Not In Her Job Description

IN MOTION

INDIRA The email came at 7:43 a.m. I hadn't even fully opened my eyes when my phone buzzed on the nightstand. I reached for it blindly, fully prepared for it to be something forgettable — a newsletter, a delivery update, Anika texting from the store to remind me not to be late. It was from Worthington Corp HR. *Subject: Confirmation of Promotion — Administrative Assistant to the CEO* I sat up. I read it twice. Then a third time, just to be sure Friday hadn't been some elaborate, cruel dream cooked up by an overworked brain. But there it was in plain, corporate font — my new title, my start date, my revised salary, and all the accompanying details laid out with the brisk efficiency of a company that didn't deal in emotions. Then the second notification came in. A bank alert. The wardrobe allowance had already landed in my account. I stared at the figure for a long, silent moment. Then I screamed into my pillow like a woman who had completely lost her mind. --- I woke up properly a couple of hours after Anika had already left for work. The flat was quiet in that particular Saturday morning way — unhurried and golden. I padded to the kitchen in my socks and pushed the windows open. There was a small garden just outside, and the smell of it drifted in immediately, something green and clean and alive, carried on a breeze that ruffled my hair and settled over me like a sigh. It was a genuinely beautiful day. Blue sky, warm sun, cool air — the kind of morning that made London feel like it was showing off. Though I'll be honest — I'm not entirely sure the day was objectively that lovely, or if I was simply so buoyant from the promotion that everything around me had taken on an unreasonable glow. Either way, I was happy. Quietly, deeply, almost disbelievingly happy. I had half a mind to spend the entire day horizontal, wrapped in a duvet, doing absolutely nothing. But I knew with complete certainty that if I tried that, Anika would come home, locate every limb, barbecue them individually, and make me eat them with a side of disappointment. So I made myself a cup of black coffee, leaned against the kitchen counter, and let myself exist in the quiet for a moment. It was in that stillness that I thought of my mother. She would have been so happy today. Not just about the promotion — though she would have made an enormous fuss about that — but about all of it. The flat. Anika. The fact that I was standing in a kitchen on a Saturday morning with coffee in my hand and reasons to smile. It's hard to believe ten years have passed since she died. Some mornings it feels like a decade. Other mornings, like this one, it feels like I only just stopped hearing her voice. I pushed the thought into something softer and reached for my phone to call my sister, Ishani. She picked up on the second ring. "Hiiiiii Didi!" The shriek was immediate and full-bodied, as if she'd been waiting by the phone. "Hi Isha. How are you?" "I'm doing beautifully now that you've called." Isha had always been the charmer of the two of us. It came to her the way breathing did — effortlessly, naturally, without any apparent thought. "I have something to tell you." A beat. "What's wrong? Is it work?" "Yes, actually." What followed was nothing short of a masterclass in catastrophic thinking. In under thirty seconds, Isha had me fired, blacklisted, financially ruined, and emotionally devastated — all before I had said a single additional word. She was spiraling with such sincere, breathless concern that I had to set my coffee down. "Isha." I kept my voice deliberately, almost comically patient. "I don't need your support. I haven't lost my job. I've been *promoted.*" The silence lasted exactly one second. Then she screamed so loudly I pulled the phone from my ear. "Oh my God Indiiiii, why didn't you say so?! I was so worried, I thought—" "You did all of that to yourself, Isha. Every single bit of it." "You're right, I did. But I am happy for you, truly. Give me every single detail right now." So I told her everything. Ms. Emilia summoning me in person. The new title. The salary — four times what I'd been earning — which made Isha go very quiet in the way she did when she was trying not to cry. The company car, which did make her cry. The wardrobe allowance, which made her cry harder. And Anika's plan to drag me through every rail in Belgravia, which produced a squeal so piercing I nearly dropped my phone entirely. When the excitement settled, Isha went quiet again. Softer this time. "Indira," she said. "I'm really, truly happy for you. If anyone in the world deserves this, it's you. You've worked so hard — not just for yourself but for me too, ever since Mum died. I know it hasn't been easy and I know you never complain and I just—" Her voice cracked cleanly down the middle. "Isha. Don't." "I love you, Indi. And Mum would have been so proud of you. I hope you know that." My eyes stung. I blinked it back and looked out at the garden. "I know she would have been," I said quietly. "She always was — of both of us. I love you too, dumpling." "Indira. No one calls me that anymore, oh my God, you're so annoying—" "I'm sorry, puffy cheeks." "*Goodbye.* I'm never speaking to you again." I laughed and ended the call. I set the phone on the kitchen table and stood there for a moment, letting the warmth of the call sit alongside the other thing — the older, quieter thing underneath it. The memory of my father walking out for Stephanie. Of my mother dying with no one beside her who should have been. Of everything that came after and the version of myself that got built in the rubble of all that. I refused to let it swallow the day. I set my jaw, picked up my coffee, and went to get ready. --- Anika had, predictably, prepared for this moment. Affixed to the front of a dress hanging in my closet was a handwritten note in her loopy, unapologetic scrawl: "Wear this. You need to stop dressing like your clothes were tailored for an overweight hippo. Love you." The dress itself was a light green cottage dress. It was beautiful, off the shoulder, cinched at the waist, knee-length with a mid-thigh slit and the most darling little chest straps. Scattered across it were darker green florals that somehow managed to be delicate without being fussy. I showered a lot longer than I had time for, shorter than I wanted. I went through my skincare routine, which was entirely Anika's doing and which I would never admit out loud had transformed my skin completely. I got dressed. And then I made the mistake of looking in the mirror. Anika was right. She was insufferably, categorically right. The green pulled out the color of my eyes and made my auburn hair look like it had been professionally lit. The silhouette was everything. I paired it with rose gold strappy heeled sandals, a small shoulder bag, minimal makeup, and my hair loose and wavy around my shoulders. I looked like a woman who had just been promoted to the top floor of one of Britain's most powerful corporations. I giggled at my own reflection, actually giggled then twirled twice like I was seventeen, and walked out of the bedroom ready to meet Anika and do serious, irreparable damage to that wardrobe allowance. --- KYLE I was in the middle of an excellent dream when Kayla happened. I didn't hear her come in, she unfortunately has her own key, a decision I was actively reconsidering but I heard her on the stairs. Every single step deliberate, heavy, and completely unnecessary in a penthouse with this quality of flooring. She was doing it on purpose. She has always done it on purpose. Kayla Worthington has been the single most effective alarm clock in my life since 1998 and she has never once been sorry about it. I kept my eyes shut. Perhaps if I remained still enough, she'd assume I was dead and leave. She went to the windows. I sat up immediately. "Kayla. Don't." She did it anyway. The curtains flew back and light hit me like a physical assault. I genuinely felt my soul leave my body. I lunged for my glasses on the nightstand, blinking against the glare, fairly certain I now understood what Apostle Paul experienced on the road to Damascus; the divine ambush, the temporary blindness, the complete absence of consent. "Rise and shine, boba," Kayla said, in that particular voice of hers that I can only describe as gleefully nasal. "You could have simply turned on the lights," I said, my voice still rough with sleep. "Absolutely not. Nothing beats natural light first thing in the morning. And besides, the lighting in this room is barely adequate." "The lighting is perfectly fine." "It is not. You live like a vampire. No wonder you need glasses. You need more sunshine in your life, Kyle." "I have you, Kayla." I looked at her flatly over the rim of my glasses. "You are more than enough sunshine. I mean that in the most unflattering way humanly possible." She beamed. "Being called sunshine cannot be unflattering. You've failed." I exhaled slowly through my nose. "Why are you here? I don't have time for this." Her expression shifted into something dangerous. "You forgot, didn't you." "I don't know what you're talking about. I need to go back to sleep." The look on her face stopped me cold. "Kyle Worthington." Her voice dropped to that particular register she reserved for moments of genuine threat. "We are going shopping today. I told you yesterday. You have twenty minutes to get yourself downstairs and presentable, and I will not be repeating myself." She turned and walked out, her footsteps considerably lighter on the way down — because of course they were. The stomping had been entirely theatrical. I sat on the edge of my bed, glasses on, staring at the doorway she'd just vacated. Twenty minutes. I could be CEO of a multi-billion pound corporation by Monday and still be completely powerless against my little sister on a Saturday morning.

I got up.