Zolani cleared his throat and clapped to get attention.
“Staff, I want to introduce you to Kemet, my wife. As you all know, our company is going through some difficulties.”
He began his dramatic speech.
“Kemet, to share the burden with her husband, has offered to come and help us. She’ll handle the small tasks in the office like serving coffee, making photocopies, and cleaning. If you need anything, you can ask her.”
All eyes turned to me. There was curiosity, pity, and a little contempt.
I lowered my head.
“I count on your help,” I murmured.
Then Zolani turned to his mistress.
“Zahara, you are my assistant and the most resourceful person here. Can you give Mrs. Jones her initial instructions? As for a workspace, she can use that small table in the archive corner.”
Zahara smiled sideways, a smile whose meaning only I understood. The smile of the winner.
She approached me, her red dress dazzling. She extended a hand with nails painted bright red.
“Hello, I’m Zahara, the director’s assistant. It’s a pleasure to work with you from now on. If you don’t understand anything, you can ask me. Don’t be shy.”
The way she emphasized “with you,” the way she said “director’s assistant”—it was all provocation.
I took a deep breath, extended my rough hand, and squeezed her soft one.
“Thank you. I’ll try to do my best.”
My job began.
Just as Zolani said, I was nothing more than a maid. In the morning, I had to arrive before everyone else to clean the desks and fill the water coolers. When everyone arrived, I had to serve coffee and tea to each person.
Zolani and Zahara were the first to be served.
“Kemet,” Zahara called, sitting with her legs crossed at her desk. “My coffee today has to be a good espresso. I don’t drink just anything.”
“Kemet, photocopy these documents. Twenty copies of each. And hurry up, Director Jones has a meeting in ten minutes.”
Zolani was even worse. He made sure to be cold and distant with me in front of everyone. He treated me like a low-level employee. He didn’t hesitate to call Zahara into his office and slam the door shut. Sometimes, when I went to bring water, I heard their laughter inside.
I had to wait at the door. Once Zahara came out with slightly swollen lips and a misaligned collar. She looked at me defiantly.
I clenched my teeth and endured. Every humiliation I suffered today would turn into a stab I would give them later.
I had to endure.
I worked in silence—cleaning, serving. I acted clumsy and slow on purpose so they would despise me even more.
But I wasn’t just cleaning. My eyes were observing everything. My ears were listening to everything. I paid attention to who was friends with whom, who spoke ill of whom, and my main target was the accounting department, where the head accountant, Mrs. Eleanor, worked.
The office wasn’t large. It had about a dozen employees. Accounting was in a corner with three people: a recent graduate named Mia, an accountant named Dennis, and the main manager, Mrs. Eleanor. She was about forty, a robust woman with a perpetually serious expression and few words. She was the oldest employee, having been there since the company started.
At first, I felt a little confused. I remembered Zolani telling Zahara, “The accounting manager is a trusted person.” If Mrs. Eleanor was Zolani’s confidant and was helping him falsify the books, I wouldn’t have a chance. But I decided I had to get close to her.
I used my old tactic—sincerity and a poor-little-me demeanor.
Every morning, in addition to coffee for Zolani and Zahara, I prepared a cup of herbal tea for Mrs. Eleanor.
“I noticed you’re coughing a bit. Drink this to soothe your throat,” I said softly.
Mrs. Eleanor looked at me in surprise, but accepted with a nod.
“Thank you.”
At lunchtime, everyone went out to eat at nearby sandwich shops and diners. I stayed in the office, bringing a Tupperware from home—white rice, some steamed vegetables, and a fried egg. I did it on purpose.
Mrs. Eleanor also usually brought a Tupperware. I glanced at hers and saw it was equally simple.
I approached to chat.
“Mrs. Eleanor, enjoy your meal. My food isn’t much, but I brought some pickled okra my mother sent me from Florida. Would you like to try some?”
I offered her a small jar.
Mrs. Eleanor looked at me, and her gaze softened a bit.
“You have a difficult life, taking care of your son and also coming to work here with the company lately…” She sighed.
I took the opportunity, my eyes filling with tears.
“Mrs. Eleanor, is the company really doing badly? I’m so worried. Zolani comes home constantly irritated. Sometimes he doesn’t even come home. I’m so scared. What if the company really goes bankrupt? I don’t know how my son and I will survive.”
I wanted her to see that I was trustworthy and at the same time stupid, without any knowledge of accounting.
And I started to notice the tension between Mrs. Eleanor and the Zolani–Zahara duo.
Zahara, being the director’s mistress, frequently went to the accounting department to give orders.
“Mrs. Eleanor, why is this budget taking so long? Director Zolani is waiting.”
“Eleanor, my advance for representation expenses hasn’t been approved yet. Don’t you know I’m busy?”
Mrs. Eleanor, being older and a veteran employee, felt insulted by a bold young woman who treated her that way. She would turn red with anger, but swallow her pride.
“I know. You can leave. When it’s ready, I’ll call you,” she would answer coldly.
I was nearby cleaning a table and saw everything. After Zahara left, Mrs. Eleanor muttered under her breath,
“A self-important brat who thinks she’s somebody. What a lack of respect.”
I knew it. My opportunity was there.
Mrs. Eleanor was not Zolani’s confidant. She worked for him because he paid her, but she despised him and his mistress. She despised the way Zolani treated me, his lifelong wife.
A few days later, I stayed late at the office. I told Zolani that Jabari had a fever and I had left him with a neighbor. I had to stay to finish cleaning.
Zolani nodded. He was also in a rush to leave—obviously with Zahara.
The office was left only with Mrs. Eleanor and me.
Mrs. Eleanor looked at me with pity.
“Men… their careers are always first. Don’t think about it too much. Come on, eat,” she said, opening her Tupperware.
She didn’t say anything else.
Her computer restarted, but instead of opening the Excel file with the supposed losses, it opened a different file named GOLDMINE.xlsx.
Mrs. Eleanor had forgotten to close it before restarting.
My heart pounded uncontrollably. I looked toward the door. She was still in the coffee area, fixing herself some tea.
Trembling, I grabbed the mouse and clicked on the file.
It opened.
My God.
My vision blurred.
They weren’t loss reports. It was a completely different world. Signed contracts, the real values received, money transfers to an account in the name of a company called Cradle and Sons LLC.
I remembered—Cradle was Zolani’s father’s last name. This was the subsidiary company he had created to divert assets.
The result wasn’t a fifty-thousand-dollar loss, but a net profit of over two million dollars.
I started shaking.
I quickly looked for a USB drive in Mrs. Eleanor’s drawer. I knew she usually kept one there, but it wasn’t there.
Darn.
I heard her footsteps approaching. I quickly minimized the GOLDMINE file and left the screen showing the loss report.
It was just in time.
Mrs. Eleanor entered with a cup of coffee.
“What a drag,” she sighed.
She sat down and reopened the Excel file with the losses, continuing to work as if nothing had happened. She didn’t know what I had seen.
Or was it on purpose?
The file name—GOLDMINE—the forgetting to close it, the leaving to get coffee. I wasn’t sure, but I knew one thing.
I had found the treasure. I knew where it was. I just needed one more chance, a chance to copy it.
I looked at the computer and memorized the file path. I would buy a USB drive that night. Tomorrow, I would act.
That night, on the way home, after picking up Jabari, I stopped at a small electronics store in a strip mall. I bought the cheapest USB drive I could find, a black 16GB one. I hid it carefully in my bra.
I couldn’t sleep all night, my heart pounding. I had seen the treasure, but how would I get it? I couldn’t count on luck a second time. I couldn’t expect Mrs. Eleanor to randomly go get coffee again. I had to create my own opportunity.
I thought intensely. I needed a reason for her to step away long enough for me to copy that GOLDMINE file. The file had to be heavy. It contained all the real financial data for several years. A few seconds wouldn’t be enough.
The next morning, I arrived at the company with a plan. I had prepared a small bottle of water hidden in my cleaning bucket.
I continued with my tasks—cleaning, serving coffee, observing like a predator.
Zahara seemed tired that day. She didn’t give me as many orders as usual. Zolani was constantly on the phone. He seemed worried about something.
Only the accounting department remained quiet at lunchtime.
Now was the time.
People started leaving for lunch. As usual, Mrs. Eleanor brought her Tupperware. Zahara, who was complaining of fatigue, stayed slumped at her desk and didn’t go out to eat. Zolani had already left.
It couldn’t be with Zahara there. I couldn’t act. I had to wait.
Patience, Kemet.
Half an hour later, Zolani returned by car, stopped abruptly at the door, and walked in. He saw Zahara slumped over and approached, looking worried.
“What’s wrong? Are you feeling sick?”
Zahara pouted.
“I’m tired. I think my blood sugar is low.”
Zolani, distressed, said,
“Well, let’s go get some chicken noodle soup. I’ll take you to get some so you feel better.”
Zahara nodded.
Zolani helped her up and glanced at me.
“Kemet, stay in charge of the office. If anyone calls, say the boss is out.”
They left.
Now it was just Mrs. Eleanor and me in the office.
She was finishing her Tupperware.
My opportunity had arrived.
I couldn’t lose a second.
I quietly pushed my cleaning cart toward the coffee area where the electric kettle and the outlets were. I looked at Mrs. Eleanor. She was still eating, her eyes fixed on the computer screen, probably watching a show.
I took a deep breath and took out the small bottle of water. I plugged in the kettle’s cord, but left it halfway loose. Slowly, I started pouring the water—not inside the kettle, but directly onto the outlet on the wall.
Fast.
A small sharp crack, a blue spark jumping from the outlet, and a smell of burning.
Immediately, the circuit breaker in the corner of the office tripped. The entire office went dark. Mrs. Eleanor’s computer shut off. The sound of the show stopped.
“My God, what was that?” Mrs. Eleanor screamed, nearly spilling her Tupperware.
I ran from the coffee area, my face pale. This time, my fear was genuine.
“I was plugging in the kettle and suddenly it sparked. It smells like burning. I’m so scared.”
Mrs. Eleanor, being a careful and older person, genuinely panicked at the thought of a short circuit.
“Girl, I told you to be careful with electricity. Where did it happen?”
She turned on her phone’s flashlight and rushed toward the coffee area.
I pointed to the outlet that was still smoking slightly.
“A spark jumped out there. That scared me so much.”
“Don’t just stand there scared. Go flip the main breaker switch. It’s by the entrance. Hurry,” Mrs. Eleanor ordered while trying to pull the burnt plug out of the wall.
This was it. It was all I needed.
She was in the coffee area. I had to go all the way to the door to flip the breaker. The path from the door to the accounting department was perfect.
“Yes. Yes, I’m going.”
I grabbed my phone, turned on the flashlight, and ran to the main door where the electrical panel was. I opened it and pretended to be confused for a moment.
“Mrs. Eleanor, there are so many switches. I don’t know which one it is.”
“It’s the biggest one, the red one. Flip it up,” her voice shouted from afar.
I flipped the breaker.
Click.
The office lights turned on.
“It’s back on, Mrs. Eleanor. What a fright.”
“Come here and help me. This outlet is all wet. Bring a dry cloth and clean this up immediately.”
“Coming!”
I ran in, but instead of going to the coffee area, I went straight to Mrs. Eleanor’s desk.
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