Page 58 of Hooked
“Rudy is our tech wonder, Tayla.” Kabisa pointed to the coffee cups. “Are those yours?”
“I was coming to clean up,” he said. “Promise, mom.”
Kabisa rolled her eyes and raised her hand as Rudy laughed. “The younger members of the staff like to tease me.”
“No.” Rudy gave Kabisa a side hug. “She’s just the best.”
“Are you and Azim at a good stopping place?”
“Yeah, he’s in your office.” Rudy waved up the stairs. “I was going to make more coffee. Tayla, would you like some?”
She couldn’t help but smile at the young man’s friendliness. “Yeah. That would be great. Thank you.” He looked like he was no more than eighteen.
“Cool.” He pushed through a swinging door. “Cool, cool, cool.”
Kabisa pointed to the kitchen. “I’m old-fashioned. All important decisions for our first business in Nairobi happened around my mother’s kitchen table, so we still hold staff meetings over meals. We try to all eat lunch together once a week.”
Tayla’s heart was flying. So far it was a dream office. The people were nice. The atmosphere felt like a cool collective, not a corporate office.
“Let’s go up to meet Azim.” Tayla walked up the staircase. “I hope you don’t mind stairs.”
“I grew up in Russian Hill, so everything was a climb,” Tayla said. “No problem.”
“That’s a beautiful area, but we love the Mission. There is so much energy here.”
“I agree.”
Kabisa showed her into an office that looked over the alleyway. There was a small balcony with various plants growing. In fact, the entire office was filled with plants. They hung in the windows, and an indoor palm grew between twin desks on the longest wall.
Unlike the rest of the house, this space was impeccably neat. Organized bookcases filled one wall, and two mustard-yellow chairs sat in front of them, lined up in perfect symmetry. The room was painted a soothing blue, and the scent of lemon filled the air.
“This is a great office.” Tayla looked around. Though the room was neat, it was filled with art and photographs of all kinds.
“Azim and I work in here, and as you can see, we like things a little neater. But all our employees are allowed to personalize their spaces.”
“How many employees do you currently have?”
“We have five still in Nairobi because we have a physical store there. We have another two setting up a satellite office and probably a physical store in Chiang Mai, Thailand, right now, and then five here.” She sat in one of the yellow chairs and motioned for Tayla to take the other. “Expansion is inevitable. Not because we’re anxious for the business to be bigger—we actually liked being a smaller company—but because our market is growing, and without expansion, our customers are going to become dissatisfied. The upside is that we’re going to be able to highlight artists and designers from new markets like South America, where we haven’t been able to travel much in the past.”
“So you and Azim do all the research yourselves? Finding new artists and companies?”
“Not entirely, though that’s how we started out. We get a lot of referrals now from existing relationships. Most of our new artists come via word of mouth.”
“That’s so cool.”
“And now with the app launching—”
“Hi.” A tall man stood in the doorway of the office. “I see Kabisa has already started.”
“Azim!” Kabisa rose and Tayla joined her. “Meet Tayla. Tayla, this is my husband, Azim, the business brains of SOKA.”
“Don’t let her fool you,” he said. “Her brain is plenty business-minded.
“It’s very nice to meet you.” Tayla shook his outstretched hand. “I really like your office.”
“Thank you.” Azim had a much lighter accent, and he looked Indian, not Kenyan. He was as tall as Kabisa but had a slim runner’s build like Jeremy. He wore glasses and was clean-shaven. He was also incredibly handsome. He didn’t look like a tech nerd. He looked like a Bollywood star playing a tech nerd. Tayla tried not the stare at the two ridiculously pretty people she might be working for.
“Was the office easy to find?” he asked.
