At first, Kemi was shocked. That wasn’t what Ingrid had sold her over the phone. She was supposed to be Jonny’s direct report. Somehow, Ingrid explained it all away.
“Well, he’s never here. Greta does his job for him anyway. You and I already have good chemistry. Jonny really doesn’t know what is going on.”
Kemi had glanced around the room as the other functional heads nodded in agreement with Ingrid. It was more efficient this way, their dispositions seemed to say. Her gaze settled on Espen, and he shrugged at her.
“It’s not a big deal,” the voice in her head—the one that had primed her into a nodding people-pleaser—pleaded. “You’re still getting twice your former pay and a senior-level position in one of the most powerful marketing firms in the world.” It seemed the world was currently going crazy over the Scandinavian touch—style, decor, lifestyle, fashion—so von Lundin Marketing was a solid investment. If she could pull them back from the ledge of a diversity faux pas, she would be lauded within the industry.
But still. Her gut said run. Her ego said stay.
After an unnecessarily meticulous presentation, they all piled out of the office and strolled three blocks down to a high-end sushi restaurant where all its waitstaff were white, and its chefs were Japanese people who didn’t speak a lick of Swedish.
Kemi felt exposed in her skin. She was used to being the sole Black woman in many rooms, but this place, this air floating around her, felt different. It was blown-up bubble gum, slowly shrinking in on her. Lunch was a mishmash of Swedish interspersed with silence as chopsticks were lifted to mouths. Occasionally, someone would remember she was there and ask her something in English.
“Really? You have two master’s degrees?” Greta asked as she gripped salmon sashimi with her chopsticks.
“Yes, I do.” Hadn’t Greta read her resume? Especially if they were going to be working closely?
Kemi launched into a more personal presentation of herself and her accomplishments while the group simply listened and nodded. Once she was done, it was to heavy silence and looks being thrown around. Espen dove in to end her misery.
“We’re lucky to have you,” he started. “We need smart women around here.”
The bleached-blond Brit, Ann Childers, flashed him a look. “Hey! Careful now,” she joked.
Kemi wasn’t sure Ann was being jovial. Kemi laughed uncomfortably. Ann muttered something quickly to Espen in Swedish, and Espen shook his head, hands clasped in some form of resignation. Kemi observed. She needed to learn Swedish—fast.
She tried making small talk. While polite, the group divulged only enough to answer her questions. Yes, some of them had two master’s degrees too. One even had a PhD. Kemi sank deeper into the angular chair she was sitting in, willing it to swallow her up. She’d bragged about her conversational Spanish, only to find out that Patrik Mölander was married to a Chilean woman and was fluent in Spanish and Portuguese. Everyone else around the table, even Ann, could speak another language fluently.
For the first time in her professional life, Kemi felt lacking. She had to pull out mental pom-poms to remind herself that she had been personally headhunted. They had flown across the Atlantic to poach her. She was excellent at her job. America had elevated her. Now she felt Sweden was trying to deflate her in some way.
After a long lunch, the group strolled languidly back to the office as if they’d dined on heavy steaks instead of light raw fish and rice. Espen hung back to keep Kemi company as they walked.
“So, how was your first day in Stockholm? Yesterday, right?” he prodded, hands in pocket, kicking his long legs slowly to match her pace.
“The weather was lovely, and I got to sleep in a bit.” She was looking down at the pavement as they walked. “I needed to after a long sleepless flight. At least I caught up on movies.”
His laugh in response was strained. “And did you explore the city?”
“I took a walk across the bridge over to the old town, Gamla stan, right?” Kemi half asked. He nodded. “It’s such a beautiful city. I feel like Stockholm put its best foot forward for my arrival,” she said. Espen gave her a crooked smile.
“Well, I hope you keep that wonder,” he said. “My wife is from Cape Verde, and she’s still struggling.”
Kemi’s interest was piqued. “Why?”
“Well…” Espen cleared his throat. An unsure gesture that let Kemi know maybe he was getting too personal with a colleague. After all, today was their first meeting. “Oh, I don’t know. She feels like Stockholm tricked her. Seduced her with its beauty and then turned into an ugly monster in front of her.”
Kemi’s gut elbowed her. “Listen!” it said.
“What do you mean? Does she hate living here?”
“I won’t say hate,” he tried to explain. “She just finds it challenging. She still hasn’t found a job since we got married, and she moved here to be with me. It’s killing me to see her so frustrated.”
“How did you two meet? If I may ask, of course.”
“Umm, we met online. I thought it would be easy for her. I have many friends who have met their partners online, but they’ve mostly been Swedes or already based here.”
“What did she study? Can’t you help her find a job?”
“Yeah…I’m now finding that harder than I thought.” Espen was suddenly quiet, and Kemi sensed he was closing up. That was all he was ready to give her. He had painted Stockholm as a seducer. She could clearly see why. Long, narrow, fingerlike buildings colored in soft melon yellows, pale peaches, and pastel reds. Labyrinths of waterways and ferries gliding along. Flowers in full bloom, transitioning from spring to summer. The city was sexy, and if Stockholm was a man and she’d met him in a nightclub, she would have propelled herself right away to ask him to dance.
She had gotten recommendations for cool places to hang out for drinks and music from the childless ones on her team—Espen and Maria.
They steered her to some clubs around Stureplan, the heart of their chic work district, and to Gamla stan for some jazz and blues in case she wanted some soul to “feel at home” instead. The same cringe she often felt around Connor’s faux urban banter surfaced. Was she supposed to feel like a fraud for preferring alternative rock? Being Black apparently required liking specific music choices.
And that night, she did meet “Stockholm” in a nightclub in the form of a tall man built like a professional hockey player hanging in a corner with his friends. He didn’t take his eyes off her that evening as she sat quietly by the bar, soaking in the club’s electro-funk vibe, watching human eye candy, and sipping on a green cocktail. He cradled a whiskey glass, which was continually topped off by an unseen entity, as he stole glances her way. Whenever their eyes met, he held hers and prolonged it. His gaze never roamed her curves suggestively. He leered at her from across the room packed with bodies, yet he never approached her or asked her to dance. By the time Kemi left, she felt dejected.
Was this Stockholm? Something that lured her, but she could never quite have? Because if it was, Washington, DC, wasn’t looking too bad. At least men in DC moved their feet and came over.
As she dragged herself back to her hotel that evening, Kemi passed two Black women, and she was happy to see unfamiliar yet familiar faces. She gave them a smile, which was returned with a blank stare like she was a specimen in a laboratory—bacteria that had broken out of its petri dish. It had to be what she was wearing, because the ladies were simply dressed in baggy pants, loose tops, barely any makeup, and braids that needed to have come out weeks ago. They had to be around her age, early to midthirties. As she walked past, all three simultaneously turned to take one another in. The two ladies poring over Kemi’s expensive outfit—the dress, the heels, the Prada jacket—Kemi taking in their lackadaisical outfits, a sneak peek of herself after a few years in Sweden.
The next day a
t work was spent getting her set up in the system and configuring her work laptop. Over lunch, Louise, Jonny’s assistant in Stockholm, ran her over to an apartment in Karlaplan, where she would stay for her first six to nine months until she got settled and moved into her own apartment. The apartment was one of a handful scattered around Stockholm that Jonny’s family owned. It was housed in a twentieth-century stone building with narrow elevators, which had metal mesh curtains one had to manually pull closed before the actual doors sealed you in like a crypt.
As if reading her thoughts, Louise assured her it was a lovely place. She opened old, refurbished doors into a minimally clad but exquisite space. A two-bedroom loft with nice park views and polished wooden floors, it was fully furnished in grays with a few striped nautical tones.
“We usually reserve this space for important consultants who have to work with us for a few months,” Louise said, pushing brunette strands behind both ears. “It has everything you need, and of course, you can call me for anything you can’t find. I will be here once the movers arrive with your things from the U.S.”
Kemi stood quietly, soaking it all in. She had never gotten anything this easily in life. This was too effortless, and her instincts to run were jolted once more. What did von Lundin really want from her? There had to be more.
She wandered around the spacious loft. She walked up to a window and looked out onto a park in the distance, watching as cars circled it in a wide loop.
“Thank you, Louise,” Kemi said, observing the looping cars. “It’s lovely.”
* * *
On her last day visiting the office on her whirlwind tour, Jonny finally made an appearance. His whipped-butter face now boasted a large, blue-black bruise over his nose and a scab above an eyebrow. He roamed the hallways wearing sunglasses so no one could look him in the eye. She’d been given an office similar to the one she had at Andersen: half wall, half glass—sealed in, yet visible to everyone.
“How are you feeling?” Kemi asked him. “I heard about the accident.” Jonny nodded, lips pressed together.
“All is well. No need to worry,” he answered. “Hope Ingrid and everyone has taken good care of you.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Good. Looking forward to working with you,” he said before turning around, grabbing his gym bag, and telling his assistant Louise, who had been trailing him around the office, that he was taking the rest of the week off to go hide out on Sandhamn, the island in Stockholm’s archipelago where his family owned property. Louise shared this nugget of intel with Kemi once Jonny had padded out of the office.
That flighty encounter with Jonny had unsettled Kemi. Were they ever going to actually work together? Or had he brought her over here to park her in the office for show while he jetted off to fulfill his whims?
That night, she’d ended up in a lounge in Gamla stan, found herself a barstool, and prepared to perch there alone for the night, when she was approached by a more courageous man than the one from her previous outing. He was much older than she was, with teeth that suggested decades of smoking, crow’s-feet around beady, pale eyes, leathery sun-beaten skin, and greasy, light-brown curls, all crammed into an expensive three-piece suit. She tried swiveling in another direction upon his approach, but he was already by her side. She lifted her glass to her lips, gearing up for his intrusion.
He didn’t say anything at first and instead leered at her with a grin. She ignored him, which prodded uninvited words out of him.
“Can I get you a drink?” he said in heavily accented English. She shook her head.
“Do you live here?” he continued, leaning on the counter next to her. She turned to look at him, watching beads of sweat collect around his forehead and upper lip.
“I’m here on business,” she said. What she really wanted to say was “Fuck off,” but years of metaphorically nodding had softened her into an overpolite mess.
“Are you American?” His voice lit up. “I hear an accent.” Technically, she was. Her newly minted American passport was her badge. But she was African, and she let him know this. There was a shift in the air around them. As if forgoing the lottery for an instant jackpot. Oooh. African.
He inched closer.
“You’re African? Where? Ghana? Nigeria?” He rested a hand on her arm, which she quickly jerked out of his touch. He seemed unfazed. “I lived in Africa for many years. Working with the UN,” he shared. He was stealing into her space, and she wanted him gone.
“I know a couple of African girls.” His eyes roamed down to her hips before he swallowed up more inches between them. “You girls are something else.” He mimicked a West African accent, a smile carving into his tan, leathery face.
“Excuse me!” Kemi slid off the stool and onto her feet, but he blocked her exit.
“Wait, wait,” the greasy man pleaded. “Don’t go yet. What’s your name, ehn?” She pushed past him and out of his reach when he tried to grab her arm. She burst into the warm spring night, taking deep breaths, trying to calm her racing heart. She should have slapped him. A nice, strong backhand slap. She should have showed him one more thing African girls were good at.
That voice came back again. Her gut screamed while holding her ego in a headlock. Run home to DC!
No, she was too far along. She couldn’t let self-doubt climb in now. This move to Sweden had been handed to her on a platter, and she’d be a fool to go back to the status quo. Sweden was coming with its own dating rules, and she knew she’d have to work hard to decipher them.
After all, in addition to a new career opportunity, wasn’t she looking for love? To be enough for someone?
She wrapped her arms around herself, hugging her chest, and stepping lightly down Gamla stan’s cobblestones toward the waterfront for a relaxing stroll back to her hotel. The city shimmered, and its golden reflections bounced off unusually calm waters that evening.
What a tease of a city.
* * *
June and July were a flurry of preparations. Closing accounts. Canceling memberships. Clearing out her closet and driving some boxes down to Kehinde in Richmond for storage. Andre the electrician had texted a couple times in between, looking to get laid. She ignored his messages. Andersen & Associates seemed like the last chapter in a book she was eager to close. Besides a few LinkedIn notifications indicating that Connor was occasionally viewing her profile, he’d extracted himself from her life.
Before her move, Kemi spent her last few days in Richmond with Kehinde, Lanre, and their kids.
“How are you feeling?” Lanre asked as the three adults settled in the living room, carrying after-dinner mugs of tea.
“I don’t know yet.” Kemi lifted the mug to her lips.
“Haaa,” Kehinde interjected. “And you’re leaving in a few days? You’re not serious at all.”
“I mean, I’m excited. I need this change. I need this reminder that I’m worth it, that there’s something else out there for me,” Kemi continued. “I would love what you guys have.”
Lanre pursed his lips and nodded. “It is hard work but fulfilling.”
“I know,” Kemi said. “My sister is happy. That’s all the evidence I need.”
Indeed, Kehinde had reached contentment. Or was it resignation from dreams unachieved? Kemi wasn’t sure of anything these days, so she settled on contentment.
“If it doesn’t work out, you know we’ll always be here, right?” Kehinde said softly.
Kemi met her eyes, tears pooling. She twisted her lips to hold them back and nodded swiftly, not trusting herself to speak.
Eight
BRITTANY-RAE
Back in Alexandria, Brittany must have sounded like a blubbering mess to Tanesha, who listened quietly on the other end. Trying to speak between sobs and gulping for air was challenging. Brittany punctuated each unintelligible stream with, “Oh God!”
“Babe… Babe…” Tanesha tried calming her down. “Deep breaths, breathe, breathe.” Brittany finally stopped trying to talk and completely gave herself over to despair. She knew her friend was slowly letting it all sink in. Brittany was pregnant. From that man she had sworn to Tanesha that she hardly knew. She’d kept him a secret because sharing him would have brought judgment from her parents. And Tanesha.
Brittany had sworn to her friend she would never date a white man. She always said that the ones she met represented oppression and violation and kept the circle jerk going because they were all in on it together.
“You’ve been working first class too long,” Tanesha would say whenever Brittany’s strokes over white men felt too broad.
“You don’t understand, Tee,” Brittany cried into her phone. “This wasn’t supposed to happen! I use birth control!” She had become the 2 percent. While 98 percent of people were safely covered and continued on with their lives, hers had just come crashing down.
“Wait! Back up… When did you start seeing this guy?”
If she wanted Tanesha in her corner, she needed to fully come clean. She started from the beginning. Told her everything about Jonny. How he’d gotten under her skin and made her feel things in a way she’d never felt before.
“He kept flying to meet me at my stopovers,” Brittany said. “Talk about being loaded! You should see his London pad. He also has a London assistant and chauffeur.”
She told Tanesha about his quirks that made him feel like a drug to her. A quick study who unwittingly held her in his palm.
“God, I feel like I’ve lost my damn mind,” Brittany said. “He’s so intense, Tee. I mean, this guy has memorized my body and what I like.”
“Okay, too much information, guurl!” Tanesha said. “But, just so we’re on the same page… How so?”
Jonny had mined his strength—his meticulous fervor—to utterly seduce her, Brittany explained. He’d sealed it with his secret weapon: an inability to lie.
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