‘Yeah?’
‘The day you were heading into surgery, I prayed. I haven’t done that in quite a long time.’ Anika nods quietly. She isn’t religious, but she knows how difficult Shameeka’s relationship with the church has been. ‘Like, I was fully on my knees,’ she continues, then shakes her head wistfully.
Anika reaches for her hand. ‘Thank you so much, Shamz. I wouldn’t have got through all of this without you.’
Shameeka squeezes her fingers in return. ‘Neeks, it was truly nothing you wouldn’t have done for me.’ She leans forward to take a sip of her drink, then exhales hard. ‘Do you ever think “why me?” with all this?’ she asks, leaning one elbow on the table to study Anika more closely.
Anika shakes her head, feeling her curls bounce. ‘To be completely honest, babe – no. I think … whynotme? I’m notspecial.’
Shameeka leans back. ‘Youarespecial, Neeks.’ She holds Anika’s gaze pointedly. ‘Anyway …’ She draws in a long breath. ‘My point is, Dirty Thirties are here – you made it! You’ve joined me on the other side! You’ll be having one of these soon.’ She nods at her son and pulls a biodegradable wet wipe out of the packet she’s left on the table to clean Deon’s small, chubby hands.
Anika laughs. ‘Yeah, because I have a man waiting in the wings to shoot up the club,’ she says sarcastically. Shameeka laughs too, flipping her sunglasses back onto her nose and peering at her friend over them. ‘Lack of a man didn’t stopme, babe.’ She points this out with a wink.
‘That’s different, obviously.’
Shameeka drains her drink. ‘Trust me, I hit thirty and it was a wrap. No more partying – it was straight-up adult business.’
‘You’re only three years ahead of me.’
She watches as her friend’s eyes drift down to her phone on the table. ‘Sorry, one sec …’ Shameeka says distractedly, tapping open an email. She isn’t joking about adulting – Shamz is the head of her department at work. Anika often wonders how she stays on top of it all. ‘Ah, shit, yeah!’ Her friend beams down at her screen. ‘I totally forgot Ayo was dealing with this account. She’s just forwarded me something, speaking of parties …’
‘Yeah?’ Anika asks, distracted by playing with Deon’s little toes in his highchair.
‘You know that filmEnd of the Day? It’s written by that guy from the SpinRadio breakfast show—’
‘Cam Asiedu,’ Anika says quickly, then straightens self-consciously in her seat.
‘Yeah, yeah, him.’ Shameeka is still scanning the email. ‘You’re gonna come to this thing with me. See if you can meet some men.’ She glances at Anika with a grin then looks away again,clearly not clocking the widening of her friend’s eyes. ‘Ayo got our firm a load of guest-list for this pre-release screening and party, because she’s working with FlashMedia and they’re handling part of the PR …’
Tuning out of Shamz’s comms speak, Anika swallows a long drink of water from the glass in front of her. All she heard was that she’ll have a chance to go to an event for Cam Asiedu’s film.Just how intimate are these types of functions?The idea of being introduced to Cam and somehow spontaneously combusting with awkwardness is giving her pause.
‘OK, so this thing is in a couple of weeks, I think?’ Shamz is saying. ‘You’ll be up for a night out by then, yeah?’ She indicates Anika’s midriff. ‘They’ll sort the full guest list later, but I’ll get Ayo to put our names down now if you think you won’t still be a bit achy.’
‘Er …’Fuck it.‘No, yeah, I reckon I’ll be fine. I’d been planning to check the film out anyway, sounds good,’ Anika says, wondering if she sounds sufficiently nonchalant.
As if she’s somehow caught a glimpse of her thoughts, Anika’s friend snaps her fingers. ‘Oh, shit, but actually, hang on! The station Cam Asiedu works at is in the same building as you, innit? SpinRadio? Have you seen him about? He’s pretty nice, yeah?’ She waggles her eyebrows and Anika feels her armpits heat. ‘What’s the tea with him, coz maybe …’
Anika attempts a shrug. ‘He has a girlfriend. I think?’ She pulls a face in spite of herself.
‘Is it?’ Shamz laughs a little, gesturing to the waiter for the bill. ‘Too bad. Well, there’s plenty of dick in the sea, or so I’m told.’
This elicits a chuckle from Anika, and then she notices the guys from the lifts watching her again. If she’s honest, what Anika craves is just a good old-fashioned fuck. She dug out her vibrator late last night, not quite satisfied with her fingers even as she was pleased that her capacity to orgasm wasn’t somehow dulledby the surgery. And yet she’s eager for more. A ‘former-gap-yah’ media dude isn’t what she has in mind, though, and the man she thought about as she touched herself last night is consigned to a fantasy, even if he might be closer than she thought. But it’s giving her another idea for the diary.
‘I’ll pay for this, hon,’ she tells Shameeka quickly when the bill comes. ‘You’re always getting everything.’ It’s true – she owes her friend so much more than a couple of drinks and some snacks, though looking at the bill, she sees that her spark of generosity is going to put more of a dent in her purse than she expected. Come to think of it, if shereallywants to manifest something, a boost to her bank balance isn’t a bad idea either.
Time to go home and do a bit of creative writing.
Chapter Fourteen
Friday 20th July
The next evening, Anika grips the lottery ticket in her hand and leans towards the TV as the final ball slots into place.
‘And … thirty-six,’ the announcer says. She stares down at her ticket, then back up at the numbers on the screen. After hanging out with Shamz at the members’ club, she had written in the diary that she was going to win the lottery today. It was a long shot, sure. The thirty-five at the end of her sequence of numbers mocks her, one number out. She looks back up at the screen.
‘Hang on. What the … ?’ It wasn’t just the last digit –every single numberAnika selected is one behind the true winners. ‘Weird,’ she murmurs. Maybe the ‘magic’ is wearing off and the other stuff she added in the diary won’t work either, but it’s not like she wrote that she’s about to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music and have ten babies with Kano. Just that before the week is up, she’s going to get laid by someone who really knows what they’re doing. Considering everything, Anika is very much on the road to feeling like herself again.
In her thirty years, she’s never had a one-night stand – or more accurately, in the eleven years since she lost her virginity. She just doesn’t get that many opportunities to meet new men. Her escapades with Wendy never lead to the kind of places where she’d meet guys she’s attracted to. Shameeka is too settled for them to really hit the tiles much and Tina is addicted to dating apps, and so she’s not too keen on accompanying Anika in tryingto wing-woman their way to IRL hook-ups. Maybe T has the right idea, though …
