CHAPTER TWO: In Which Zuri Makes Spectacularly Poor Decisions (Again)
770 Words
Thursday afternoon found Zuri standing on Bahnhofstrasse, staring at a shop window like it had personally wronged her.
"You're doing it again," Sophie said, appearing with two coffees. They were on lunch break, which Zuri was using to t*****e herself by window shopping on possibly the most expensive street in Switzerland.
"Doing what?"
"Looking at things you can't afford with the expression of someone planning a heist."
"I'm simply admiring the architecture."
"The architecture is a midnight blue dress that costs more than my monthly rent."
"Architecture is important."
The dress in question was objectively perfect. Not Dior she'd looked at Dior yesterday and dismissed it. Too obvious. Too new. Too much like trying.
This was something else. Smaller boutique. Italian, probably. The kind of place that didn't advertise because they didn't need to. The dress was simple. Elegant. The kind of thing that whispered rather than shouted.
Her grandmother would have approved.
Which meant it was probably ruinously expensive.
"How much do you think it costs?" Sophie asked.
"I'm afraid to look."
"That bad?"
"Possibly worse."
They stood there for a moment, two analysts staring at a dress neither of them could afford, for very different reasons.
"You could wear something you already own," Sophie tried.
"Everything I own is either wrong or I've worn it to company events."
"So buy something reasonable."
Zuri twisted her grandmother's emerald ring. The ring that had travelled from Cairo to Lagos in 1952, carried by her great-grandmother as part of a marriage that merged two trading families. Old money didn't buy new things. They inherited them. Kept them. Passed them down.
But old money also understood that sometimes you needed something perfect for a specific moment.
"Let me just look," Zuri said.
"That's how they get you."
They went inside anyway.
The shop was the kind of place where even the silence felt expensive. Soft lighting, minimal furnishings, a sales assistant who looked like she'd been dressed by the same invisible force that arranged the displays.
"Good afternoon." Her accent was Italian, warm. "Can I help you with anything?"
"We're just browsing," Sophie said quickly.
"I'd like to try the blue dress in the window," Zuri said at exactly the same time.
Sophie made a noise like a small animal in distress.
The woman's smile widened. "Ah, the Valentino. Excellent choice. Size?"
Valentino. Of course it was Valentino.
Her mother had three Valentino dresses. All from Rome. All from before Valentino became something you could buy off the rack. All perfect.
Ten minutes later, Zuri was standing in a fitting room that was larger than her bedroom, staring at her reflection.
The dress fit perfectly.
Of course it did.
She touched the fabric. Quality, certainly. The cut was exquisite someone who understood bodies had made this. Someone who knew that elegance wasn't about embellishment. It was about line. Proportion. The way fabric moved.
This was the kind of dress her mother would wear. Would have worn. Probably had worn, in some earlier version, to some event that mattered.
"Come out," Sophie called. "Let me see the damage."
Zuri stepped out.
Sophie's jaw dropped. "Oh no."
"What?"
"You look incredible."
"That's not helpful."
"I know. I'm sorry. But you do." Sophie circled her. "It's perfect. You're perfect. This is a disaster."
The sales assistant had materialised. "It suits you beautifully. Very elegant. Valentino designs for women who understand quality."
There it was. That phrase. Women who understand quality. Code for: women who can afford it.
"How much?" Zuri asked, even though she knew this was a mistake. Knowing the price would make it real.
"Six thousand, eight hundred francs."
Sophie physically flinched.
Six thousand, eight hundred francs. Zuri's current bank balance was negative eight hundred and forty-seven francs. Her credit cards were maxed. Her overdraft was exhausted.
She had forty-seven francs of available credit left in the entire world.
Across town, her mother was probably having tea in Lagos, completely unaware that her daughter was about to make a financial decision that would require either divine intervention or a very awkward phone call.
"I'll take it," Zuri heard herself say.
"ZURI."
"I'll put it on my London card."
"YOUR MAXED LONDON CARD?"
"It has some space left. Technically."
The sales assistant was already processing the payment, apparently immune to the intervention happening in her shop. These women were trained for this. They'd seen a thousand Sophie's trying to save a thousand Zuri's from themselves.
Zuri handed over her card the one she'd opened at university, the one her father's accountants didn't monitor as closely, the one that was supposed to be for emergencies.
- Writer
