Kendi Mwangi answered Mariam before the phone could ring a second time.
“The lighting supplier is on the other line. He wants to know whether we got the financing.”
“Don't tell him the financing is dead,” Mariam said as she crossed the road. “Tell him we're confirming the order and will get back to him before one o'clock.”
“But he says that if there is no deposit today, he will give the stock to another company.”
“I heard him.”
She ended the call and held the CRB file under her arm. The city moved on without caring that her name had been saddled with a debt from a year when she had not even reached college. Matatu horns forced her toward the roadside, and a shop attendant called out to tell her that the kangas she had left with them were ready. Mariam only shook her head. The wedding order needed money, but now every shilling had two jobs.
When she reached their studio on the second floor of an old building, Kendi was standing beside the fabric-cutting table. Drawings of the venue, table measurements, and color cards covered the wall. Kendi was her maternal cousin, but in the business she was the first person to notice a problem before Mariam admitted it existed.
“Did you speak to Jonas?” Kendi asked.
“He opened a back-office request. He also says we should open a dispute with the bureau.”
“And the loan?”
“It is on hold for now.”
Kendi looked at the file. “Because of the old debt?”
Mariam placed it on the table and opened it. “A debt from 1997.”
Kendi thought she was joking. When she saw her face, she pulled out a chair. “Mariam, where were you in 1997?”
“At home. Waiting for my school results.”
“Then this is a mistake.”
“Maybe. But the mistake is on their screen, and the screen decides whether we get money.”
On the board in front of them, Kendi wrote in marker: **LIGHTING DEPOSIT — TODAY; VENUE FABRIC — TOMORROW; SAMPLE — FRIDAY.**
Below it she added: **CLIENT — SECOND INSTALLMENT AFTER SAMPLE.**
Mariam looked at her. “That's why we must not panic.”
“Panic has never been my problem,” Kendi said. “My problem is that we are running the business as if we will definitely get that second installment. If the financing is not there, we need a cash plan that can survive without it.”
Mariam took out the income ledger. They counted the money in the business account, the client's deposit that had been set aside for materials, and the payments owed by two former clients. Neither was ready to transfer money that day. After salaries, transport, and the studio rent were deducted, what remained was less than the lighting deposit.
“I can sell that hotel-curtain stock,” Kendi said.
“The margin isn't good.”
“Margin is useless if we don't have an order.”
Mariam called the fabric supplier. The man who answered was called Babu, and he knew what Nairobi weddings were like: many promises, few payments, and deadlines that had no respect for traffic.
“Madam Mariam, that quote was for yesterday,” Babu said. “Today the price has gone up a little.”
“How much?”
“The copper color is up by eight percent. And I can't reserve the stock without a deposit.”
“I will pay part of it today. The rest after the sample.”
“Every client says that.”
“I have never run away from you.”
“I know. But a business cannot be run on history alone.”
His words hurt because they resembled what Jonas had said, though in a different way. Her history was clean, but one system had erased it with a line of debt. Babu agreed to wait until eleven o'clock the next day, not because of faith but because Mariam had been a long-standing customer.
After the call, Kendi opened the client's folder. The wedding was for Asha and Peter, two families who had approved every detail after months of discussions. Mariam had promised chair fabric for four hundred guests, aisle lights, a floral backdrop, and tables for the close family. The client had paid the deposit on time. The work that remained was not small, but Mariam knew it could generate enough profit to settle all the studio's debts.
Kendi said, “Let's call the client.”
Mariam raised her eyes. “What do we tell her?”
“That the financing is delayed.”
“It isn't delayed. It has been blocked by a record that makes no sense.”
“To the client, that's one sentence.”
Mariam closed the ledger. “I don't want to frighten her without giving her a plan.”
“And I don't want us to hide it until the day the sample has no fabric.”
They sat in silence. The sound of a sewing machine from the back room filled the studio, but it seemed far away. Mariam thought about how people trusted her because she never pushed her problems onto them. She had built her name by solving things behind the scenes. Now the problem had entered the order itself.
She opened her phone and called Asha.
“Hello, Mariam,” Asha said. “Any update on the sample?”
“Yes. I'm arranging procurement. There has been a delay on the financing I expected, but it has not delayed all the materials. I wanted to involve you early so there would be no surprise.”
There was a brief silence on the other end.
“Is it a serious problem?”
“It is a bank problem, not an order problem. I have your deposit and part of the stock. Friday's sample is still on the plan, but we will use the essential items first. If anything changes, I will tell you before it happens.”
“If you can show us the sample we agreed on, we will discuss the second installment.”
“That is what I need.”
“Don't hide anything, Mariam.”
“I won't.”
When they ended the call, Kendi looked at her in surprise. “You told her about the financing?”
“Yes. Without handing her all my fear.”
“The client is still with us.”
“For now, she is.”
Mariam drew a new table. The essentials were the chair fabric, the aisle lights, and the backdrop frame. The nonessentials were extra lights along the venue road, special ribbons, and small photography tables. Kendi looked at the list and frowned.
“If you cut this much, the décor will look reduced.”
“I'm not cutting it. I'm dividing it into phases. We will create a quality sample, not a sample of everything.”
They spent two hours calling suppliers. One lighting supplier refused staged payment. Another accepted half the deposit, but his price was higher. Mariam chose the second one. Kendi did the calculations and showed that their profit would fall by almost half.
“If you do this, you may get the order but make no profit,” she said.
“The first profit is keeping our promise.”
“And the second?”
“Keeping the business after the wedding.”
Kendi did not argue, but she wrote the extra cost in the ledger. Mariam opened Jonas's message. He had sent the back-office request number and said the first search would take two days. The bureau dispute could be opened that day, but it would require a copy of her identification, the report, and a written explanation.
Mariam photographed the documents and began filling out the form. Every question returned her to the same line: *Do you recognize the account? Did you ever live at this address? Did you ever apply for a loan?* She answered without softening the truth. Yes, the address had been hers. No, the loan had not been hers. Yes, she had lived with other students in that room.
When she reached the section asking who else might have had access to her documents, the pen stopped in her hand.
Kendi said quietly, “Is there someone you suspect?”
“I still don't know.”
“Halima?”
The name entered the air like something that had been waiting to be called. Halima Noor had shared a room with her at college. When Mariam worked nights, Halima had sometimes collected her mail or delivered forms to the office. They had drifted apart after college, not because of a major quarrel but because the calls grew fewer and life filled up.
“Halima knew the address,” Mariam said.
“And she used to deliver forms?”
“A few times.”
“Then ask her.”
“Asking her is not the same as accusing her.”
“And not asking her—is that protecting her or protecting yourself?”
Mariam disliked the question because it was fair. She submitted the dispute through the bureau's system and printed the receipt. Then she placed the CRB file in a locked drawer.
The lighting supplier called again.
“Mariam,” the man's voice said, “I have set the stock aside, but I can't hold it for long. Tomorrow at eleven, either the deposit is in or the fabric goes to someone else.”
Mariam looked at Kendi's board. The forty-eight hours had begun to count down, but part of the time had already been lost.
“I will give you an answer tomorrow at eleven,” she said.
When she ended the call, Kendi asked, “Will we find the money?”
Mariam closed the cash-flow ledger. “We will find a way.”
But in the corner of the page she wrote one word in large letters: **TIME.**
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