“Morning, sunshine,” Adele called from her kitchen like Snow White to her woodland friends. After leaving our home, I had stood on Clapham High Street, paralyzed by indecision. Kit called and called. This morning alone he called eight times. I couldn’t bring myself to answer. My body throbbed with the hurt of his betrayal. And a betrayal it was. A total dismissal of me. Confirmation that he never grasped the ache that lived inside. A fault line cracked in the ground separating us. I would always be inside, in the belly of this pain, encased within its walls. And Kit would always be outside it, unable—or unwilling—to comprehend.
I couldn’t bear to show up crying on my parents’ doorstep again, so I went to Adele’s instead. Since she was an international transfer, the Firm had paid for her accommodation in London. She was in a one-bedroom flat in a new-build in Aldgate. It was clean and modern, but soulless, without the constant damp and the creaking that maps every step of your upstairs neighbor. She had Adelified the place as much as possible, with monstera and palm plants dotted around the living space, acquisitions from Columbia Road Flower Market.
Kit Campbell, now:
Jade?
Please pick up.
Where are you?
Pick up now.
Stop mucking around.
Come home.
This isn’t fair.
You can’t just ignore me.
I flipped my phone over. Fiddled with the leaves of a small succulent sitting on the granite kitchen island and felt Del’s hand on my shoulder.
“She’s a cute plant, right?” Adele said.
“She is,” I mumbled.
“It’s a jade plant,” Adele said softly, handing me a coffee. My hand reached up to my shoulder and squeezed hers in appreciation.
“How are you feeling?”
My anxiety felt like it was on a spin cycle.
“Kinda like my life is falling apart,” I sighed.
“Your life isn’t falling apart. You’re just dating a cunt.”
I winced as she spoke. Adele’s words were like a blunt blade carving into my misery. She was a habitual oversimplifier, reducing the most complex mangrove of dilemmas into brief one-liners. Sometimes it was a refreshing perspective, like a cold towel on a fevered, overthinking head. Other times it was plain irritating.
“Look,” Adele carried on. “You know I’m all for being judgment free and ‘you-do-you’ and ‘love-is-love.’ But seriously, Jade. You HAVE to dump him. The man is an absolute shit-heel!”
“He hasn’t always been,” I sighed.
“Because you’ve never been tested before,” she concluded. She pulled apart the knobby end of the baguette on her kitchen counter and dragged it through the butter dish, taking a hearty mouthful of warm, salty carbs. “Anyone can love someone when they’re perfect.”
“Thanks, Del, I know I’m a mess.” I smiled wryly.
“That’s not what I meant. I meant that you couldn’t see his true colors until now because your relationship has never been under pressure like this before.”
“So what are you saying? That it’s all been a lie?” There was truth to her words: our relationship had been gratifying in its metronomic stability all these years. When did it all change? I wanted to hunt Josh down and abuse him for maiming what we had. There was, however, a small voice that asked whether all Josh did was expose the underbelly of who Kit had always been. Or rather, who I never truly was.
“Jade, don’t be like that, I’m not the enemy here.”
“There is no enemy, Del! No one’s the bad guy because that doesn’t help me, okay? It doesn’t help me to call him a shit-heel. Demonizing him doesn’t suddenly make me feel better. And infantilizing me doesn’t make me feel any less shit about how this has played out.”
I lifted my head to see Adele, mouth full of baguette and butter, bewildered by my gust of frustration.
“I’ve never been without him,” I whispered. “I don’t know who I am without him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t know who I was when I met him. Who knows who they are when they’re eighteen?”
“I still thought I was straight at eighteen,” Adele chortled.
“Precisely.”
“You’re not who you are because of him, J.” Adele’s body language softened, her tone compassionate.
“No, I am.” I fiddled with the strings on my pajama bottoms, wrapping them around my index finger. “My personality feels dependent on his.”
That was an understatement. My existence had turned on his axis, shape-shifting constantly, as I’d tried to make myself palatable to him. Adele’s face had contorted into the unmistakable picture of pity, which made me tingle with irritation.
Guilt’s sickly tentacles reached into my gut. Pins and needles flashed across my arms, thinking about how self-conscious I’d been of my parents’ house. The home that anchored them to this country, bartered for with cash squirreled under mattresses. So much bounty squashed into fifty square meters. Our appliances sang with Samsung’s jingle, an Ottoman tapestry hung on the wall, and a panel adorned in ancient Korean calligraphy divided the living room. Every summer, Baba would procure apricots, aubergines, chili peppers, and figs, string them up using a needle and thick thread, and hang them around the house like bunting. Kit had said it looked like a market and that it was small but mighty in culture. At the time, I took it as a compliment. But now I wondered if it was just a way to belittle us. I cringed at how much I let him define my attributes. In our early days, he read my essays and told me they were eloquent and original, that he was impressed. He’d say it with a secretive smile and the task of deciphering his posturing used to be fun. It made me feel like he saw potential in me where no one else had. From the moment he made sure Kyriakos read my essay, the undertone to our interactions was that he saw the person I could be. That he could take credit for my place in the world. When I got my degree, he made a comment about the binder of essays he’d left on my doorstep. He insinuated that he had made me smarter, had polished my rough edges. Plucked me out and raised me up. In exchange, being with me made him interesting, nodded to his liberalism and alluded to his generosity. He used me to bolster his identity politics. The feather in his cap of virtuousness.
“I’ve spent so much of my adult life trying to be the type of girl he would be with. I don’t know who I really am, Del.”
“Yes, you do.” Adele straightened her back and smacked her hand on the counter. “Bitch, I love you! You’re so fucking great. You were not put on this world to be Kit’s girlfriend.” Adele was shaking me now, I felt like a bobblehead on a dashboard.
I smiled weakly.
“Okay, we need a game plan,” Adele said. “I’ve never been in a hetero relationship but I’m pretty sure this is how it goes.” She held up her hand and began ticking off the steps: “Boy is a dick, girl gets angry and leaves, boy leaves girl to stew for a little while, boy realizes girl isn’t going to cave, boy activates his groveling and begging tactic, girl forgives boy.”
I laughed.
“Sounds about right,” I said, “although I doubt Kit will grovel or beg.”
“You’re right.” She shrugged. “Instead, he’ll twist a situation to make you think you’re in the wrong.” Adele spotted my expression and continued before I had a chance to defend him. “Sorry, J, I saw him do it to you at that god-awful dinner party and I can’t hold my tongue anymore.”
My work phone pinged.
From Will Janson to Jade Kaya on March 9, 2019 at 10:05 am
RE: Project Arrow
Are you free for a quick buzz now?
Tks,
Will
“What do they want now?” Adele called.
“Will wants a call, about Arrow.”
“Obviously put him on speaker when you do speak to him.”
“I wouldn’t deprive you of a front seat to the global premiere of What Fresh Hell Jade Is In.”
As Will’s dial tone tolled, I felt a clammy chill cover my palms.
“William Janson.” His name was a statement in and of itself.
“Hi Will, it’s Jade, you asked me to call?”
“Ah yes. Hi Jade, sorry to bother you on a Saturday, but I thought it better to discuss these things over the phone.”
What things? Why don’t you want to put them in writing?
“Sure.”
“So, Jade, let me get straight into it. I really do appreciate your proactivity on this case, and it’s clear you’ve put a lot of hard work into it.”
“Thank you.”
The corners of Adele’s mouth turned south as she cocked her head back in confusion.
“The thing is, the management team has discussed, and we’re going to cycle you off Project Arrow, though we thank you for your commitment to the case thus far.”
I haven’t gone through my emails since last night. The final contract from Arrow must have come through.
“I understand, Will. I guess you’ve heard from Genevieve. It was an opportunity that was too good to pass up, I hope you understan—”
“I have,” Will interrupted me. “Heard from Genevieve, that is.”
There was dead air between us. I heard papers being moved in the background; he wasn’t even paying attention. Adele rolled her hand at me, indicating that I should prompt him.
“Sorry, I’m not sure I understand. I was offered an in-house role at Arrow, so I can’t work on the project with Reuben anymore…”
“I unfortunately can’t speak to that, Jade. This is a purely internal staffing decision, I have a responsibility to ensure my associates are getting diverse case experience, so we want to rotate the team.”
Adele shook her head no.
“The rotations happened three months ago, Will,” I pushed. “It was decided that I should be kept on the case.”
“Errr,” Will grumbled, irritation escalating. I was meant to say I understood and accepted it. “We’ve decided that you’re no longer… a right fit for the project.”
“Excuse me? Apart from you, I’m the only person who has been on the case consistently throughout. How could I not be a right fit for it?”
He paused. “This will be good for you, Jade, you can start to work on other matters now.”
“I’ve said no to all other work for nearly a year for Project Arrow. I’ve put ninety hours a week into this case for months. Please, could you provide a bit more explanation as to why I, as the only person with the relevant case experience to work on this matter, am being removed from it?”
There was a sharp intake of breath down the line. Adele and I were staring at the phone, willing him to say something soon.
“Jade, I’m going to level with you. I have every faith that you’ll land on your feet. But look, this, er, staffing decision has come from up top. Even I answer to the higher powers that be.”
“Sorry, Will,” I said, my voice wiry, “I’m still not sure I follow.”
Adele’s head was in her hands.
“Listen…” Will hesitated. “It’s an uncomfortable situation for everyone. This isn’t a call I would like to be making.”
“What do you mean by ‘everyone’?” I hated how shriveling—how rattled—I sounded. And I hated how Will was talking in code, scared to say the wrong thing.
“Whatever the goings-on were, on which I don’t wish to pass comment, it’s a tough spot. Josh is David’s nephew, after all.”
Adele, slowly, like a huge crane on London’s skyline, lifted her head. She closed her eyes, as if she wanted to shut this scene out, like one of the three wise monkeys: see no evil.
“Can I confirm,” I quietly said, “Josh Parsons is the Founding Partner’s nephew?”
“Ex-nephew, if that’s even a term, through David’s second wife. Or maybe his third? You know how it is,” Will said, his voice in a talk-whisper. “How hush-hush these things are kept.”
Of course. Of course. Of course. His brazen nonchalance. Him messaging me despite an ongoing HR investigation into him. The most token attempt at an investigation that allowed him to work from the comfort of his Suffolk home. That fucking hug at the Savoy. He’d always been confident that he was a protected species. But how was I supposed to know that? Would it have changed anything?
Yes. It would have changed everything.
I stared into Adele’s eyes, my edifice of strength.
“It’s a shame, truly,” Will continued. “I understand that Genevieve was a big fan of yours, though I didn’t know she was trying to poach you over to Arrow. She and David are close friends, after all. My advice to you, Jade, is to keep your head down. This will blow over. Soon all will be forgiven and you can start your second act.” What do I need to be forgiven for? “Sorry, I have to run. I’ve got to drive my five-year-old to ballet—my wife’s put me on babysitting duties this weekend. All the best.”