‘Cute outfit, Naleli.’
I tilted my head to the side, my armour already on. ‘Aw. You think, Keeya?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah. Like you really tried. It took a lot of guts for you to come here, and just making it to the party alone is just, like . . . so confident, you know? We couldn’t expect you to wear a swimsuit too.’ She put a hand on her tiny hip. ‘I can imagine it’s super daunting with your . . . condition.’
Khosi was looking at Keeya as if seeing her for the first time, disgust strewn over his face. ‘Keeya, that’s enough. What the hell is wrong with—’
I shook my head and laughed. ‘Keeya . . . how does it feel to be so terrified of me all the time.’
She froze and released a hard cough of a laugh. ‘Excuse me?’
I shrugged. ‘I’m just saying. If I knew that I had the superpower of making mean girls feel threatened, I would have shown up to more things.’
Keeya stuttered and had just gathered herself together enough to enquire if I was ‘fucking mad, you cow-looking bitch’， when I looked up at Khosi and asked, ‘Hey, do you want to go for a swim?’
Keeya stopped squawking long enough for her jaw to drop. Though Khosi’s brows creased in confusion, his eyes lit up. ‘What?’
‘I said,’ I lifted the bottom of my shirt, pulled it over my braids and threw it on the floor, revealing the hot pink bikini that I’d been hiding, ‘I’m going for a swim. You coming?’ My jeans were next to be peeled off and the feeling of fresh air kissing my skin was euphoric. It almost beat the high of making Keeya lose her shit.
Khosi eyes quickly flitted across my body before he met my gaze, the corner of his mouth tweaking upwards in assent.
And so, with Khosi behind me, in my hot pink bikini with the pale and brown of my skin exposed and shining, I walked past a gawping, speechless Keeya to the pool. Conversations petered out and gave way to hushed murmurs, eyes swivelling in my direction. I pushed their attention out and pulled focus on to the singular feeling of being whole in my skin – full up inside of it.
I jumped in. I didn’t even notice when Khosi joined me. I hadn’t been in a pool – this pool – since I was twelve, and I relished the cool chlorine familiarity, enveloping my skin, all of it, the sun glowing down on the patchwork of my back, my shoulders, caressing it. It was feeding me, I was elemental with it – part of nature and gloriously natural. I splashed and twirled and bumped into Khosi, who was watching me, smiling, starry eyes brighter than ever. For a few seconds the only sound was our laughter and hip-hop playing from the speakers.
Then, I heard a hoarse voice echo through the compound: ‘THAT’S MY BEST FRIEND! BADDEST BITCH IN MALOTI VALLEY. TIDDIES SITTING IN THAT PINK BIKINI, AYYYYY!’ The proclamation was punctuated by a large splash. Letsha’s head popped up a few seconds later as she raised both fists and yelped in triumph. ‘WOOP!’
A moment later her hollers were joined by applause, cheers and more splashes as people ran into the pool giggling, dancing and plashing, pulled out of their pool-side mannequin posing and into animation. The music was louder, the chatter was wilder, the laughter more uproarious.
I floated to the edge of the pool furthest away from the speakers, and leant against it, spreading my arms out on the ledge. I closed my eyes and raised my face up at the sky, braids dripping, wondering how I’d gone so long without feeling as free as this. When I brought my head forward, I found myself face to face with Khosi and I wondered how I went so long without being looked at like this.
‘Ain’t no party without Naleli Labello,’ he whispered, his eyes glinting into mine and a soft smile curved into his lips.
‘I lead,’ I reminded him softly, pulling him in until our faces were just inches apart, ‘you follow.’
Zhinu
‘Let’s go through it one more time, Zhinu.’
Zhinu didn’t even have a chance to sigh before her mother continued. ‘The jet departs at 11 a.m. The breakfast show is at 7 a.m., but we’re only an hour away from the airport and your segment is fifteen minutes. There is time for a three-minute performance with some leeway for delays or runs.’
Zhinu’s mother didn’t look up from her phone as her manicured nails click-clacked on the gleaming oblong of wires, glass, cobalt and lithium. Her mother changed the world with each finger swipe, each tap; she conjured action from rock and sand. The white light lit up her face in the dark, making the deep red paint on her lips brighter and emphasising the chic, silver streaks in her sleekly bobbed hair. She already looked ageless thanks to genetics, but injections also helped. The glow from her phone gave her an ethereal, goddess-like quality that jarred with her brisk, business-like husky tone, which she’d acquired from years of smoking Vogues. Zhinu used to tell her to stop, and her mother would release a raspy cackle before chiding, ‘Who is the mother here? Me or you? Little girl, your voice works in this world because it is sweet and soulful. My voice works because I sound like a man. A man the men in power want to have sex with. It helps me get things done. And you need my voice to work for your voice to work and for you to be successful. Don’t you want to be successful? Sing those songs, make your father proud, and all you need to do is pass me my cigarettes. Be a dear and do that.’