by Dora Okeyo
MADE FOR YOU
©Dora Achieng’ Okeyo
I want him back. I know that he left because he had to. I know he left when it was time. I know that I am stupid because of this. I cannot live a lie. I want him back. I want things to continue from where we left them. His name is Luke, mine’s May.
“It has been two years May, get over it!” That’s the voice I hear every day. It belongs to Alice. Alice is the only one who saw me cry over Luke. She is the one who warned me about him. She is the only one who knows of what happened. “How?” I often ask when she tells me to move on.
“You can write a whole book for Chrissake! Can’t you just forget one man?”
“He is alive Alice. I will find him that much I can promise you.”
“Just shut up May, and get out of your slumber and get a job!” She gets on my nerves at times. She is my friend, her honesty keeps me alive. Every time we meet this is what happens. She tells me I need to let go. I tell her I need to hang in there. She always reminds me that it has been two years. Between the two of us, Alice is the better writer. She is the one who’s gotten published. I love her stories and books more than anyone else. She never lets it get to her. I write various things. I write about shoes, clothes, food and at times even pets. We share lots of things in common with Alice-amongst them our love for beverages. She loves coffee while I enjoy chocolate. I walk into the kitchen to make breakfast. I pull out the bucket and start scrubbing the kitchen floor which needs a shine. I sing along to ‘Breathing’ by LifeHouse. I scrub the floor till my back and fingers call for a time out. I clean the floor and then rinse the bucket in the washroom. In a moment of love, the floor calls out to me. I lie there, my left hear on the cold tile, my feet coiled. My eyes see one person. He walks up to me and says ‘hey stranger.’ I smile and reply ‘hey you.’ His eyes are brown. He is six feet tall and fair skinned. He smiles back at me. Pain dwells in his eyes. The kind of pain that makes the heart writhe, the soul hopeless, and devours beauty. I think of him. I do what I can- I cry. I cry softly at first, and then I let out the pain. I am brought back to reality by the alarm. I get up and switch it off, but skid on my tears later. As my buttocks hit the floor, his laughter fills the air. I need to meet Alice. She got me a job as a columnist for a Church magazine. She wants me to write about love and relationships. They pay well. I could survive on that amount. She told me she wanted me to meet the Pastor. I accepted the offer because I need to pay my bills. I cannot live off my parents after getting a degree. She knows very well that I love to help. She is using that against me. I wear my grey official dress and drink to a beautiful day. I leave the room ten minutes later. I need to get a loaf of bread. Some of the girls here are staggering back from a night out. Their heads bobble as they struggle to get to their rooms. Some of the guys have their trousers on their knees as they curse at the sun. I walk nimbly past them at the stairs. I stay here because it is cheap. I need someplace cheap to make ends meet. I am glad that research job secured me rent for three months.
Luke and I met at a book festival. He was walking from one stand to another talking to the publishers. I was looking for a publisher, but all of them were pigs. They had their noses up in the air. Their stands displayed books by writers who had never stepped foot in Kenya. Their eyes looked at those who drove in, not those who walked in. Money, they say, is the root of all evil. Man is the root of all evil. I walked from one publisher’s stand to the other, making inquiries. They all said they were not accepting submissions. I made a mental note not to publish in the country. If they were all packed with submissions, why did they release only less than twenty books a year? I was drowning in my disappointments when I bumped into Luke. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay, I wasn’t conscious of where I was going Sir, sorry.”
“Luke.”
“What?”
“It’s Luke, and which book do you think I should buy?”
“None.” I smiled and stepped back. He smiled and then looked at the gates for a while. He turned to me and said, “Would you like to have some lunch?”
“You’re serious.”
“Yes, I am. So is that a yes?”
“I’d love to.” We walked out of the grounds and into the restaurant across us. We stopped by the entrance and walked into another. We both wanted some meat-the first place was for vegetarians. He had chicken stew and some ugali. I had chicken stew and rice. I ended up eating off his plate and he did the same to mine. That was our first meeting. On the way back he asked if he could see me again. The first thing that came to mind was he was joking. “Do you have a wife, girlfriend, fiancée or are you looking to cheat on someone with me?” He stared at me for a second, but it felt like a century then smiled. “I am not. I am single and I enjoyed your company May. I would like to do this again, if that’s okay with you.”
“I’d love to.”
“Thank you, so, shall I drop you home?”
“No thanks, I will make my way home and see you on Tuesday.” I left as soon as he’d saved my number on his phone and stopped only to catch my breath at home. I told Alice about him and she clicked. She warned me about having my head in the clouds. I met Luke five times after that before we officially became a couple. He told me one night, a month down the line “I am glad I met you.”
“Thanks Luke, I’m glad you’ve treated me well.” He laughed and then held my hands in his. “From our first date, I knew you were special May. Don’t get me wrong here, but you are beautiful, honest, you eat, you don’t mind watching a game with me, or going to the market and all-that’s really special.” I blushed away as he showered me with compliments. He told me he loved me every time he could. Alice did not like him. She said it was her sixth sense. She told me to keep off. I did not listen to her. Our relationship lasted a year. In that time I spent only the weekends with Luke. At times I spent a whole day with him. He was a business consultant for an airline. He seemed to know so much about consumers than I did. He would be in and out of the country in a blink of an eye. Alice insisted there was something weird about him. I believed in our love. I believed in Luke. I met his Mother one Saturday afternoon and she was apprehensive. The first thing she asked me was ‘how long will you stick around?’ It was that afternoon that I learned Luke had a string of girls. They were all over town. He never took them home, but his Mother knew about them. She was a bony woman with eyes that looked like a cat’s. Her nails were manicured and her make-up so real you could wipe it off her face. The woman could not smile, as her eyes ran from my eyes to my feet. The message was simple, ‘I was not good enough for his son.’ I hated the way I allowed her to make me feel. I drowned my misery in a flask of drinking chocolate. Luke came over to my room that evening. It was ten minutes past eight into the night when he checked in. He stood by the door, till I asked him to come in. He’d never been in my room. I never let him in. I let him in that evening, because he looked forlorn. I did not call Alice as planned. “Your room looks nice.” “Thank you, and what brings you here?” I asked, gulping some drinking chocolate. He looked at me and smiled. Luke smiled a lot. I hated that about him. I mean, how happy could a guy be? He always smiled even when he ought to have smirked. “Let’s go out to dinner.”
“Now? Are you sick or something? It is already some minutes after eight!”
“I want to us to go out May, I already reserved a table at Ole Sereni, please come with me.”
“Luke, you just don’t expect to spring things up on me. I am a planner, you know I have other things to do, and to make it worse you were with me this afternoon, why didn’t you say something?”
“I did.”
“Really? I do not recall hearing anything of the sort.”
“May, please come with me. I want to apologize for the way my Mom treated yo
u, but other than that she made me realize just how strong and beautiful you are. You stood there, and did not let her negative attitude get to you. I love that, so I’d like to show you my appreciation by taking you out to dinner, is it still too much to ask?”
“Give me five minutes!” I jumped into the shower, got dressed and was out with him in ten minutes. He complained about the extra five minutes all the way to the hotel. Something was amiss that night. It was like our last dinner date. I knew that my sixth sense was right, but I was in love. I loved Luke. I loved being with him. I loved that he could piss me off, and then win me over with a smile. I loved that he knew how to be a spectator and a boyfriend. He got his suits right same for his jeans. There were instances where he looked at women that passed by and I felt jealous. There were times I’d not answer his call after an argument and he’d come looking for me. He even tolerated Alice’s mood swings. I hated how at times he’d hold me so close I’d barely breathe in public. That night, we talked about life and he told me about his family. It was the only time I felt his pain. I knew he had waited this long to let me in. “Hey, I am sorry about what happened with my Mom. She acts tough. I lost a brother two