The Thing Around Your Neck

A Nigerian woman living in the US, Kamara, is working as a housekeeper and nanny for an American family. She looks after the family’s seven-year-old son, Josh, and considers the fad diets and food trends that the father, Neil, follows. Kamara is fascinated by the mother, Tracy, who is Black. Kamara thinks back to when Neil hired her, his desire to have a Black nanny for his biracial child and her feeling she had made a mistake in revealing that she had a master’s degree to him. Neil tells her that Tracy is an artist who works in the basement of the house and that neither she nor Josh should go down to the basement. After getting the job Kamara is put off by the American-ness of the family but admits to herself she is happy to have a job that gets her out of her apartment.

Three months into the job, Kamara still has not met Tracy, seeing her only in the wedding photos in the house and hearing banging from the basement. One day, Tracy appears in the kitchen, and after seeing her, Kamara begins to try to lose weight and wear makeup. She is consumed by the thought of Tracy coming upstairs again.