Page 15 of Meet Me in Berlin

‘Hiya, Josanne. Sorry if you were chasing me.’

She waves away my apology. ‘It’s not a problem.’ She sits and crosses her legs, smoothing her floral dress over her knees.

My eyes flick up from my screen, curious about why she’s settling in.

‘So, I know you’ve got a lot going on at the mo…’ She winces.

‘Not more work for today,’ I groan.

‘Not today, no. But I do need you to help out with the Berlin exhibition.’

‘Berlin?’ I lean back in my chair. ‘I’m already helping.’

‘I mean, more hands-on. As of this morning, they’re down two staff with illness. Felix is in an absolute tizz trying to sort it on his own.’

‘Well, I’ll be there for the opening. S’pose I could go the night before.’

‘You’d probably need to go earlier than that. Be there for a couple of days.’ She pauses. ‘A week, max.’

‘Oh. You want me to go there to work?’

She fiddles with the bright pink beads hanging low on her chest. ‘You helped curate it, so you’re more across it than the rest of us.’

‘Um…’

Her dark eyebrows draw together. ‘I thought you’d jump at the opportunity. You normally like going over there.’

‘I do. It’s just that I need to crack on with our winter exhibition. The artists have to be firmed up in the next few weeks and?—’

‘Delaying a week won’t hurt, and Michaela can help out in your absence.’

‘It’s, erm…’ I search my brain for another excuse. ‘It’s the wedding. Eva’s got us doing all sorts every night.’

The truth is I love the Berlin gallery, and the Queer Perspectives show we’ve curated is incredible, plus it’d be a chance to see my aunt and uncle, but Berlin in August has a strange effect on me. A couple of years before I met Eva, I went there in August and found myself sitting under that damn tree in Monbijoupark, as though doing so would magically throw me back in time and reverse my idiotic decision to cut ties with Holly. I ended up crying for an hour and breaking it off with my girlfriend at the time because my feelings for her didn’t come close to what I felt for Holly. And right now, with all this confusion about Eva and the wedding, it’s best I fly in, attend the opening and come straight home.

‘Ah, the wedding, of course.’ Josanne presses her lips together, her disappointment palpable.

‘And it’s my dad’s birthday that week,’ I quickly add. ‘We always go to Carnival…’

She stands. ‘Okay, well, I don’t want to put pressure on you when you have a lot going on. You were my first choice because our Berlin gallery was the main reason you came to work here.’

I narrow my eyes at her because she’s trying it on. ‘One of the reasons – you’re the main reason.’ I loved that this gallery had a Black female director who transformed it from a failing, stale art house to a thriving contemporary gallery that champions diversity in all forms, supports artists of colour and exhibits progressive works of art in all mediums. The fact that it had a collaboration with a Berlin gallery was a bonus.

She grins. ‘Sucking up will get you very far in your career.’

I laugh.

‘Have a think about it over the weekend. I don’t want to ruin your dad’s birthday if you have plans or get in the way of the wedding, but it would be good to send someone to help them out. You’re the best person, but if you can’t go, you can’t go.’

Telling me to take the weekend to think about it is Josanne’s way of saying she needs me to do this. What she’s not saying is that I’m head of exhibitions, which means I sometimes need to fulfil that role in both galleries.

‘Let me check what I’ve got on here for the next couple of weeks and chat to Eva and my dad. Let you know by Monday?’

She beams. ‘You’re a star. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.’

‘Oh, I haven’t decided?—’

But she’s already left my office.

---