Chapter 1
Chapter 1 Out of Ravinia
At Clean Lines Studio, staff is discouraged from checking their devices for personal messages while on the job, and Ravinia, wanting to be a high value employee, conscientiously turned off her bejewelled pink wristphone and her tablet as soon as she settled herself behind the front desk. Her value for this job made her more respectful of its rules than she normally displayed for other controlled environments, performing her role with humility and willingness. It made turning on her phone at the close of day to pick up on her social life all that sweeter, but she did not bother to turn it on although she was to meet up with friends at a fashionable, new eatery.
It was Ravinia’s job to close the front office. She fixed her face into a wide smile then leaned across the office door of her boss, Tcharo, to wave goodbye, and Tcharo waved back with a smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. She was using her smart glasses to attend an online conference, writing notes on a stenographer’s pad. There was no one else there. The account executives were on assignments with their clients. The busy part of the week usually started on Wednesday afternoons and went through to Sundays.
Tcharo was the founder and Creative Director of Clean Line Studios, which had built a clientele of demanding and well-paying clients. She could be relied upon to organise a business dinner-at-home for six, to a Christmas product launch in July, to an ethnic wedding where international guests would be comfortable or a skybox at the Super Bowl. As the receptionist/ administrative assistant, Ravinia considered it a major opportunity to work with a firm that was led by an executive who generously shared her expertise with anyone who was loyal, willing to work hard at learning and to practice high standards. Ravinia had seen that off all these traits, loyalty was the one most valued by Tcharo.
With her head down to avoid eye contact with elevator users, Ravinia exited her building on West Fifty Seventh Street to walk the ten blocks to where she lived on Forty Seventh. The hot air outside caused her to immediately pull off the pink wrap that she had around her shoulders and stuff it in her bag, exposing immediately her deep decolletage around the scoop neck of the baby pink knit camisole. She was also wearing a long tube skirt made from stretch fabric that emphasised her high derriere and the outline and length of her thick long legs strapped in high heeled gladiator sandals. At five feet ten inches tall, size 16 with curled strawberry blonde dreadlocks defined like a mane and tossing around her shoulders. Her office building was just beyond the pathways that tourists walk to get to the main attractions so there were no high street shops and restaurants, just minions darting along grim and narrow sidewalks cinched in by skyscrapers on every side, and as they moved like ants, she bubbled and bounced, and in this heat, shimmered as a vision of young, healthy, energetic, proud, femininity. Ravinia relished the thought that at that moment she was the brightest item on this short strip of the concrete jungle called New York City.
Anonymous and alive, that is what she loved about these streets. Here she was “Who’s that girl?”, not Ravinia deMartin-Pinto, Garnett’s little sister, Kuro and Beverley’s daughter and many other identities. She still had not turned on her watch, delaying the silvery pings announcing the arrival of messages that she did not want but she had barely walked ten steps when she saw Wagstaffe standing at the corner and her heart, which was already in the pit of her stomach, slipped beneath her four inch heels, but what could she do? The radiant heat from the concrete nudged sweat beads to form in her back and the creases around her breasts. Wagstaffe, wearing a bright yellow track suit and red, green and gold knitted tam seemed oblivious to the temperature. They walked together, out of step.
“I am to leave on Friday evening,” Ravinia said, her breath almost in her throat. Wagstaff’s eyes only narrowed before saying, “I am here to help you to pack,”
“Why? I’ll be back on Monday.”
“So you did not tell anyone you won’t be coming back.” It was a statement and Wagstaff said it as if to say, “As usual you don’t do the right thing”.
“Well, I have myjob and…”
“And you have no respect for it and for them.” Wagstaffe behind them, in the direction of Ravinia’s workplace.
Ravinia turned on her heel and gave her back to Wagstaffe. She was hoping to return on Monday but if her parents sent for her, that dream had truly evaporated.
“Give me a minute,” she said, and did her walk of shame back to the office, letting herself in with the security card. Tcharo saw emotions in play on Ravinia’s face and was concerned, but ensuring that she was muted in the meeting, leaned in to listen.
“Tcharo, something came up, I have to go back to Jamaica tomorrow.”
Tcharo waited for more, then asked gently, “Is someone very sick?”
“No, some family matters… and it will take a couple of weeks.”
Ravinia saw the surprise and then disappointment cross Tcharo’s face before she said, “Nobody flies home at a moment’s notice if it is not a sickness, not even a death. So you are telling me something that you have known for some time. You are walking out on your job.”
“It’s my family, you see, they insist.”
“You told me when I hired you that you were an independent woman free to take on the demands of this round-the-clock job.” Tcharo held up her hands. “That’s the shakes then.” She swung her chair around to refocus on the meeting.
Ravinia put down the company door card and said nothing. Offering her apologies seemed so…trite.
“If you don’t mind,” Tcharo swung the chair to face Ravinia who thought that she saw a misty disappointment in her eyes.
“Those so-called zirconium stud earrings, they are cushion cut white diamonds aren’t they?”
Ravinia nodded.
“And that carved pale green bracelet that you accessorise with the acrylic ones from a craft market, it is an antique jade, isn’t it?”
Ravinia nodded again.
“Got it!” Tcharo said. “I was helping out a trust baby when I thought I was giving a break to a struggling island girl. Good luck Ravinia.”
