chapter
1

If Naomi was in need of Darjeeling tea bags, a Ganesh bobblehead, or tantric sex pills, she was in the right place. The tightly packed aisles of Gia's Bazaar were a mayhem of imports from India, cheap knockoffs, and the odd head scratcher, like a small wicker basket overflowing with brown Jesus keychains nestled between bottles of Fair & Lovely face cream.

Naomi would have to save examining the peculiar selection of inventory for later. She was twenty-two minutes late for her job interview, and the uncharacteristic tardiness was giving her palpitations. After a quick lap through the deserted store confirmed that she was alone, dread threaded up her spine like ascending black keys on an out-of-tune piano.

What if this awful first impression lost her the job? Or, worse, what if the potential client had deemed her a no-show and moved on to the next prospect? Naomi leveled her gaze on a particularly stern-looking brown Jesus in a bid to calm her shivering heart. She tried to rally, to "pull herself up by the bootstraps" as her stepfather would say, as she had countless times before.

But she couldn't ignore the whisper of doubt in the back of her mind, not when it was as persistent as the smell of dust and cardboard lingering on the shelves around her. Not when, after recently starting her own brand consulting business, staying afloat hinged on securing a new client.

This client.

Competition was fierce in Kelowna, with larger firms looking to capitalize on the popular tourist destination's many gentrification efforts. Naomi couldn't afford to let anything slide through her fingers; there was no room for anything less than perfection, not at this crucial point in her career. Naomi hastily swiped her forearm across her forehead, her eyes widening when she saw the thin residue of sweat on the cuff of her sleeve. She needed to get a hold of herself. She couldn't fall apart now, not when she was two rent payments away from dragging her ass back to-

A light tinkling at the back of the room distracted Naomi from what she was sure were the beginnings of her first-ever anxiety attack. The welcome noise was punctuated by a sharp sneeze and unintelligible muttering.

Curious, Naomi ducked behind a tower of ladies' stockings-Now with lifting action!-and peered around the side. A South Asian lady stood behind the cash register, her back to Naomi, impatiently untangling a beaded curtain of seashells and tiny brass bells that hung from a doorframe. She appeared to be losing the battle as one of the bells slipped off the string and skittered across the floor.

"Bah!" The lady scoffed, relinquishing the tangled strings with a dramatic flick of her wrist so they clattered mockingly in return. She turned to crouch behind the cash register.

It wasn't the ideal time to make an impression-never mind a tardy one at that-but being caught lurking behind control-top pantyhose was a much worse fate. Naomi smoothed the front of her blazer in an attempt to smother the flutter of nerves flapping snow angels in her stomach. Meeting new clients always filled her with a roiling mixture of adrenaline and uncertainty. If she was going to overhaul a family's livelihood, she needed them to like her. And trust her. She needed her clients to forget that she was a relatively new name in the brand consulting field, to see past the snug cut of her gray blazer that, while a little tight over the shoulders, had been forty percent off and too good to pass up.

Naomi pressed her shoulders back, pasted a polite smile on her face, and headed to the counter. At the sound of her approaching footsteps, the woman stood slowly. Her dark brown eyes flicked to Naomi's hands and, finding them empty, moved over her blazer with suspicion.

Silently reassuring herself that she'd removed her jacket's clearance sale tag long ago, Naomi stuck out her hand. "Hi, I'm Nao-"

"I don't need life insurance."

"Wait, pardon me?"

"Whatever you're selling, I'm not interested." The woman's hands fluttered like a flock of agitated birds.

"But I'm Naomi Kelly."

Unimpressed, the lady glanced at Naomi's hand, still outstretched in midair, before meeting her gaze again with zero recognition on her face. The edges of Naomi's hastily stitched confidence began to fray.

"I'm here for my interview with the owners?" Naomi's voice faltered, and she lowered her hand slowly. "The Musas recommended me?"

Silence.

"A woman named Aashi arranged this meeting?"

When the woman's lips pursed, Naomi's mind made frantic leaps and bounds through her memory; this was Gia's Bazaar, right? She'd read the sign outside correctly, hadn't she?

"I'm the brand consultant," Naomi blurted out.

"Oh! The Brand Lady!"

Brand Lady? Naomi tried not to wince as the woman assessed her again with narrowed eyes.

"You are not what I expected. 'Kelly' is not an Indian name, but you look South Asian."

Naomi managed to hold on to her smile before it pulled into a grimace. She was all too familiar with where this was going. If it wasn't "But where do you come from really?" from Canadians who could trace their family trees to settler times, it was people of color wanting to know where she belonged, the depth of her cultural roots. It had been bad enough bearing such scrutiny in her small, homogenous hometown, but the city of Kelowna was much larger and contained a sizable South Asian community by comparison. Here, curiosity barreled in from both sides. Naomi had been fielding questions since moving here four years ago, but she had learned, rather quickly, that there were right and wrong answers.

The South Asians in Kelowna were, for the most part, a formidable group: educated, traditional, proud of their roots, and wealthy, with many of them working white-collar jobs or owning one or more lucrative businesses. They didn't look too highly on those who didn't share the same values, and Naomi-the result of an unplanned pregnancy of a high school dropout who had fled her family and Bengali community for a rural, predominantly white town-did not represent the Indo-Canadian dream to which they aspired for their children. Her mother had never bothered to attain her GED; her white stepfather was a plumber. Naomi, at least, had gone to college but a technical one and, to a community that valued careers in STEM, there were very few bragging rights attached to her marketing management diploma.

Luckily, Naomi had long ago perfected the art of dodging questions about her past. "I get that a lot."

"I'm familiar with a lot of South Asian families in this area, but I don't recognize you. Do you live around here? Are you related to the Vissanjis? Are you West Indian?"

They always tried to place her.

"I'm from Alberta," Naomi replied, her voice as bland and harmless as low-fat vanilla yogurt. "I don't have any family here." It wasn't the entire truth, but it was usually enough to deter follow-up questions. In Naomi's experience, the South Asians of British Columbia were not too invested in the goings-on of her prairie province, thank goodness. But when the woman squinted at her appraisingly, Naomi rushed to add, "I'm looking for the owner, Aashi?"

The lady, although several inches shorter than Naomi's five feet, four inches, drew herself upward and lifted her chin so her weighty stare came from high above. "No, this is my store. I am Gia Mukherjee." As an afterthought, she raised her hands in front of her breastbone and pressed her palms together in a traditional Hindu greeting, but there was no warmth there. "I had my sister call you because she said she had heard of someone who could help the store. But from what she told me, I expected someone familiar with our community. Someone with more . . . experience."

Naomi's jaw clenched. The South Asians in Kelowna were a tight-knit circle and-for many reasons-Naomi was very much an outsider. And reminded of this fact all too often. But she refused to allow such a weak excuse affect her career. And even though most of the products in the store were unfamiliar to her, the desire to walk out didn't materialize. Instead, her spine reared upward in response. This lady doesn't know you. Prove her wrong.

It was time for the pitch she'd practiced for hours in the mirror-the one that always earned her at least a glimmer of respect at networking events and job interviews.

"I've been working as a brand consultant for over four years. Most of my previous work has been as one of the top-performing consultants with Adams and Ridge Solutions; however, I recently started my own company to connect with small business owners-"

"So you've never worked with a store like this before."

Startled by the interruption, Naomi shut her mouth and forced herself to smile. Forget the pitch, it seemed that the first order of business would be to win this passive-aggressive tennis match.

"Your sister seemed plenty impressed by my experience when she called me to set up this interview," Naomi said, dousing her voice in syrupy sweetness.

"I haven't heard your name before." A hard backhand.

Naomi lifted her chin-she knew her way around the court. "Really? That's surprising-I completed the Musa family's rebrand. Perhaps you just didn't know it was my work?"

Her opponent's eyes widened, and the arrogance on her face dropped a notch. "Oh?"

Naomi readied herself for an epic overhead smash: "Are you familiar with their store, Soul Cloth?"

At Gia's small nod of acknowledgment, Naomi could hear the applause thundering against her eardrums. Match point.

Gia might not have been aware that Soul Cloth was Naomi's handiwork, but the store's transformation from overstuffed, synthetic fabric store to ethically sourced African arts and crafts emporium spoke for itself. Located one door over from Gia's Bazaar, the family-owned store now thrived on steady foot traffic.

Thanks to Naomi, the Musas were one of the handful of business owners who had survived the gentrification sweeping through many of the older neighborhoods in Kelowna. Not all businesses in the strip mall housing Gia's Bazaar and Soul Cloth had held their ground, though: the Liu family had been the first to flee, a gourmet cheese shop now stood where the old halal meat market had been, and Deol Jewelers had migrated south in search of more affordable pastures. Hipster money was rolling in, and old businesses were shuffling out. Gia was late to the game, but from the way the owner was assessing Naomi now, it was clear she wanted a piece of the action.

And so did Naomi. She needed a big win, and soon, if the pile of overdue notices stuffed into her desk drawer had anything to say about it. Perhaps it had been too impulsive of her to do the Musas' rebrand at cost, an ill-conceived attempt by a twenty-six-year-old bleeding heart to give a struggling family a chance in Kelowna's changing economy.

But she could never regret the decision to take a pay cut to help them fulfill their dreams.

The warm, balmy weather might have lured Naomi to Kelowna, but it was the sea of colorful faces, each one with a different story to tell, that had convinced her to stay. Providing the Musas with the opportunity to keep their culture, and their livelihood, alive in the community was well worth six more months of ramen and scrambled eggs.

"Have you worked with the South Asian community before?" Gia asked.

Naomi hesitated, aware that she should tread with caution. "This would be my first time."

Although she was still finding her footing in Kelowna, Naomi was determined to make a name for herself. She didn't really have any other choice-unless she wanted to return to her parents' home, tail tucked between her legs, proving to her mother that trying to make her own way among a community that would reject her was indeed a mistake.

She'd choke down a year's worth of bargain-bin canned food to avoid that.

"Most of my customers are South Asian," Gia said. "It's important to me to retain them. Are you familiar with the products we carry?"

"Not all of them, but I'm a fast learner. I didn't know much about the Musas, and I was able to capture their vision for them." Casually, Naomi moved her left hand behind her back and crossed her fingers, as if the childish habit made up at all for the half-truths she was spouting now. Sure, Mr. Musa's natural interest in collecting African artifacts and art had easily lent itself to the redesign of the now-popular store, but there was no way his family would've gotten to that lucrative point without Naomi's help.

"Is three months enough time?" Gia asked.

Yes. Everything in Naomi eased as a bolt of confidence puffed into her chest. She'd done it. The Musas had been the perfect drop shot, her secret weapon to winning the game. "Of course," she replied, tucking her gloat away for later. Maybe she'd even splurge on cheap sparkling juice and pretend it was champagne. "Three months is more than enough time to develop a business concept to turn things around, no proble-"

"No. Three months to complete the job. My store has been quiet long enough; I'd like to reopen in three months." Gia cocked an eyebrow. "Besides, if you are as capable as you say you are . . ."

Frissons of sharp, hot panic crept up Naomi's neck. Three months? Even at her previous corporate brand-consulting job, where funds, resources, and labor had been endless and at her disposal, three months was a minuscule amount of time. It was a sliver of what Gia's Bazaar would need, if the fine layer of dust coating everything around them was any indication. But did she really have a choice? Since the Musas' rebrand-which she had completed over a month ago-Naomi had lured exactly zero new business. The market was too hot right now, Kelowna too connected.

Small business owners might be fighting to stay afloat, but they wanted established consultants, larger PR firms with a contingent of guarantees attached to their name. Or, worse, they wanted something-or someone-familiar to guide them into the capitalistic death match.

Naomi examined the firm set of Gia's lips. She might share the color of Gia's skin, but she was a stranger to the older South Asian woman. A nobody.

"Three months," Naomi repeated. She nodded once. Twice. "I can do it."