myself. Why didn’t I get to the phone when Eddie collapsed instead of hiding under the sofa? Even now, although my rational mind understands that I was only four years old, I still wonder: If I hadn’t been Andela, that terrified orphan from a world away, if I had been a proper little American girl, would I have made the call to 911 and saved Eddie’s life?
Minneapolis is awfully close to Thebes. However, standing next to Melanie Dwyer in front of the perfectly lit mirror in the perfectly lit ladies’ bathroom, I know I made the right decision. The Cities might be only a three-hour drive from my childhood home, but Melanie’s hushed power makes it all feel worlds away.
She appraises me, her new protégée.
“Just one thing.” She pulls a lipstick out of her clutch and passes it my way. Chanel again. Rouge Allure. The woman is brand loyal.
The red is the precise color of my dress and sets off my black hair and eyes. It’s like adding a sword to a suit of armor.
Melanie puts an arm over my shoulders and leans into the mirror.
“We are a formidable team tonight,” she says.
I want to believe that she’s right. I want to feel rooms stir when the two of us walk in looking impeccable and fierce. Because Melanie promised this will lead to everything I’ve been working for.
Enormous arrangements of creamy calla lilies and purple-blue hydrangeas reign over the two bars in the main hall. Dom Pérignon is flowing, and a jazz trio swings out Basie tunes—all Olufsen’s favorites, according to my pre-party research. First-year associates: we do whatever we can to stand out. Even event planning if that’s what it takes.
Melanie is immediately swept away by the other partners at Grogan, leaving me to gaze around the hall, alight with chandeliers above and tea lights on every cocktail table. The wide bank of windows across from me showcases Minneapolis under a twilit sky, with St. Paul right across the Mississippi River.
Look where I am, I say in my head to my uncle. Shouldn’t you be proud of me?
Shouldn’t he brag to his cronies about the little girl he rescued twice—once from certain death on the other side of the world and a second time from the loss of his own brother on the other side of town? Isn’t it a feather in his cap that the little girl made it from Sarajevo to Thebes and all the way to Harvard under his tutelage?
I get only his disappointment. His sense of my betrayal.
Then there’s Paul.
My brother didn’t have to say the word sellout aloud for me to hear it ricochet between us during our last call. When I told him about my new job, I could feel his judgment crawl through the phone and onto my skin.
“You have lots of options, Toni. What happened to politics? Are you just stuck on making money?”
“Would you rather I came back there to defend the right of King Family Construction to blow up any piece of land in northern Minnesota to build a Starbucks? Because that was my other option, Paul. And anyhow, with money comes influence. You can protest all you want, but do it without influence and you’re nowhere.”
When Paul dropped out after his junior year of high school, he hit the road, dumpster-diving his way across the Midwest, from one antiwar protest to the next, leaving me behind to shoulder the brunt of Christopher’s disappointment. I became a stand-in for my brother’s failure to live up to our uncle’s dreams. And in retaliation, I became anti-Paul. I deleted his emails imploring me to learn more about Islam or the Bosnian genocide and the destruction of our people. Ripped up the letters he sent without reading them.
And when I got myself out three years later, the only student from Mt. Olympus High School ever to apply to Harvard, let alone receive admission, what did Paul do? He came back to Thebes. Not right away, but soon after I’d made the decision to stay in Cambridge for law school. And not to our uncle’s house, but to live in the area of town where a small group of Somali refugees had recently settled.
Christopher was in negotiations with the county to declare eminent domain over the four-block Somali section that included Paul’s building. My brother threw himself right in the middle.
Thousands of Somalis had been coming to the Twin Cities for a few years. Minnesota’s immigration laws were friendly, and the social service network for refugees had been around for decades. Since, well, Bosnians. Maybe even before. But not in northwestern towns like Thebes—I never even met a Black person until I left for college.
Paul was repurposing his activism on home soil. While I agreed with him in theory, I couldn’t in practice. Thebes was Thebes. Xenophobic. Racist. Small-minded and proud of it. My brother was expending all his energy for social change on four blocks in a tiny town where our uncle was royalty and called all the shots.
Why? I kept asking Paul. We were on speaking terms again by then; however, our life choices had taken us in such different directions that it was hard to find our way back. Our phone calls became terse as we rehashed the same exhausting fight over and over again.
Him: “You forget where you come from.”
Me: “Oh, I know where I come from. The Kings gave us our actual American lives, by the way, not our fake oppressed lives that you’re appropriating to make yourself seem like a man of the people. Take what you’ve been given, Paul, and do something with it!”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing, Andela.”
He knows that my given name is both nails on a chalkboard and my weakness when it comes to him. Yet, as annoying and self-righteous as he’s become, I’ll do anything for him, even if I can’t bring myself to tell him so.
He’s also the only one who knows about my nightmares. I’ve cultivated my stance for years—Antonia King, cool as a cucumber, smart as a whip, every cliché of unflappability ever written. My dreams, my night sweats, they don’t match. Paul helps. When I see my brother’s thick mess of brown hair, the shadows under his brown eyes that never quite fade, I can imagine our parents, once upon a time and long ago. I used to ask: Did I look more like our mother, or did he? (You did, said Paul.) Did our father tell us stories all the time or only before bed? (At bedtime, said Paul.) I remember nothing without my brother to remember it for me.
I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t confess that his disapproval strikes a chord. Fancy corporate law, glittering evenings like this—what am I doing here? Maybe he’s right. Maybe Christopher is too. I could have chosen Washington, or I could have chosen family. And I chose neither. Have I lost my way?
Who is Antonia King? Per’s question echoes in my mind. Ask my uncle, and he’ll say: family betrayer. Ask my brother, and he’ll say: corporate tool.
After a quick glance around the room to make sure Melanie isn’t watching, I pick up a crystal flute of Dom from the bar near the entrance and down it in a few fast gulps.
Two years, I remind myself. Maybe three. Then Washington. Working on behalf of the ideals I hold: Justice. Truth. I know what I want, I do.
The banquet hall glows with women in their cocktail finery: a parade of updos, of flawless makeup, of intricately draped and beaded dresses, all the result of hours of labor. The men wear the same kind of suits I see each day, with just a pocket square and a fancy tie marking the difference between work and play.
“Looking the part is how we have to play the game,” Melanie said when she approved my outfit for tonight. “No missteps allowed.”
Melanie. That’s the image that wipes my mental slate clean. She is my goal, my mantra. Be Melanie. I close my eyes. The sounds of “Take the A Train” and the clinking of expensive crystal hum beneath the mounting party chatter.
Fuck Thebes. And fuck our past. Paul can have them both.
“Does the lady need a refill?”
Per Olufsen holds a new flute of bubbly before me and places his other hand on my back. I allow him to double-cheek kiss me and leave his hand where it rests.
“Toni, I need you. Melanie assures me that you’ll help me keep track of all the Twin City doyennes and—oh, whatever the men are called—to whom I promise anything tonight.”
“Absolutely.” Relief. I’m better when I have a task. And a second glass of champagne.
Tonight is both a celebration of Air Trek Industries’ future in Minneapolis and a debutante ball for Per himself. Executives from every major business operating in the Cities are here, as well as trustees of every cultural institution. I stand by his side while the fancy people press up against each other in their eagerness to shake his hand. When I sense him losing interest in the parade of new subjects, I steer him to a quiet corner. Per and I sit close together at a tiny cocktail table, knees touching lightly but never more than what could be construed as accidental. I’ve calibrated the line between “tolerable” and “no” with precision. We’ll remain on the correct side of proper. My experience with James Hollings taught me never to cross that line again. The only men allowed in my bed now are men I can send away when it’s done. No baggage, no questions.
A young cater-waiter in an ill-fitting tux stops by with his silver tray: glistening orange caviar on toast. Roe imported from Per’s native Scandinavia. At last, I can sample the menu that my new employer chose to convince the man across from me that Minneapolis is world-class, and Air Trek belongs. Silky, briny eggs that taste like oceans and luxury. I reach for another, but Per dismisses the waiter with a slight wave of his hand.
“Not hungry?” I ask.
He throws his sun-god smile. “I hate caviar. But don’t tell anyone—it’s too far off-brand.”
“Attorney-client privilege extends to food.”
“Ah, I knew I hired well. Next time, let’s wear disguises and you can take me out for some true local fare.”
“Two Juicy Lucys coming right up!”
He raises an eyebrow.
“Folks here take credit for inventing cheese stuffed inside of burgers instead of melted on top,” I say. “Honestly, it’s so good that way. I couldn’t find a Boston burger that didn’t taste dry as dirt.”
He laughs—a real laugh this time, not a cocktail-party laugh.
I feel loose, sparkly. The star of this show approves of me. “If you want to sample real Minnesota food, come up north for potluck supper at my uncle’s church. Hot dish for days. The people here might look fancy, but we all love our frozen tater tots.”
“Up north. That’s Thebes, right?”
“You remember.”
“You’re quite memorable. Your uncle is a churchgoer? May I ask, was that ever . . . a conflict? With your history?”
My usual cue to shift the subject. But Per asks so gently. No judgment, just curiosity. With a hint of concern that feels almost fatherly.
“Christopher was president of the board at Northern Baptist. Probably still is. So church was important to him and Evelyn. It was their way. The King family name means something in a town as small as Thebes. My brother and I were under their protection; nobody dared question our religious roots.”
“Did you?” Again, that intense gaze, as if I’m the most interesting person on the planet.
I take another sip of champagne. A performance of my secular tastes, I suppose. Honed in teenaged opposition to my brother’s path. Solidified as I traveled further down my own. “My first people were destroyed because of religion. My parents converted to hide, not to believe—and it didn’t work. I prefer being nothing from nowhere. I’m sorry if that offends.”
“You can’t offend me.”
He’s safe. A force field, keeping the partygoers in the room—and the demons in my head—at bay.
“Paul and I were the only kids from another country in school and in church. Christopher’s money and prominence kept people from saying stuff to our faces—but we knew the difference between the smiles for our cute blond cousins and what we got. My brother was always curious about Muslim culture because of our ancestors. Now he identifies with the community of Somali refugees in Thebes, even though they’re from such a different place. Maybe he wants to re-create something we never had.”
Per is nodding. “That would explain a lot.”
I’m a little soft from the champagne and the attention, but I’m not sure what he thinks I’m explaining. Have I told him even more about my family than I intended?
Melanie materializes at our table. I sit up straight, blink myself back to attention.
“Is my new associate taking good care of you, Per?” She’s checking me, reminding me about the new part.
“And how!” He’s relaxed, his expression unchanged. Your secrets are safe with me. His pledge over coffee at the Four Seasons holds.
Melanie catches my eye, signals her approval. Good. She plans to make Grogan lots and lots of beautiful money with Per as our client, and she needs to see that I’m fully on board to help. Okay, my brother isn’t totally off base. But what else can I do now? Christopher cut us both off when we defied his wishes. I will scrimp and save and return all my clothes and tithe my entire salary at Grogan to pay back my uncle, but I will not end up in poverty like Paul. I will earn my way to the places where all the real decisions are made about justice in the world. And I refuse to be ashamed.
________
At the end of the party, Melanie and I escort Per to the elevators with more double-cheek kisses and promises to start working on behalf of our new number-one account in the morning. Per leans over to Melanie and says, “You know what the first order of business is.”
Melanie nods.
“And you’ll tell her what we need?” he continues, angling his head my way.
“Trust me,” says Melanie, “she’s exactly what you’ve been looking for.”
I’m still feeling the champagne, but not enough that I don’t pick up on my cue.
“Per,” I say in my Harvard Law School voice, “thank you for the opportunity. You won’t regret it. I’ll do whatever it takes.” I will, even though I don’t know what they’re talking about.
He takes my hand in both of his, squeezes it in appreciation.
“You know, tomorrow is the summer solstice,” he says. “I think this evening marks an auspicious beginning to the turn of the season.”
A gentle chime. The elevator doors slide open.
“I’ll see you down,” says Melanie. “Toni, we’ll talk in the morning.”
I watch the doors close and wait for the indicator light to show that they’ve really left.
Done. Success. Relief.
I turn back to the remains of the party, teetering slightly in my “borrowed” heels. I’ll have a whopping couple of blisters to bandage up when I go running tomorrow, but it will have been worth it.
Most everyone has left, gone out into the beautiful June night. Only the staff and a few stragglers remain. My final job is making sure the cleanup goes smoothly, but there’s nothing to do other than wait around. I wander over to the floor-to-ceiling bank of windows, giving myself over to the champagne buzz in my head and the thrill of the view from fifty stories up. The twinkling lights of the buildings on either side of the Mississippi double themselves in the mirror of the river and the glow of the sky.
I let the scenery blur and focus instead on my own dim reflection in the glass, backlit by the chandeliers. A coil of hair has escaped from my chignon and snakes around my neck. I twirl the long, loose pieces around my fingers.
The sweet scent of baby shampoo wafts up from the recesses of my memory. The warmth of the bath towel Paul would wrap around my newly washed hair when I was done in the tub. Our first few years here, I didn’t let anyone other than Paul or baby Izzy touch me. I stiffened whenever Aunt Evelyn made a move in my direction and ran away when Uncle Christopher tried to display any paternal sentiment.
An old-time riverboat, ablaze with lights, floats into view. A tourist attraction during the months that the Mississippi isn’t clogged with ice floes. Back at Mt. Olympus High School, they made us study everything white settlers wrote about the Mississippi River, but nothing from the thousands of years of native history that came before. When my brother spray-painted What about the Ojibwa? What about the Dakota? across the concrete front wall of Mt. O, I was sure he’d get suspended, and of course, he did. Today he’s wasting all that freedom-fighting energy on one tiny group of refugees in one tiny town. Why is he even there? He could come here, where thousands of Somali immigrants live and where actual services exist for resettlement. And people who care, not just hostile old locals who will never change.
My feet are throbbing now. I kick off my pumps and pad in my stockinged feet over to the nearby bar. After a quick glance at the post-party stragglers to make certain none of them are Grogan partners, I grab a leftover bottle of Dom that bobs, alone, in a bucket of melting ice.
Congratulations to me.