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  Advance Praise for QUEENIE by Candice Carty-Williams

  * Named one of the most anticipated books of 2019 by Goodreads, Woman’s Day, Newsday, Publishers Weekly, Bustle, and Book Riot! *

  “A black Bridget Jones, perfectly of the moment.”

  –Kirkus Reviews, starred review

  “Brilliant, timely, funny, heartbreaking.”

  –Jojo Moyes, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Me Before You

  “So raw and well-written and painfully relatable. It’s also clever and funny and has the most glorious cover.”

  –Ruth Ware, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in Cabin 10

  “My favorite novel this year. Queenie is the sort of novel you just can’t stop talking about and want everyone you know to read. Snort-your-tea-out-funny one moment and utterly heartbreaking the next, (and with the best cast of characters you’ll read all year), I absolutely loved it. I can’t wait to read whatever Candice writes next. If there is anything right in the world, Candice Carty-Williams is going to be a literary superstar.”

  –AJ Pearce, author of Dear Mrs. Bird

  “Written by a new and exciting young woman, it’s articulate, brave and, in the new parlance, ‘woke.’ Funny, wise, and of the moment, this book and this writer are the ones to watch.”

  –Kit de Waal, author of My Name Is Leon

  “Candice gives so generously with her joy, pain, and humor that we cannot help but become fully immersed in the life of Queenie—a beautiful and compelling book.”

  –Afua Hirsch, author of Brit(ish)

  “Queenie is the best mate we all want—funny, sharp, and more than a little vulnerable. I loved climbing inside her mind and wish I could have stayed longer. I adored this novel.”

  –Stacey Halls, author of The Familiars

  “Adorable, funny, heartbreaking. People are going to love it.”

  –Nina Stibbe, author of Love, Nina

  “They say Queenie is Black Bridget Jones meets Americanah. But she stands in her own right—nothing can and will compare. I can’t articulate how completely and utterly blown away I am.”

  –Black Girls Book Club

  “Meet Queenie Jenkins, a twenty-five-year-old Jamaican British woman who works for a London newspaper, is struggling to fit in, is dealing with a breakup, and is making all kinds of questionable decisions. In other words, she’s highly relatable. A must read for ’19.”

  –Woman’s Day

  “Queenie has all the things you want in a debut novel—a startlingly fresh voice, characters you fall in love with from the very first page, and a joyous turn of phrase that makes this book almost impossible to put down. In turns hilariously funny and quietly devastating, Queenie is an important, timely story.”

  –Louise O’Neill, bestselling author of Asking for It

  “Candice Carty-Williams is a fantastic new writer who has written a deliciously funny, characterful, topical, and thrilling novel for our times.”

  –Bernardine Evaristo, author of Mr. Loverman

  “Hilarious and off the wall and tender.”

  –Nikesh Shukla, author of The One Who Wrote Destiny

  “A really special book with much to say about black female identity, sexual politics, group chats, emotional becoming, in a way that feels totally unforced. Filthy, funny, and profound.”

  –Sharlene Teo, award-winning author of Ponti

  “I ate up Queenie in one greedy, joyous gulp last night. What a treat of a book. Lots to enjoy and think about. I loved Queenie and was cheering her on all the way. I thought all the mental health stuff was brilliant and so well done and authentic—it so often isn’t, in novels—and also all the unhappy sex rang so true. Is there a sequel planned? All I wanted to do when I finished was to open book two.”

  –Cathy Rentzenbrink, bestselling author of The Last Act of Love

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  To all the Queenies out there—you are enough. Trust me.

  In loving memory of Dan O’Lone and Anton Garneys.

  chapter

  ONE

  Queenie

  In the stirrups now.

  Queenie

  Wish you were here . . .

  I LOCKED MY phone and carried on looking at the ceiling before unlocking it and sending a follow-up “xx.” That would prove to Tom that I wasn’t as emotionally detached as he accuses me of being.

  “Can you just bring your bottom riiiiight to the edge of the exam table?” the doctor asked as I inched myself down closer to her face. Honestly, I’ve no idea how they do it.

  “Deep breath, please!” she said a bit too cheerfully, and with no further warning inserted what felt like the world’s least ergonomic dildo into me and moved it around like a joystick. She placed a cold hand on my stomach, pressing down every few seconds and pursing her lips every time I squealed. To divert my attention from this manipulation of my insides, I checked my phone. No reply.

  “So, what do you do . . . Queenie?” the doctor asked, glancing at my chart. Wasn’t it enough that she could literally see inside of me? Did she need to know about my day job?

  “I work at a newspaper,” I said, lifting my head up to make eye contact when I responded, as it seemed like the polite thing to do.

  “That’s a fancy career!” She pressed on, plunging her way back in. “What do you do at the newspaper?”

  “I work at the Daily Read. The—ouch—culture section. Listings and reviews and—”

  “In the technology department? That makes sense,” she said.

  I hoisted myself up on my elbows to correct her, but stopped when I saw how concerned she looked. I glanced at the nurse behind her, who looked just as concerned, and then back at the doctor. She still looked concerned. I couldn’t see my own face but guessed that my expression mirrored both of theirs.

  “Hold on a tick, we’re just going to—Ash, could you just get Dr. Smith in here?” The nurse bustled out.

  Many uncomfortable minutes passed before the nurse came back in with another doctor, a man who looked as standard as his surname would suggest.

  “Let’s get a closer look . . .” Dr. Smith said, bending down and peering between my legs.

  “What’s wrong? Can you not find it?” I asked, worried that the IUD had maybe been absorbed into my womb, the way I still worried that every tampon I’d ever inserted was still knocking about inside me.

  “What do you think, Ray?” the first doctor asked her colleague.

  “We might need to get Dr. Ellison in here, you know,” Dr. Smith replied, straightening up and putting his hands on his hips.

  “I saw a cleaner mopping up some sick in the hallway, why don’t you get him in here to have a look too?” I asked all three hospital staff as they stared quizzically at the ultrasound.

  “Aha! Look, the IUD is there!” the original doctor said, pointing at a speck on my on-screen uterus with the excitement of someone who’d just discovered a new planet. Relieved, I lay back on the exam table. “But could you pop your clothes back on and have a seat in the waiting room? We just need to have a quick word, and then we’ll call you back in.”

  * * *

  “Never, ever trust a Gemini man.” I plonked myself down on a chair next to Aunt Maggie. “Here—” she said, holding out a bottle of antibacterial hand gel. Sh
e squeezed some into my palm, and as soon as I rubbed it in, she grabbed my hand to consolidate her point. I’d thought that Maggie coming with me would be a calming and firm adult presence, but instead she was just transferring her germ OCD onto me.

  I tried to focus on the peeling GYNECOLOGY UNIT sign on the wall to stop myself from pulling my hand out of her grip.

  “You know I don’t believe in astrology, Maggie.” She squeezed my hand tighter, I suppose by way of punishment. I slithered my hand out of hers and crossed my arms, tucking my hands into my armpits so she couldn’t grab at them again.

  “Your generation don’t believe in anything,” my aunt told me. “But listen to what I’m telling you, it’s for your own good. Gemini men, they are takers. They will take every single thing from you, and they will drain you. They will never give to you, ever, because it’s not about you, it’s always about them. And they will leave you broken, in a heap on the floor. I’ve seen it happen a million times, Queenie.”

  The woman opposite raised a palm to the ceiling and mm-hmm-ed in agreement.

  “As you know, I steer clear of all men, apart from our Lord and Father, because I haven’t had time for them since 1981, but believe you me, it’s the Gemini ones you need to watch yourself with. Get yourself involved with a man born in June, and there’ll be trouble.”

  I chanced an interjection—“But Tom was born in June”—and instantly regretted it.

  “Oh! Exactly! This is what I’m saying!” Maggie exclaimed. “And where is he, please?” She looked at me quizzically. “You’re here at the hospital and he’s nowhere to be seen!” I opened my mouth to make the point that not all men born at a certain time of year were variations of Lucifer walking the earth and ultimately shut her down; but, always wanting to fully explore any subject, Maggie had more to say. In the increasingly busy waiting room, she continued to use her best outside voice to lecture me (and everyone sitting around us by way of volume), and though I was too anxious about the goings-on of my womb to take any of it in, the woman opposite us nodded along aggressively, staring at Maggie’s auburn wig as though it could fall off at any minute.

  “Wasn’t Prince a Gemini?” I asked. “I’m pretty sure he was born in June.”

  “Prince—God rest his soul—was Prince,” Maggie said, looking me dead in the eye. “Astrology did not, and does not, apply to Prince . . . if you get involved with a Gemini man, you’ll regret it. They like the chase—trust me. The pursuit of a woman makes them feel strong, it makes them feel good, and it makes them think they have a purpose in life. And we all know that unless men have a purpose, they feel aimless. But Gemini men are a whole different story,” Maggie continued with awe-inspiring enthusiasm. “When they do finally get the woman, they’ll drop her. Drop her like they didn’t even know her. Gemini men don’t mind who they hurt, who they have to use, who they have to step over—they don’t even bloody notice.”

  “Are you sure you don’t mean white men, Maggie?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. Her line of fire sounded a little too specific.

  “You can take it how you want to,” she said, folding her arms and pursing her lips. “You’re the one who thought she found her white savior. And look!”

  Maggie is a big woman. In all ways. She has a new and even more surprising wig made every week, she doesn’t like to wear black because it’s too depressing, and she has to wear more than one pattern at any given time, even when she’s pottering around the house, because “Jesus wants life to be about color.” The obsession with color is a nod to her fleeting career as an artist, a career in which she never created anything but hype around herself. Maggie is also intensely religious, but the less ever said about that, the better. My aunt and grandmother always use religion as a stick to beat everyone with, and even to dwell on it for more than one second would be to entertain something I had no time for.

  I sat on the edge of my seat to prevent the hospital staff from screaming my full name out this time around. “What’s to stop them from looking me up when I’ve gone?” I asked Maggie, trying to derail her rant. “What are the rules?”

  “Who’s looking you up?” she asked me.

  “Anyone in the waiting room?” I answered quietly.

  “You’re not a celebrity, Queenie,” Maggie said. “Don’t be so paranoid.”

  “Queenie Jenkins?” the nurse from before bellowed. I patted Maggie on the knee to signify that I was about to go in, and jumped up; she didn’t stop talking.

  The nurse didn’t smile back at me; instead she placed a hand gently on my shoulder and trotted me down the clinical corridor and led me back into the room that smelled like someone had spilled a bucket of bleach.

  I glanced nervously at the machine with the intrusive attachment that had bothered me earlier as it hummed lowly in the corner.

  “You can put your things back down there,” she said, and pointed to a chair by the door. For the second time, maybe more so this time, I wished it had been Tom there in that chair, but I didn’t have time to lament because the nurse was staring at me, so threw my bag on it.

  “Can you remove your tights and your underwear and put your legs back in the stirrups? I’ll go and get the doctor.”

  “Again?” I asked, throwing my head back like a surly teenager.

  “Mmm. Yes, please.” She left the room. I should have worn sweatpants for this, both because I would live in them if I could, and because tights are a complete faff. Putting them on requires half dance, half contortion, and should only be done once in a day, in a private sphere. I got my phone out to text my best friend, who was probably doing something less horrifying with her afternoon.

  Queenie

  Darcy. They’re asking to examine me for the second time! I’ll have had this machine in me more times than Tom in the last few weeks

  The doctor, a brisk woman with kind eyes that had clearly seen a lot of women’s fear, swept back into the room. She spoke very slowly, explaining that she was going to have one more check of something. I sat up.

  “What are you looking for? You said the IUD was there.” She responded by snapping on a pair of latex gloves, so I lay back down.

  “Okay,” she said after a pause and a prod. “I’ve asked another doctor for a second opinion. And having had another look, it’s just that—well, is there any chance you were pregnant, Queenie?” I sat up again; my stomach muscles would be shocked into thinking that I was exercising at this rate.

  “I’m sorry, what do you mean?”

  “Well,” the doctor said, peering at the ultrasound, “it looks like you’ve had a miscarriage.”

  I lifted my hand to my mouth, forgetting that I was holding anything. My phone slipped out of my grip and onto the floor. The doctor paid no attention to my reaction and continued looking at the screen.

  “Why?” I asked, desperate for her to look at me, to acknowledge that this news might have affected me in some way.

  “It can happen with most forms of contraception,” she told me clinically, her eyes that I’d previously thought were kind still fixed on the screen. “Most women just don’t know about it. At least it’s done the job.”

  I lay back on the examination table long after she’d left the room.

  • • •

  “Oh, you two will have beautiful children,” Tom’s grandmother said, staring at us from across the table. Joyce had cataracts, but she could still see the future, it seemed.

  “Your lovely soft brown skin, Queenie, but lighter. Like a lovely milky coffee. Not too dark! And Tom’s green eyes. Your big hair, Queenie, those dark eyelashes, but Tom’s nice straight nose.” I looked around to see if anyone else at the table was shocked by what she said, but apparently it was acceptable.

  “I don’t think that you can pick and choose like a facial composite, Joyce,” I said, fiddling with the pepper grinder.

  “True,” Joyce said. “It’s a shame, that.”

  Later on when we were in bed, I turned to Tom and put my book down. “What’s wrong wi
th my nose?”

  “What do you mean?” Tom asked, concentrating on whatever tech article he was reading on his phone.

  “Your grandma. At dinner she said that our future baby should have your nice straight nose.”

  “Ignore her. She’s just being old, isn’t she?” Tom said, putting his phone down on the bedside table. “Your nose is nice and squishy. It might be my favorite thing about your face.”

  “Oh. Thanks, I guess,” I said, picking my book back up. “Well, let’s hope that our children don’t get any of my squashed features.”

  “I said squishy, not squashed. And I’d rather our kids looked more like you than me, your face is more interesting than mine. And I love your nose, almost as much as I love you,” Tom said, booping me on the appendage in question with a finger.

  He moved so that I could nuzzle into him. I did, and although I wasn’t a person who ever felt particularly safe, did, but just for a second.

  “So you’ve thought about it?” I asked, looking up at him.

  “Your nose? Sure, I think you’ve got a lovely nose.” He rested his chin on my forehead.

  “No, our children. Future babies.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got it planned out. In six years when we’ve got a house and I’ve forced you down the aisle, we’ll have children,” Tom said, smiling. “Three is the right amount.”

  “Three?”

  “One is selfish, two means they’ll always be competing, but when you have three they can start looking after each other as soon as the eldest is eight.”

  “Okay, okay. Three coffee-colored babies. But milky, right? Just like Grandma ordered.”

  • • •

  Queenie

  Tom, hello

  Queenie

  Are you seeing my messages?

  Queenie

  I’ll call when I’m on my way home

  Queenie

  Got to go to the chemist and get some pills