Kendall smiled.
“It’s smart, honestly.”
“What is?”
“Eastborough finally figured out branding.”
Imani frowned.
“I’m reading parking rules for parents.”
“I know.”
“So what are you talking about?”
Kendall shrugged.
“You have a very safe voice.”
Imani stared at her.
“Safe from what?”
Kendall laughed.
“Why do you always make everything sound serious?”
“I asked what you meant.”
“You sound professional.”
“That is a different word.”
Kendall’s smile tightened.
“Fine. Professional.”
She walked away.
Imani did not write the conversation down.
She did not tell her parents.
She barely mentioned it to best friend Nia Caldwell, who responded by asking whether Kendall also possessed a dangerous voice requiring adult supervision.
Imani laughed.
Then forgot about it.
The problem with patterns was that the first piece rarely announced itself as one.
October brought football games, college applications, homecoming, and the first week when Imani no longer needed to rehearse the morning script twice. She learned where to breathe during long club announcements and how to recover when somebody submitted a name written in handwriting no human being could decode. She occasionally improvised a sentence when the weather changed between the written forecast and the actual morning.
Students started recognizing her voice without knowing her personally.
Once, while Imani ordered fries in the cafeteria, a freshman turned around and said, “Wait, you’re the announcement girl.”
Imani replied, “Tragically.”
The freshman smiled.
Kendall was standing two places behind them.
“You’re basically famous now.”
Imani looked over.
“Across one building.”
“That’s how it starts.”
“There are nineteen hundred people here.”
“Exactly.”
Kendall sounded friendly.
Imani answered like she was.
Nothing happened.
That afternoon, Kendall posted a short video to a private story.
It used audio from Imani’s morning announcement.
“Good afternoon, students attending today’s college representative sessions. Please remember to bring your passes to counseling before third period.”
Then the video cut to a phone recording Kendall had taken during lunch without Imani noticing.
Imani sat beside Nia and two other Black students, laughing about a teacher who had accidentally sent an unfinished email to an entire grade.
Her voice sounded different.
Faster.
Warmer.
Less careful.
She dropped consonants she pronounced during broadcasts and used phrases that belonged naturally to conversation with friends.
Kendall placed text over the two clips.
9:00 A.M. IMANI VS. 12:00 P.M. IMANI
Below it:
WHICH ONE IS REAL?
Twenty-three people saw the story.
Nia was one.
She screen-recorded it before it disappeared.
Imani watched the two clips in the parking lot after school.
At first, embarrassment hit harder than anger.
The lunch recording had not been humiliating by itself. She had said nothing offensive.
What bothered her was being observed without permission.
More than that, Kendall had turned something Imani had never considered into evidence of dishonesty.
Nia watched her face.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
Imani replayed the clip.
“I sound different.”
“So?”
“I know.”
Nia leaned against the car.
“I sound different talking to my grandmother than I do talking to Coach Riley.”
“That’s normal.”
“Exactly.”
Imani handed back the phone.
“I know.”
But for the first time, she heard herself from outside.
The following morning, she sat inside the broadcast booth and stumbled over the first sentence.
Cole looked through the glass.
“You good?”
“Yeah.”
She started again.
“Good morning, Eastborough. It is Wednesday, October eighth.”
Too precise.
She heard it.
She loosened her shoulders.
Tried again.
Cole pressed the talkback button.
“Stop trying to sound like yourself.”
Imani laughed despite everything.