This is supposed to be the part where Cel quietly but visibly explodes with pleasure because Katharine knows her name. Instead, there’s not even a flicker in her eyes. “Yes,” she says.
The two of them head inside and shut the door.
CELINE
When I was little, Mum would wash my hair for me. I’d lie down in the bathwater to rinse, my ears submerged, and hear her voice as if from miles away.
Sometimes Giselle washed my hair.
Dad never did.
The conference room Katharine Breakspeare leads me into is ornate but tastefully cream and blue, with a huge oval table of dark wood at its center. I drift past each leather chair like a ghost and wonder which one he sat in. Wonder if he’s wondering about me.
Would it matter if he was? Would it change anything? He would still be a man who couldn’t look his daughter in the eye. He would still be a big blank slate to me. I thought I hated my father but right now all I feel is exhausted, like he ripped into a vein and drained half of the life I had.
If he were someone else’s dad, I would find him so pathetic. I wouldn’t even bother to think his name.
A little flame catches and crackles, flickers, grows in the darkness of my roiling gut.
“…really well, Celine,” Katharine is saying, and I realize we are sitting down at the head of the table. A meter of gleaming wood separates us. She has a tablet in her hand and a slight, encouraging curve to her wide mouth. There are gossamer creases around her eyes, magnified by black-framed glasses, and her infamous blowout is smoothed back into a simple ponytail. I wish I was eating up these little details; my lack of enthusiasm feels like a bereavement.
I smile and make a vague but positive/appreciative/encouraging sound. Whatever she just said is a mystery to me. The leather seat of this chair is too warm, radiating through my tights. There’s a faint ringing in my ears, which can’t be good.
Mum’s voice murmurs in my mind, “You’re okay. You’re all right. You are my daughter.” I sit up straighter. Bangura women don’t break.
“Your leadership score is very high,” Katharine says, scrolling through the tablet. “Your team building is—”
“Low?” I interrupt like some mannerless heathen. It’s not like I expected to do well. I don’t like people and they don’t like me. I don’t trust people; why should they trust me? I’m prickly and harsh and—
“Actually,” Katharine says, “your team-building score is also high. According to the feedback notes, you frequently supported and encouraged your fellow Explorers.”
Well, that can’t be right. Maybe she has someone else’s file. Unless…Is she talking about the tent thing? Seriously? I was bored and everyone else was slow, so I sped them up. It was not that exciting.
“You acted, on multiple occasions, to mitigate the effect of…stronger personalities in the group,” Katharine continues, “so quieter members could have their say.”
This is just technical speak for You shut Allen up, which I only did because he desperately needed to be silenced. Really, it was my pleasure.
“You took care of the communal spaces; you gave other people’s ideas a chance even when you didn’t necessarily agree…” Katharine finally looks up from the mystical tablet. “Yes, team building is one of your strengths. Your lowest score was actually creative thinking.”
Hmm. Maybe this is about those rope-based obstacle courses we did and how I got stuck near the top of a tree and didn’t even think to jump right back down.
Or it could be about that poisonous plant-life project we did—
“As you know, the final expedition at Glen Finglas will be more heavily weighted in the average. My advice would be to attempt a little more flexibility of thought. Have you ever heard the phrase question the premise?”
I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care, I’m too hot and my eyes hurt, and I want to go. I take a deep breath and maintain my smile. “Is it like rejecting the premise?” Before I quit for final year, I was a three-year debate team champion.
“Yes, but not exactly. It’s more internal.”
“Okay. Then, no, I don’t think so.”
“I very much enjoy the work of Becca Syme,” Katharine says, locking her tablet and putting it on the table. “She proposes that we might solve our problems more creatively if we paused to question the underlying premise beneath our established ideas. Does that make sense to you?”
I take another breath and force my brain to understand English. “Yes. Yes, I think so.” For example: my dad is a disgrace and I should make him feel ashamed. The premise: That blood makes him my father? That I can make him feel anything at all?
Time passes and so does our conversation. Katharine congratulates me on making it through and wishes me luck in Scotland; then I’m stumbling out the door and Brad is there. So is Sophie. When our eyes meet, she gives me a look of concern that grates me into cheese, then disappears with Katharine. Brad is holding my hand.
“Cel. Celine. Talk to me.”
“No.” My mouth is numb, but I’m ready for an argument.
Except Brad doesn’t argue. He just twines our fingers together and leads me down the hall. “Okay. What was your score?”
My mind comes up panic white. “I don’t know.”
“It’s okay!” His thumb rubs the back of my hand. “It’s okay, it’s okay, you don’t need to know. Five out of five. You’re Celine Bangura. What else could it be?”
“She said I’m not a creative thinker.”
“Pfft.” Brad rolls his eyes. “What does Katharine Breakspeare know, anyway? Hey, Cel, look at that.” He nods, and I realize he’s brought me out to a long hallway with a wall of impressionist portraits showing celebrity guests who’ve stayed here. “Is that Freddie Mercury?” he asks.
I squint up at the portrait. “Can’t be.”
“Why not?”
“No way Freddie Mercury stayed here.”
“But the teeth,” Brad says reasonably. “We should Google it. Where’s your phone?” Just like that, he drip, drip, drips oil onto my squeaky tin man joints and I feel myself loosen up. A bit. A fraction. Enough. By the time we’re all finished with our meetings and heading to the dessert café, I seem perfectly fine. Thomas doesn’t show up, but the rest of us pile into a booth, and Aurora coos over the menu’s gluten-free options and Raj eats so much ice cream cake he’s almost sick, and I realize I genuinely missed them, and the distant ringing in my ears nearly goes away, and Brad holds my hand under the table all night.
Aurora gives me several sly and significant looks, but I very maturely do not engage.
By the time we call it a day and separate, I think I’m fine. The ringing is still there but it’s so faint I can almost forget it. Brad and I are still holding hands as we walk across Trinity Square toward the car park, and the streetlights everywhere make the rain-slick paving slabs gleam like silver. A group of guys barely older than us arrange shabby-looking instruments a few meters away and put out an open guitar case for tips. I don’t know how they can play when it’s this cold; my fingers would riot if Brad’s weren’t keeping me warm.