by Adwoa Badoe
“I fear that Christine,” said the man who’d asked my name. “Don’t tell her I asked your name, hm?”
I laughed, too. I knew they were joking.
“Say bye,” I said to Sam, but Sam turned away. And the stranger’s eyes watched us all the way to the gate.
• SEVEN •
The magazine was called Brides, and it lay on Bea’s mother’s table with other papers. It was at least ten years old but it still had its cover on. Someone had scribbled with a blue pen all over it. Bea said it belonged to her mother’s friend.
I leafed through the magazine, staring at the pretty young women dressed in white. Most of the models were white, too. When we found a black woman, we studied her from head to toe.
Bea could speak of nothing except her confirmation at the end of the year. She was going to dress up all in white, just like a bride, she said.
“Have you been confirmed?” she asked.
“In our church we get baptized in water. I’ll have to wait until I’m married to wear white.”
We looked through the pages and dreamed. I picked one dress. It had a wide skirt and no sleeves. She picked another. It was figure hugging and long.
“When are you going to have your dress made?” I asked.
“Soon.” She turned the pages. “The other day I saw white shoes that looked almost like these at the Jeans-Jeans shop, and they fit me exactly.”
“They would cost a lot of money.”
“I’ll ask my dad to buy them for me.” She turned the pages of the magazine slowly.
“Listen to this,” I said. “Yesterday when Sistah Christy entered the flat, she was barefooted.”
“Why?” Bea asked.
“Someone vomited on her shoes in the ward. So when she got to the complex, she took off her shoes and threw them in the garbage. And it was a really nice pair, too!”
“I would have fetched them and washed them,” Bea said.
“I wanted to but Sistah Christy said she didn’t want those shoes in her house.”
“It’s nice to be rich,” said Bea. “I have never heard of anyone throwing away a good pair of shoes.”
“Me neither.”
“How much does Christine pay you?” Bea asked abruptly.
“Pay me? She’s my sister. She doesn’t pay me.”
“So she doesn’t even pay you a little bit for all the work you do?”
“She’s my sister,” I said again. Bea was beginning to annoy me.
My daa had declined pay from Christine, asking instead that she take me as a sister, treat me well and help me acquire a vocation. Sisters were forever, much better than pay, my daa had said.
“Don’t you want those jeans from Jeans-Jeans?” Bea asked. “The ones with zippers across the pockets and along the sides? And I want that red T-shirt with Diva written across it in sparkling silver.”
I wanted a lot of things, but I was used to not having most of the things I wished for. I was not like Effie. She had complained much about Daa’s unemployment and now she had a boyfriend. Someone said seamen traveled far and always brought good gifts. Perhaps Effie was getting some of the things she wanted.
“Gloria, everyone buys things on credit. Remember Faisal, the guy who likes you? He’ll let us buy on credit.”
Bea amazed me. She never had money. Not even for Fanta or Sprite when we went to the clubhouse. How would she pay for those expensive clothes at Jeans-Jeans?
•
On Wednesday, Christine brought home a letter for me. The envelope was a fancy pink one with red roses at one corner.
“I think it may be from your father. If you write to him, I’ll post the letter for you when I go to town on Friday,” Christine said.
I recognized Effie’s script, loose and confident in blue ink. I thought of asking Christine to read the letter to me but I held my tongue. What if there was a secret in the letter? I wondered if I could ask Simon to read it to me.
Simon was seventeen and in his second year of SSS. He was good at math but he was in love with music. In just a year from September he would be entering KNUST to study engineering. But in the meantime he dreamed only of music.
I wished he was going to study medicine. I wanted to marry a doctor. Perhaps I could change his mind. Medicine was far better than engineering.
Deep down, I knew I couldn’t ask Simon or Christine to read my letter to me. If people knew you couldn’t read or write well, they thought you were stupid. I couldn’t let anyone think that anymore.
To get to the church we had to take a tro-tro from Bantama Circle to Kejetia and change at the lorry station to take another tro-tro to Asafo. Three Thursdays out of four, I was able to make this trip with Bea, Simon, Jima and Osi. On the last Thursday of every month, Sistah Christy had a special evening with her team and I had to look after Sam. Bea was Catholic but her mother gave her permission to go anyway. Bea said her mother was fine with her going out so long as she was with me. Lately it felt as if she was living in our flat.
Although youth meeting began at six, we always got there an hour and a half early because Osi had a key. We set up the room and got in an hour’s practice.
We were getting better all the time. We had three songs that we performed really well. Out of these, one had a Jesus theme and two were secular.
Simon was the writer. He had pages of lyrics in Twi and English. Because my reading was slow, I always asked him to sing through the songs with me. Jima gave the beat and Simon rapped. I was good at memorizing if I listened well and often enough.
“Do it again,” I said.
The third time, I began to rap along with him. The fourth time, Bea got fed up and went for a walk. She didn’t like it when she was not the center of everyone’s attention. The fifth time, I had learned it all.
“Ei, you’re quick,” said Simon.
I smiled. Our faces were close together.
“F Block,” said Osi suddenly.
“What?” asked Simon.
“F Block, that’s the name of our band,” said Osi. And just like that we had a name.
“F Block, let’s try ‘Push It’ again,” said Simon like a radio announcer.
And we did, again and again. Simon strummed a melody on his guitar. I rapped, he rapped. Jima drummed. Osi was a natural at finding parts, and he played the keyboard.
I felt close to Simon. So when his arm crept up on my shoulder, I let it rest there in spite of my father’s words, “No boy-matter!”
Life was not as evil as my father made it out to be. In certain places, people enjoyed their freedoms without guilt. Friendship with Simon felt good.
I had made friends with the other boys and girls in the youth group, and those evenings were filled with laughter. After youth group, I asked Simon if he knew where kelewele was sold. He did and we went off by ourselves to buy some. On the way I told him all about Effie.
“One day I’ll meet her,” he said.
“You’ll like her,” I said. “She’s so fun and adventurous.”
“So are you.”
And he linked his arm through mine as we wound through the taxis parked near the stadium where the vendors sold every kind of food. There we waited our turn beside the line of small tables where kerosene-wick lamps cast feeble shadows on the ground. We were served Kumasi kelewele in newspaper, but it wasn’t as good as my Daavi’s kelewele in Accra.
We walked along the street side by side, eating hot spicy kelewele. We could hardly speak as we sucked in the night air to cool our burning hot tongues.
“I know a short cut,” said Simon, leading me across a park. Stepping into the darkness, he pulled me close and gave me my first kiss on the lips.
There it was, just as I had seen it on TV. It tasted funny, and I wondered why people did it. Then we walked back to the doctors’ flats, a little quieter than before.
&n
bsp; •
Dr. Joe came to visit. Christine sent me to the kitchen to make them some tea while Sam played with his chunky blocks of Lego.
Joe was dashing, just as I imagined Simon would be one day. He looked great in his dark blue jeans and sky blue golf shirt. He had on a new pair of dark glasses, and his charm dripped all over everybody like a bottle of cold beer in the sun. No wonder girls liked him so much. He was a body builder with big arms and the broadest shoulders. Even Simon and Osi admired him in his muscle T-shirts and khaki cut-offs.
Bea, Cynthia and Serwaa agreed he was the finest when he stripped down to his waist while he washed his car on Saturday mornings.
Apart from his looks, he was really nice. Christine was always happy whenever Joe called on us. She said they were best friends and had been study partners in school. But she also said Dr. Joe was bad news for the girls.
“They all fall for him,” she said. “Then they come crying to me later when they find it’s Doyoe he loves. What can I do? He’s such a flirt!”
I waited for the kettle to whistle. Two tea bags were waiting inside two Princess Diana coffee mugs. I remembered that Sam would want some milk, too. At night he preferred his milk in a bottle and we obliged him, although Christine worried that it would rot his teeth.
The water boiled. I made the two teas first. I made Sam’s milk and set it in cold water to cool. I put two spoonfuls of sugar in each mug and then Ideal milk from a freshly opened tin. Christine liked a lot of milk in her tea. I remembered she had bought digestive biscuits, so I placed six of them on a saucer for them to share. I took two out for Sam and me.
Just as I took the tray in, Christine exclaimed loudly.
“Oh, no, Joe,” she said.
The way she said it raised goosebumps on my skin. It was as though someone had died. I gripped my tray firmly, catching the pained expression on Joe’s face. Something was definitely wrong.
“If Doyoe hears this, she’ll drop me for sure,” Joe said miserably.
“Glo, put the tray down and change Sam,” Christine said, turning toward me.
I tried to pick Sam up but he wouldn’t hear of it. The harder I tried, the more he screamed.
“Just leave him and go,” said Christine. “Tidy the kitchen or something.”
I left Sam with his mother and busied myself in the kitchen as they talked.
Someone was in trouble. Dr. Joe stayed for a long time talking softly to Christine. Sam fell asleep on the couch, and when I had made the kitchen spick and span, I went off to bed.
• EIGHT •
Since my very first kiss in the park, I had begun to braid my hair each night. Each morning when my chores were done, I combed out the braids, raising my hair in a small flat-top afro. Bea and the others had started making fun of Simon and me but I didn’t care, so long as it didn’t spread to Christine’s ears.
Friday came around and I had heard enough little bits of conversation to know that Doyoe had broken up with Joe.
Dr. Joe loved jolof, especially when one cooked the sauce with green peppers. So when Christine sent me to the market on Saturday, I was glad she wanted green peppers as well as beef. I decided to cook jolof on Sunday as consolation for Dr. Joe.
Bea and I took the tro-tro from Bantama Circle to Kejetia Market.
“Wait,” she said, stopping at the roadside. She passed me her basket, opened her purse and brought out a mirror and black eyeliner. I watched as she carefully outlined her eyelids with black kohl. She passed me the pencil. Next she took out a thing of purple lipstick and carefully applied it on her lips. With one finger she cleaned the edges just so and stood transformed before my eyes.
“Your turn,” she said.
I took my turn with the eyeliner and the lipstick.
“Don’t you have eyeshadow?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “My ma does not use eyeshadow.”
And suddenly we were full of giggles. Then we remembered that we were supposed to be more mature, so we stopped.
“I have a friend whose mother sells shea butter in the market. Let’s leave our baskets with her while we walk to the shops,” said Bea. We found her friend Doris busy measuring shea butter in cans, and she agreed to keep our baskets at her stall.
Before we knew it, we were at the Jeans-Jeans shop and it was busy. Someone said they had just received a large consignment of clothing. We walked slowly through the shop looking at the bags, the shoes and the clothes. We circled once, then again.
Bea pointed at a pair of shoes.
“That’s what I want, and that bag,” she said. The white bag matched the shoes, which had a pointy full front and a strap at the back as well as a gold buckle at the side. They were fancy and looked expensive displayed with the bag.
I said nothing. Anyone could want anything. Wanting was just like wishing or dreaming. I had done that all my life.
“My friend!”
The deep throaty voice startled me. I turned to face Faisal. I wondered if he greeted everybody that way.
“Hi,” I said.
“Why haven’t I seen you in a long time?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Not too busy for your friends, I hope.” His smile was friendly. Even his eyes smiled.
“Hi,” said Bea.
“Ah, my friend’s friend,” he said. “How are you?”
“My name is Bea,” she said, looking Faisal squarely in the eyes.
That was the thing about Bea. She wasn’t shy. But sometimes her boldness irked me, especially when she wanted all the attention. I wished I was bolder, like her.
“You want to buy some clothes?” he asked.
Bea pointed to the shoes and the bag.
“Those shoes, 500,000 cedis,” he said.
“What about the white leather bag?”
“350,000 cedis.”
“You said we could pay small-small,” said Bea.
“How much can you pay me today.”
“Twenty thousand,” said Bea.
Faisal asked an attendant to bring him the shoes in Bea’s size. Bea tried them on. She strutted about the room.
We followed him to a small back room that served as an office. He pulled out a ledger book and proceeded to find a page. I saw him write in the date.
“Name?”
“Beatrice Kotoh.”
Bea was careful to spell her name. Faisal marked a cross on one of the shoeboxes and wrote BK and the date. In his ledger he wrote Beatrice Kotoh in full and included a description of the shoe: Ivory white Pazotti.
“First you buy the shoes, then after you buy the bag, okay?”
Bea nodded.
“But what if you run out of bags?” she asked.
“Don’t worry, I have enough bags for you.”
Lastly he entered Bea’s first instalment of twenty thousand cedis. Then he handed her a receipt.
“Thank you,” said Bea. And she folded the receipt away in her pocket.
“And you, my friend, you want to buy something?” he asked, turning to me.
I wanted to say I’ll buy those jeans we looked at last time, but I had no deposit.
He opened the drawer of the desk he’d been writing on. He took out a brand-new tube of lipstick and handed it to me.
“This is for you,” he said. And his tongue curled over the r, drawing it out.
“For me?”
“Take it,” he said. But as I reached for his hand, he grabbed hold of mine for just a moment, scraping my palm with his fingernail. I felt the blood rush into my ears.
“Thank you,” I said. But I sounded breathless.
“Come and buy the jeans next time,” he said. “I’ll give you a good price, my friend.”
As soon as we stepped into the street, Bea said, “He loves you, Glo. I should have asked you to b
uy the shoes for me. He would have given you a better price. Next week you have to ask him for a price reduction for me.”
It frightened and thrilled me that Faisal seemed to like me in a special way. I looked back at Jeans-Jeans. It was still as busy as ever. Cars had lined up across the street.
How did people find all that money just for clothes, I wondered. Effie and I had felt lucky with selections from Auntie Ruby’s Bend-Down Boutique, when she received bales of used clothing from overseas. We called it oburoni-wawu, the belongings of dead white people. Maa said they were not necessarily dead, only tired of their clothes.
Outside in the heat of the morning, we remembered who we really were. We rushed back to the market and filled our baskets with food. I bought the meat, and tomatoes, peppers and onions and a thick wad of kontomire leaves. It was humid and flies buzzed everywhere, disoriented by the heat and the smells.
Christine had asked me to buy extensions for her hair, so I stopped by the large hair kiosk, Black Beauty, to buy three packets of brownish-black hair highlighted with streaks of blond. I wondered if she’d like them. Christine was simple in her taste. I’d only ever seen her use black. I had five thousand cedis of my own money, tips from Christine and Dr. Julie, so on an impulse I bought a packet of simple black extensions for myself, an eyebrow pencil and brown face powder after a bit of bargaining.
•
I was glad when the doorbell sounded because I was alone for the evening. I had just finished cleaning the kitchen and was wondering what to do.
It was Bea, all bathed and fresh.
“Where is everybody?” she asked as she walked into the living room and found everything tidy and quiet.
“Sistah Christine and Sam have gone to a get-together at the university. She went with Julie and Mimi.”
“Oh, I know. It’s their graduation class get-together. That’s why she took Sam,” she said. “They like to show off their husbands, wives and babies. I bet the complex is half empty.”
It did seem rather quiet, and outside there were hardly any cars in the carport. Looking out our balcony, I could count on one hand the number of apartments that were lit in E Block and F Block.