Queenie(57)

* * *



“Why do you keep walking past my office, Queenie? You’re putting me on edge. Come in, or go and do some work,” Gina said. Was today one of her good or bad days? I wondered.

“Sorry, it’s just that I wanted to ask you something.” I stepped into her office tentatively.

“You’re not getting a raise, not until you give me what I asked for,” she said, not looking away from her screen.

“No, it’s not that. It’s just—” I sat in the chair opposite her. “Well, you know I used to send you all of those pitches? It’s just that—well, two more black men were shot in America this week by police. And I know that it’s not here, though it does happen here, but—I was wondering if I could write something about it? It’s just that nobody is really reporting it. . . . It doesn’t have to be for the print edition, but maybe the blog, or—”

“The thing is, Queenie”—Gina closed her laptop—“I know what you’re saying, and I understand that it’s awful. So awful. And if I could let you all write about every terrible thing that happened, I would, but I’m beholden to the powers that be.”

“But surely the ‘powers that be’ can see that this is something that needs to be out there?”

“I just think that these matters are a little too, how should I put it? Radical for the Daily Read. I appreciate your being so proactive about writing, though. How about we get some of that passion into a pitch for the magazine that’s a bit more . . . palatable?” Gina opened her laptop and carried on typing.

“Well, I was thinking I could pitch something about how it would be great to see all the liberal white women who were tweeting fervently from the women’s march at a Black Lives Matter march?” I said.

“I beg your pardon?” Gina asked me.

“Well, all of these white women in the office seem to bleat about going to the women’s march, but I was at a Black Lives Matter march yesterday and I didn’t see anyone I recognized.”

“Bit of a combative attitude, don’t you think?” Gina asked, frowning. “Rework what you’re saying, and come along to the pitch meeting at four.”



* * *



“. . . so I just think that we could use that argument to shine more of a light on Black Lives Matter, and if we do this in the context of the women’s march, we make it more ‘palatable’ for our readers,” I said to the room, hoping that I’d managed to deliver my pitch and mask the fear in my voice with what I hoped was conviction.

“All that Black Lives Matter nonsense,” scoffed an older man I recognized from the review supplement. “All lives matter.”

“What?” I asked, blinking. I took a secret deep breath.

“What about the lives of Latinos, of Asians, the lives of—I’m white, does my life not matter?” he continued.

“I’m not . . . suggesting that the lives of other ethnic groups do not matter,” I explained, gobsmacked that I had to explain. “I don’t think that any part of Black Lives Matter even hints that other lives are disposable?”

“Well, when you put the lives of some and not all on a pedestal, what else are you doing?”

“It’s not putting black lives on a pedestal, I don’t even know what that means,” I said, my heart beating fast. “It’s saying that black lives, at this point, and historically, do not, and have not mattered, and that they should!” I looked first at Gina, then around the room to see if anyone was going to back me up. Instead, I was met with what I’d been trying to pretend hadn’t always been a room full of white not-quite-liberals whose opinions, like their money, had been inherited.



* * *



I left the meeting defeated, and feeling a lot more alone than I had when I’d walked in. “WE ARE ENOUGH,” I tried to remind myself as I walked back to my desk.





chapter


SEVENTEEN


AT THE SEXUAL health clinic, I filled the form in as usual, did a scan of the waiting room to check that nobody I knew was there as usual, went to sit in the corner by the window as usual. After an hour I was called in by a black girl who looked about five years younger than me and I answered the usual questions. This was not the activity in my life that I thought I would become most familiar with.

“So this isn’t your first time here?” she asked, tapping away.

“No, it’s not.”

“Okay. And what has brought you here today?”

“I had unprotected sex two weeks ago with a man who I think was from Japan, before you ask if he’s African. I’m sort of getting better at using condoms but just got, er, carried away,” I answered quietly.

“Okay. Do you have any symptoms? Itching, any unusual discharge?”

“None of the above.”

“Would you like to take a pregnancy test?” the nurse offered.

“No thanks, I have an IUD. I mean, I’ve been pregnant before,” I explained. “But I think that was because I was having regular sex. Just the STI test, please, and I’ll hope for the all-clear text in two weeks.” I laughed nervously. The nurse did not laugh with me.

When she’d finished poking about, she told me to put my clothes back on. Instead of letting me leave, she asked me to wait a second, and left the room. I got dressed and sat in the chair waiting for her to return, when a pair of white-blue eyes framed by a harsh gray bowl cut made their way into the room. Elspeth.