He looks up again. “I need to give it to Miss McNamara on Friday.”
“That’s fine,” I say quickly. “Totally fine. No problem at all.”
“Thanks, G-G.” Teddy grins again, then stuffs three carrots into his mouth. “You’re the best.”
I nod, managing a smile.
Five days to find £345. Fuck.
10:28 a.m.—Liyana
Liyana had rejected her aunt’s ludicrous idea, had dismissed it out of hand. But, though Nya hasn’t mentioned it again, Liyana hasn’t been able to focus on much else. The preoccupation fractures her thoughts—she’s forgotten to call Kumiko, hasn’t been able to draw. Although, now that her admission to art school hangs in the balance, does that matter anymore?
Liyana finds solace only in the bath. She dearly wants to return to the swimming pool but won’t allow herself that. Twice in a single week is far too risky, the longing it’d invoke would be too great. It’s already gnawing at her belly and bones.
Liyana sinks under the water, fully wrapped in her safety blanket. She’ll soak until her skin is pruned and her senses numb. She cannot countenance what Nya asks. And yet, her aunt has done so much for her. She financed, albeit with her second husband’s fortune, their fleeing from Ghana when Liyana was a baby. And paid for everything after that. The night her mother died, Liyana crept into her aunt’s bed. They slept, or at least lay, together every night until Liyana was ready to move to her new bedroom in her new terraced home on Barnsbury Square, Islington.
Nya attended every swimming competition, every class, every school play, every concert. She dropped Liyana at school and picked her up. She comforted Liyana every time kids at school threw insults, dropped thinly veiled insinuations, or outright told her to go back to Africa, though they probably couldn’t find Ghana on a map. She was there when Liyana lost her first tooth and, five years later, when she ripped that ligament in her left knee, dropping Liyana out of the Olympic race and into a depression for nearly a year. Aunt Nya sat by her bedside that summer, bringing food, brushing her hair, reading fairy tales . . . She’d cast a lifebelt into the sea of despair and gradually pulled her niece back to shore. Nya bought Liyana her first comic book, encouraged her to start telling her own stories, to write and draw. Without Nya there would be no Slade in the first place. Given all this, and so much more, Liyana wonders if she can refuse her aunt this request. Or anything at all, no matter how unreasonable it might be.
Liyana wipes her hands on a towel and reaches for her phone. She’d emailed her admissions tutor at the Slade the same morning Nya revealed the devastating state of their finances. She’s been waiting twenty-four hours and fifty-seven minutes for an answer. But, with every hour that passes, a towering wave of anguish rises up behind her. When she’s out of the bath, she’ll ask the tarot again. It’s not given her any reason to hope yet, but that won’t stop her trying. Liyana hasn’t yet asked the cards whether she should do what her aunt is asking. She’s too afraid of the answer.
11:38 a.m.—Scarlet
This morning it’s not only for financial reasons that Scarlet wishes the café were busier. When she’s frothing milk, slicing cakes, or extracting globules of baby food from the floorboards, Scarlet forgets Mr. Wolfe. But this morning she has nothing more than a clutch of stingy students to entertain her, so Scarlet must find other sources of distraction. Today, Francisco, the cappuccino machine. Scarlet bought him, at some significant expense, on her sixteenth birthday after her grandmother had stapled a cheque for three thousand pounds into a glittery card. At the time, Scarlet was overjoyed. Now she sees it as a signpost on the road to Esme’s decline, a slip of the mind and pen.
Scarlet’s halfway through cleaning when the door opens and Mr. Wolfe, looking self-satisfied and smug, glides into the café. The knife Scarlet’s using to dig out congealed coffee beans slips, scratching Francisco’s fine stainless steel surface.
“Shit.” Scarlet rubs at the scratch, patting him. “Sorry, Frannie.”
“Are you talking to your cappuccino machine?” Ezekiel asks, as he reaches her. “Or did you forget my name?”
Scarlet ignores him.
Ezekiel pats the leather bag hanging from his shoulder. “I call my briefcase Fred. He has a surname too, but I keep forgetting it.”
Scarlet lowers the knife she’d been brandishing like a sword. “You’re