“Is that what they expect?”
“They expected it five years ago.”
Ida looked Chi over again. Her short, scruffy black hair, black lipstick and careless attitude said it all; she had no intention of settling down.
“What about your family?” asked Chi.
“My mama just tells me to be happy. She said it’s better to be alone and happy than married and sad.”
“I’m beginning to like your mom already.”
“I miss her,” said Ida, recalling her mother’s disappointed reaction when she declared that she was staying in Berlin for the time being.
“I bet you do,” said Chi.
“But I’m excited to be in Berlin. And I’ll be even happier when I find a job.”
“I’ll ask my friend tomorrow. Promise. Part-time, right?”
“Yes. Please.”
“Not full-time?”
“No, I want to have time to work on a project.”
“Oh yeah? What is it?”
“I don’t know exactly, I can’t decide on anything.”
“What’s it about?”
“Women. Power. Fashion. That’s all I know so far.”
“Sounds solid.”
“No, it’s silly. I don’t know where to begin.”
“Just decide on something and go with it,” Chi said with a shrug before taking a swig of her Pilsner. “Design. Create. Measure. That’s what we do at our agency when we have a deadline. If you overthink it, nothing’s going to come. Creativity only makes sense in retrospect. Just start, and your unconscious mind takes care of the rest. It all comes together if you trust yourself. When you get stuck, sleep on it, but make a decision and keep moving. The first decision is usually the right one.”
Ida thought about which argument to use to tell Chi that it was not that simple. They were different people. Chi was confident, intelligent, witty… Stop it. She was underestimating herself again. Did she forget that she had faced up to a killer and survived? That in less than a year she had uprooted herself from her life and travelled across the world while surviving a horrific trauma? She considered Chi’s words again from this new angle. Decide first, worry later. Trust yourself. It made sense, and it was worth a try.
“I need to call it a night soon,” said Chi. “Our team has a presentation in Mitte tomorrow morning at 10, which means I have to get to the office early. Yawn.”
“Ok,” said Ida with new found energy. She was now overcome by a sudden, undeniable desire to go home and get to work.
They finished their drinks and left Gorbachev’s Dive. The two of them stood at the corner in the middle of Neukölln, ready to say goodbye.
“Ok, I’ll message you tomorrow when I’ve asked about the job, and I’ll see you Wednesday at class.”
“Thanks, Chi. Goodnight,” said Ida.
The two of them hugged and went their separate ways. Still tipsy from just one beer, Ida rushed back to her apartment and went straight to her wall of ideas; an extensive collection of notes plastered all over her bedroom wall. Stilettos. Handbags. Cocktail dresses. She was ready to decide, but something still felt off. A single yellow post-it note on the top of the desk stole her attention. On it was the word ‘Unfett,’ with a half-formed second ‘t.’ She leaned her head and wondered what it meant. It was her handwriting, but she had forgotten why she wrote it. She found herself thinking about María Félix. What would María do, Ida wondered? She would fight, flirt and create drama. Flick her long eyelashes and draw the attention of every man in the room with her deep brown eyes. None of that was going to help Ida. She was not an actress, and she was no María Félix.
Ida admired María because she represented two things; power and freedom. María used her beauty and sex appeal intelligently. She knew when to flirt and when to play hard to get. It drove men crazy, and it gave her power. Ida then pictured Chi, carelessly swinging her beer around as she talked, brave enough to be herself while rebelling against the wishes of her family. She dressed and behaved in ways Ida could never imagine herself doing. Ida admired Chi, and it had nothing to do with sex-appeal. Sure, Chi got the attention of the guys the second she entered the bar, but she barely noticed. She seemed anchored somewhere else. But what was it?
So far Ida knew she wanted to start a business around fashion, and that she wanted it to encapsulate the essence of María Félix. She opened her laptop and ran a search for ‘Unfett.’ The autocomplete showed what she had tried to write down on the note: ‘Unfettered.’ She grinned and remembered the feeling the word gave her when she came across it in an article. The definition of unfettered showed up; not confined or restricted. Another word came up in the search results: fetishise; to make something an object of a sexual fetish. Was that what Ida wanted her business to be about? Power through sexuality? She scrunched her nose. There had to be another way. Something which appealed to women like her and Chi. She took a scrap piece of paper from her pile and began writing while in a trance: Unfett. Unfetter. Unfetishise.
She leaned back on her chair and stared at the words. Unfetishise. It would have stripped María Félix of all her power. What would have been left? It was unimaginable. Ida knew no other María Félix. She knew herself, more so after her experience with Elias Khartoum and The League. She let Elias fetishise her, hoping it would win him over. Look where that got her. She shook her head. It was time to decide, and she immediately committed to her first decision; she was moving in a new direction. She brewed herself a coffee and got to work. The next hours passed by in an unconscious flurry, as she sketched design after design. By 8 am not even another coffee could keep her going. She left her desk as it was and crashed into bed without bothering to brush her teeth or get changed, exhausted
