She looked to her right and noticed Sue staring at her so immediately looked away. Sue had been up here at the notice board at least once a day this week as well. Perhaps she needed to move house, too. Raven couldn’t blame her. She didn’t know if she could live somewhere where someone had – you know – done something so definitive.
Then again …
She looked back. Sue was staring at the board now, but staring in that blurry kind of way that suggested she was somewhere far far away. She knew the look well.
Most college students had that slightly hazy look softening their features at least once a day. Drifting off with no actual thoughts in their head as the hormones took over. Raven caught herself doing it all of the time in the bathroom. Staring at herself, wondering who the hell the person staring back at her was, only to shake her head a few moments later and realise she’d lost track of time just staring into the abyss of her future.
Today, in the Costa where she’d taken to putting on her make-up before she hit the bus stop, she’d actually almost kind of liked who she’d seen. She’d given her ebony hair a strident royal blue streak. Her eyeshadow feature colour was a glossy burnt tangerine with hint of glittery gold (it made her freaky eyes look mad weird and she would never admit it but she liked the double takes she got when people noticed them).
Dylan had been at the bus stop again. Not much of a surprise seeing as it was his regular stop and not hers, but with her mother being so micromanagey, leaving the house without an ounce of make-up, dipping into Costas and then going to the bus stop was the easiest way to keep the peace and feel a modicum of power over her own life until she made up her mind about a life of indentured servitude with Uncle Ravi or one of penury with a splash of mental freedom. Dylan had asked if he could take a picture of her eyes for his Insta site but, mercifully, the bus had come and she didn’t have to figure out how she was going to lie about giving up social media for the year and, as such, not entirely confident to say yes.
A bustle of movement beside her made her turn. It was Sue pinning a notice to the board. She scanned it before the blu-tack backing had a chance to take hold.
Room to Let, it read. She took in the amount, the location, her savings and how much it would dent her monthly income with lightning speed. Before Sue’s hand had returned to her side, Raven had swiped the card off of the board and said, ‘I’ll take it.’ And then she remembered what had happened there.
Chapter Sixteen
Kath brushed her hand along her shoulder as she stared at her reflection in the well-lit dressing room mirror. Trying to recapture the feeling she’d had the other day in the gym was proving impossible.
She did it again, this time giving each of her shoulders a soft caress.
No.
None of that fizzy sparkle.
There was, however, a tad less self-loathing. She was pretty enough for fifty-three. Even prettier for fifty-eight, her real age. The one solitary secret Kevin had managed to keep about her. It felt weaponized. The secret.
Dave, the floor director, popped his head into her room. ‘Alright, Kath?’
She pinned on a smile. ‘Absolutely. Are we still keeping in the piece about Hadrian’s Wall?’
If she called it the mental health piece, it always got axed.
‘If there’s time. Tight schedule today.’
She waited for him to go until she let her smile drop. Dave and Kev were drinking buddies. Kev had no doubt ‘had a word’ yesterday afternoon whilst Kath was with her trainer.
Her features softened. Wouldn’t Kevin be absolutely furious if he knew how much she loved her training sessions? All of that passive aggression in the wake of putting her knee out on that ridiculous indoor snowboarding segment gone to waste. So she’d gained a kilo or two. At the time she’d been humiliated. Now, she was grateful that her comfort eating had brought her some actual comfort in the form of Fola Onaberi. Trainer to Birmingham’s glitterati. If only Kev knew just how rehabilitative her time with Fola was.
Kev, of course, wouldn’t consider Fola a threat for a second. To put it simply, he wasn’t famous. He didn’t have a book, or an Insta page or a Twitter following. All of which made him staff and Kev wasn’t one to pay attention to staff unless they could do things for him or he could brag about them (like the one solitary time he did a ten minute workout with Gwyneth Paltrow’s trainer whilst she was on a book tour).
A blessed relief, considering Fola Onobari was the kindest, most generous, loyal and – yes, she’d admit it – utterly breathtaking man she’d ever had the privilege to meet.
Apart from his solid career as a personal trainer and physio, he was also, quite simply, a good man. When he wasn’t keeping his client’s tummy fat below the government-suggested guidelines, he coached children’s sports in poor inner-city neighbourhoods. Sport had given him a boost up and out of his own impoverished life back in Nigeria. He’d run the 300 metre race for Nigeria in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing (in his first pair of brand new shoes,
