This is a sneak peek from my novel, Wish, released December 2, 2023!
Lenai twisted and turned in the fitting room mirrors, the same mirrors that had been her enemies for the last three years. They cackled at her as she scrutinized her own reflection once again, wishing she had curves in one spot or another that would help her fill out the clothes she was trying on this time. No matter how much she hoped or wished, her reflection was always the same, and the mirrors never forgot to remind her that she was nothing more than skin and bones, a mere one hundred pounds soaking wet, and that was only when she wore shoes.
Her naturally curly, sandy brown, straight pressed hair swished against the warm ivory complexion of her shoulders as she spun around to examine her lack of natural cushioning in the seat of the shorts she modeled. Because of her fair skin, Lenai had easily passed as a young white woman multiple times before, but with a second glance, anyone paying close attention to her features noticed the natural fullness of her lips, the breadth of her nose, and the curves that were dying to become more defined, revealing the layers of her heritage.
The product of a Black mother and white father, as Lenai’s genetics would have it, she had been given the majority of her father’s features on the surface. However, the strong African American genes passed down from her mother were still prevalent. She was just as thin as her father had been his entire life. Her mother had explained to her while she was in high school. She resembled him so much it was no surprise her body was structured like his as well. No matter what type of disdain Reina, Lenai’s mother, held for Lenai’s father over old quarrels and wasted time, she couldn’t deny the fact that her genes had very little to do with Lenai’s appearance. As Lenai’s older family members told her, Reina had only carried her. Lenai truly was Stuart’s child.
As equally disappointed with the shorts as she had been with every other item she ever tried on in the fitting rooms at her job, Lenai returned to her stall and put her own clothes back on, deciding her hopes of gaining weight and giving any appearance other than that of an anorexia or bulimia patient were hopeless. Clipping the shorts back onto their hanger, she tossed them onto a hook on the wall and sighed as she plopped down in the chair in the stall.
I give up, she sulked with her head in her hands. I’mma just wear flour sacks the rest of my life. This shit fits me about as well as one anyway.
Lenai had been working as a cashier and floor associate at Upstage Fashions since she was a senior in high school. Though she initially accepted the job as a means to earn extra money for senior heads and dues, two years had passed since Lenai had graduated. She wasn’t the same teenager who had no bills and was working for spending money. She was twenty years old with an apartment, a car note, and a boyfriend who routinely hopped from one job to the next. Though she had been considering leaving Upstage for well over a year, she was still there, scanning barcodes and hanging merchandise on the store’s rounders and racks.
“Lenai!” the store manager, Karina, called down the row of curtained stalls in her annoyingly squeaky voice, her even more annoyingly pudgy stomach leading the way as she rounded the corner. “Lenai, are you still back here? Your break been up! I need you back on the register!”
“Here I come,” Lenai shouted back as she put her shoes back on, grabbed the shorts, and scurried out the fitting room area.
The mid-July Memphis sun shined through the glass double doors at the front of the store and poured down the center aisle, giving the illusion of a warm, inviting atmosphere to a place Lenai had dreaded returning to since her first day on the job. A building that leaked lies and oozed of oppression, a building only half-stocked with clothes, but overrun with secret jealousies, sniveling gossip, and bold betrayal. Lenai’s eyes scanned the floor as she hurried down the long center aisle from the back of the store to reclaim her position at the counters at the front, impulsively checking the four sections the store was divided into as she passed them. The active wear and junior sections were in complete disarray with clothes thrown all over the floor, tossed on top of the rounders and dangling from the racks. She sighed as she considered the mess she and the other night shift associates would be tasked with cleaning up after closing.
“I really appreciate you coming in early,” Karina thanked her. Lenai quicky entered her employee number and password into the computer to clock back in from her break and log back into the register. “I knew we’d be busy with this Sidewalk Sale and all today, but I didn’t think we’d be this busy.”
“It was no problem. I wasn’t doing anything, and I needed the extra money,” Lenai assured her without even a glance in her direction, recognizing the underhanded gratitude Karina was trying to pass off as sincere. She peered around the woman being checked out two registers down from her own and called the next customer in line to her register.
“I’m working all day today, so I’ll be here with you tonight. Harper said she’s going to be a couple hours late coming in,” Karina informed her, referring to the usual night shift manager who was one of Karina’s cronies.
“Well…” Lenai huffed as she removed security sensors from the items she had just finished ringing up, disgruntled about being forced to work with either of them, “welcome to the jungle.”
Harper arrived at the store at three that evening, two hours after her shift was scheduled to start, with much fanfare, as was typical. Shades over her eyes, wide smile across her face, and gold tooth gleaming against her dark chocolate flesh, Harper sashayed through the front door of the store and paused in the entry way, her five-foot-four, wide-hipped frame casting a shadow down the store’s main aisle as dark as her spirit.
“Hey, y’all!” she shouted as she stood in front of the swinging door that led to the registers.
“Harper, we do not have time for your antics. As you can see, we’re swamped with customers and short-handed on the registers. Please go put your stuff down in the office and come help with this line,” Karina instructed her gossip partner dismissively. Karina and Harper were as close as two coworkers could possibly be, their acquaintance resembling that of best friends. They could frequently be heard cackling loudly during their recurring gossip sessions as they made ill-tasted jokes about the other employees and the customers who frequented the store.
“Well, dang! Y’all could act like you’re happy to see me. I could’ve stayed home and let y’all handle this little sale y’all got going on.” She sucked her teeth at Karina’s failure to hide her dwindling patience, her cockiness and unrealistic sense of self-importance evident as she headed toward the office across the aisle from the registers.
“If you feel like you’re too good to ring up customers and this sale ain’t big enough for you, you can just head on back to the house. Otherwise, I suggest you put some pep in your step. This line ain’t getting no shorter,” Karina warned her.
Lenai shook her head at Harper as she finished bagging yet another customer’s purchases and smiled widely while thanking the customer for visiting the store. She glanced at the open office door, silently hoping Harper had melted into its walls and disappeared, dreading being in her unpleasant presence, but she knew that would’ve been too big of a blessing. She would be forced to endure Harper’s condescending tone, constant shade, and unpleasant aura all night whether she wanted to or not.
When Harper finally stepped back out of the office, she signed onto register number two, the register between Lenai and Chasity, the other night shift manager who had been busily checking out customers in near silence, and began ringing up customers as well. With Harper’s help, the line moved much more quickly, and after half an hour, there was no longer a line of customers standing in front of the registers carrying hills of clothes in their arms and waiting to be checked out.
“Will y’all help straighten up the racks while y’all don’t have any customers in line? If you keep the store straight throughout the day, there won’t be so much to do at closing, and we might be able to get out of here on time tonight for a change,” Karina fussed from across the aisle in the casual section where she was shaking hangers on the racks until they hung straight.
“I was just about to run these returns and put-backs out to the floor. I’ll straighten up some while I’m doing that,” Lenai promised as she grabbed the stack of clothes customers had decided they didn’t want while at the register and stepped out onto the sales floor to return them to their displays for purchase.
This ain’t where it’s at, Lenai reminded herself as she took a deep breath while placing several sizes of the same skirt back on the rack where it belonged, annoyed by the constant attitude Karina gave her day in and day out. She glanced back at Karina, Harper, and Chasity huddled up and engaged in conversation while she breezed through the store, returning the armful of items they had collected behind the registers. She was the only one currently doing any work in the store.
It’s my metabolism, she told herself. It’s a blessing and a curse. Because I move faster than them and get things done quickly, they’d rather just let me do it all while they stand around doing nothing, gossiping about everybody in the store.
While it blessed her with speed, Lenai’s high metabolism also caused her to burn off calories at a higher rate than most other people, which contributed to her thin build. Her occasional bouts with depression triggered by the draining arguments she participated in with her boyfriend nearly daily resulted in Lenai going several days at a time without eating, leaving her body to burn calories it didn’t have, and reducing her weight even more.
They’re going to take advantage of the shit, and then talk bad about me later on when they think I can’t hear like they always do. I ain’t taking all this smiling in my face too much longer. The more I act like I don’t know what they say about me behind my back, the more they take it as encouragement to keep doing the shit. I’ve been trying to stay on the high road all this time, but sometimes you just have to let a bitch know their level ain’t so far beneath you that it’s out of reach.
She tried her best to maintain a nonchalant attitude, willing herself to put on a poker face while hopping through the active wear and junior’s sections, straightening racks, returning items, and hanging up fallen pieces of clothing. Though the day’s incidents were just drops in the pool of anger Lenai had been swimming in for years, she enjoyed the mental anguish that tortured Karina and Harper by consistently wearing the appearance of someone who was either oblivious to the constant vicious gossip and rumors they spread about her or simply refused to allow it to affect her.
“Umm… excuse me?” a woman’s voice called from behind her as she lost herself in thought while straightening the racks of business and professional attire in the back of the casual department. “Can you help me with something?”
“Sure. What can I do for you?” Lenai offered as she turned around and crossed the small, tiled walkway into the plus sized section to assist the woman.
“I’m not sure,” the customer admitted, her frustration and worry creating frown lines in the flawlessly smooth flesh on her face. “I’m looking for a certain type of top, and my friend told me y’all had them, but I don’t see them.”
“Can you describe it for me?” Lenai inquired. She inconspicuously examined the woman from head to toe while listening to her describe the blouse she was searching for. She noted how gorgeous the woman was as she explained that she actually needed an entire outfit for a job interview and that she was hoping to find the top and pair it with a pair of slacks and matching blazer.
She’s fucking fashion model beautiful, she thought while making eye contact with her. She’s really pretty. Not pretty for a Black girl. Not pretty for a big girl. She’s just pretty period. She’s a gorgeous woman.
“I’m not really the best person to help you with this. I’m a little ill-equipped,” Lenai quipped, calling the woman’s attention to her small frame when the woman finished her explanation. “Let me go get my manager,” she suggested after the woman giggled at her joke. “She’s really fashion-savvy. She’ll be able to help you more than I can.”
“Are you talking about the bright-skinned lady with the bad weave?” the woman inquired with a raised brow, referring to Karina. When Lenai confirmed with a giggle, the woman scoffed and declined. “No offense, but with that snobby-ass attitude she got, she can’t do shit for me. The last time I came in here, I asked her to help me put together an outfit for my cousin’s party, and she kept bringing me extra-large sized shit out the junior’s section. Now, look at me,” she instructed with pursed lips as she waved a hand in front of herself. “Do I look like I can fit anything smaller than a 3X? I mean, really? I would’ve had to sew together both of the pant’s legs just to get one of my thighs in it,” she scoffed. “Now, I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night, and I can take a hint. If she ain’t want to help me or if she thought I was too big to be helped, she could’ve just said that, and I would’ve taken my business elsewhere, but throwing slick shots and shade by bringing me shit she knew damn well I couldn’t fit only made me respect her that much less, and it almost cost this store my business. Shit, the only reason I’m in here now is because my friend said this is where she bought the top because after that last experience, I just assumed the company didn’t respect larger women, and if that’s the case, I’m not going to spend my money with them.”
“I’m so sorry that happened to you. That’s not right. It’s not how the company views women of larger size, and that’s not how we’re supposed to treat our customers,” Lenai apologized.
“It’s okay,” the woman assured her, catching the sincerity in Lenai’s voice. “I mean, it’s not your fault. It was just the underlying insinuation for me. The audacity!”
“I understand. I mean, I’m about as big around as your pinky, but that doesn’t give anyone the right to criticize me or make me feel bad about my size, and the same goes for you.”
“You being small doesn’t make it okay for anyone to make you feel bad about your size just like me being big doesn’t, and listening to you just now, I can tell you’ve experienced that too. Listen,” the woman murmured while stepping closer to Lenai to prevent anyone from overhearing what she was about to say. “I’mma go over to Suit Savvy and spend that extra money to find something stylish in my size, but you listen to me. Don’t you let these bitches up in here make you feel bad because you’re smaller than them. They’re just hating on you ‘cause they wish they were your size. The truth is these bitches been working in here since the damn store opened. They can’t get no better job, so they feel stuck. They’re just jealous of you because you’re young. You can leave and find a better job than working in this raggedy-ass store, and I know you know it,” the woman advised her. “Just be patient and don’t let these hoes get to you. You’ll know when that opportunity comes, and you better take it. Remember: God does things we don’t understand because He hears conversations we don’t.”
With that, the woman thanked Lenai for at least attempting to help her and left the store, leaving Lenai shaking her head at her manager as she returned to the casual section. Slowing her pace, she turned the woman’s words over in her head while reminding herself she didn’t need anyone to convince her to take whatever way out of that store God presented to her. Her occupational bags had been packed for years. She was just waiting on the train to pull up to the station.
Out the corner of her eye, Lenai noticed a taller, heavier set woman perusing through the section while watching her. She was at least two sizes larger than the largest size in the section, and she didn’t give the impression that she was interested in anything career related. Now on high alert, Lenai pretended not to notice as she continued placing items back in their designated spots. Suddenly, the woman snatched an armful of name-brand clothing she had been collecting on the arm of a rack and made a dash for the door. Lenai immediately dropped what was left of her armful of clothes and took off after the woman to stop her as she reached the metal railing at the front entrance that was meant to slow down anyone attempting to pull exactly this type of stunt. When she reached the door of the store, the woman turned to Lenai who was closing in on her and cackled at her.
“Lil’ bitty-ass bitch!” the woman crowed. “What you gone do if you catch me? Huh? Bitch, I’ll snap you in two like a fucking twig,” the woman threatened her menacingly.
Karina, who had come barreling down the center aisle when she realized what was happening, caught up to Lenai and grabbed her by her shoulders.
“Don’t chase her. Let her go. The company has insurance. Them lil’ ugly-ass shirts and skirts she got ain’t worth losing your life over,” Karina whispered a warning to her while scowling at the woman as she hopped into the pale blue Ford Taurus that had pulled in front of the door to pick her up. When the car pulled off with squealing tires as it turned out of the parking lot, Karina made note of the tag number and then helped Lenai return the rest of her pile of clothes to the racks while Lenai side-eyed her and questioned how sincere her words and gesture were.
Lenai busied herself straightening the clothes in the different sections after closing while fighting yawns as Harper and Chasity brought the racks of sale and clearance items back inside, and Karina counted the registers in the office. When she made it to the fourth and final section, the plus size section, Lenai could only shake her head in disgust. The section was in shambles, making it clear no one had even attempted to straighten it all day. There were items from all the other sections thrown on top of the racks and mixed in on the rounders. Jeans and tops were strewn across the floor, and the items on the wall were dangling from their hangers.
It’s bad enough the shit in this section is never cute, she thought. It only makes it worse when the section itself looks a mess too. It’s all about presentation. If it looks like you don’t give a fuck about the section, the customers who wear this size are going to assume you don’t give a fuck about them either.
Lenai took her time straightening the racks after pulling an empty rack from the back to collect the misplaced items until she finished. Then she put the items in their correct spot and joined the other employees in the office where Karina was finishing up filling out deposit slips. Plopping down in the chair closest to the office door, Lenai pulled out her cell phone to check her phone for missed texts as the other women continued their conversation.
“I mean, I don’t even know what I’m looking at back there. It all looks like a bunch of tents and curtains,” Harper cackled as she smacked on a piece of gum.
“I know, right?” Karina concurred. “I had a lady ask me earlier to help her back there. I told her all I could do was pull shit down for her if she wanted to see it. I ain’t got time to be tryna put together no shit the size of comforters tryna make an outfit out of it.”
“That’s shole what the clothes back there look like, too,” Harper howled while popping her gum. “Comforters and quilts. The patterns are ugly as hell. As if being big ain’t bad enough, they done went and threw patchwork on the damn folks!”
“Karina, I’m gone,” Mrs. Shirley announced as she sauntered past the office door with the usual slouch in her hunchbacked step. A sixty-two-year-old retired schoolteacher with mahogany skin as smooth as cocoa butter, Mrs. Shirley only worked as a fitting room attendant at the store because she found staying at home too boring to endure. “I ran all the clothes back and wiped everything down with the disinfectant. I’ll see y’all tomorrow after church.”
“Okay, Mrs. Shirley! See you tomorrow!” Karina shouted back. Lenai rose from her seat, locked the door behind Mrs. Shirley, and then stood at the door watching her to be sure she made it to her car safely before returning to her seat inside the office.
“Maybe you should hire somebody to work back there,” Harper suggested, continuing with the conversation.
“What do you mean? Hire a big girl?” Karina questioned her with a frown.
“Yeah, or at least somebody who has experience helping them because ain’t shit none of us can do to help them. I mean, the whole staff is normal sized except Lenai, and she’s on the opposite end of the spectrum,” Harper commented, her wide nose scrunched up at Lenai. Lenai glared at her. Her piercing scowl warning her that she was igniting a blaze she had no way to extinguish.
“I did interview a bigger girl the other day,” Karina mumbled while thinking aloud as she sealed several plastic envelopes. “I told her I’d call her, but you know what that shit means when somebody tells you that at an interview. I mean, she was pretty big, like at least a 3X. I just didn’t think she’d be able to work here. We’re on our feet a whole lot up in here. I thought she’d probably get tired or winded or something. I ain’t got time to be giving folks breathing treatments when they have asthma attacks from doing too much walking,” she joked.
“Ummm… excuse me? I have asthma,” Chasity scoffed while glaring back and forth between the two of them, clearly offended by Karina’s statement.
“Yeah, but you ain’t the star of the next episode of My 600-Pound Life either. We can at least help you up, get you in a chair, or something without needing a crane to do it,” Harper excused the comment, but Chasity was not amused, and the glare she now directed at Harper stated as much.
“I’ll call her Monday and see if she’s still interested,” Karina continued the conversation. “If not, I’ll just have to try to find somebody because right now, we don’t have any kind of help for them folks.” She tsked as she stacked the tills from the cash registers in the safe, tossed the sealed deposit bags on top, and then locked the safe’s heavy iron door with a loud clank. “Let’s go, y’all. It’s almost ten, and you know these folks get to asking questions if we stay up in their store more than an hour past closing.”
Lenai headed for the door as Karina rose from her seat at the desk and flipped the switches on the wall inside the tiny office to turn off the lights inside the store. She stared out the glass double doors at the night sky wondering when she’d be able to say she was leaving the store for the last time. When the alarm beeped, indicating it was armed, Lenai used Karina’s key that was left in the door’s lock to free them from their holding cell, and they all exited the store together. Climbing into her silver Kia Optima without saying a word to the other women, she pulled off the lot headed in the opposite direction from everyone else.