“You are an engaged man, My friend!” I exclaimed incredulously. “In case you had forgotten.”
“I hadn’t” he said noncommittally. “Is that a problem?”
“Well...” I faltered. “Not for me. But wouldn’t your fiancée mind?”
He shrugged. “Frankly, I don’t know. But you are my friend and I haven’t seen you in ages and I would like to spend some time catching up. That is,” He stopped and looked at me. “If you don’t mind”
Of course I didn’t, I thought. I shrugged. “Well I guess its okay.” I said. “But I know that if I had a fiancée, I wouldn’t let any girl, friend or no friend, within an inch of him.”
“Really?” He grinned, his eyebrows going up. “Possessive much.”
“It is in my nature.” I said. Not backing down. “P.S, I don’t want any jealous fiancée pouring acid on my face!”
“Hey.” He exclaimed. “Nobody is going to do anything to your face.” He said. “Anyway, Folake is not the jealous type.”
Exactly what type is she? I wondered. I couldn’t ask him that, so I left him there on the couch and went to the bedroom to get ready.
It was easy to spend time with him, to argue about the kind of music he played in his car, to gist about everything and nothing as we stuffed ourselves full of pizza at Debonairs, to watch the most boring movie ever at Silverbird and laugh through it all because of how bad it was, to sit on plastic lounge chairs at a tiny joint by the lagoon, somewhere in Ikoyi, eat asun and sip drinks while watching jet skiers show off in the water, and to talk about everything under the sun.
He told me about school and work in the US, and his work since coming back home. I told him about my life, about school after he had left, my family etc. I had to dig it out but he told me about Folake, how they had met in the US at one of the Nigerian student association things at his campus. They had dated for a while, he said, and then she got a job in Nigeria and decided to return home. He had stayed back, but when he decided to move back home they had gotten engaged.
He finished talking and we were both silent. It was getting a little dark, across the lagoon, the lights of 1004 estates were coming to life. The jet skiers had gone home, and the crickets had started their usual night-time jingles. I turned to look at him. His eyes were closed. I allowed my eyes to roam all over him, his face, with the skin that was almost too smooth for a guy, the chiselled nose, sensual lips and long lithe body. I looked away, some things were just too much to bear.
“I hope you like what you see.” He said suddenly, shocking me out of my thoughts.
Embarrassment washed over me like a wave. How much of my staring had he seen? I wondered.
“It’s not for me to like.” I said at last. My hands were trembling. I hoped he wouldn’t see that. Oh Why! Why! Why! Did he have to have such an effect on me?
“Not for you to like abi.” He laughed teasingly. “Me, I like what I see, you’ve grown into all the mouth you used to make.” He winked.
Of course he remembered, I thought, embarrassed again. I had once told him that I was the most beautiful girl in the world, how was that ‘making mouth’. Wasn’t every girl supposed to feel that way about herself?
“Leave me jor.” I said in mock annoyance. “PS an engaged man should not be talking like that.”
He raised his eyebrows “Sophia Aliu, maybe you’d like to instruct me on how an engaged man ought to talk.”
I shook my head. “You’re impossible” I said. “I give up.”
He laughed.
“Where is your fiancée anyway?” I asked.
He stopped laughing “Somewhere in Abuja” he replied. “Her company is closing a deal, and she is indispensable to her boss.” He glanced at his watch “I should get you home.”
I nodded, wondering at the change in his mood. He must miss her a lot, I thought sadly.
Later as he wove through the weekend traffic on Awolowo road, I wondered if perhaps I shouldn’t just let him go out of my life. The more time I spent with him, the more I risked falling deeper in love with him, the more I risked wanting him too much, perhaps enough to try to steal him away from his fiancée, enough to settle for being the other woman in his life. I stole a glance at him, he was concentrating on the road, his face relaxed but expressionless. I loved him, I realized, more than ever. There was no way on earth that I was ever going to stop loving this man. It was impossible. I wondered what I was going to do. Should I shut him out of my life again? I couldn’t do that. Was I strong enough to hold back my feelings towards him? I wasn’t sure. I was in a dilemma, I thought. On one hand I could let go of the man I loved, even as a friend. On the other hand I could succumb to the temptation, surrender to the pleasure of having him, for however short a time, and then what? The humiliation of loss? Of being set aside for someone else? I shook my head.
“Penny for your thoughts”
“Try a million dollars.” I said.
“Probably worth it.” He replied, His eyes flicking to meet mine for a second before going back to the road.
If only he knew, I thought silently.
At the parking lot of my building, he offered to walk me to my door.
“Thanks for a lovely day.” I said as we walked upstairs. “I had a great time”
“I should thank you for putting up with an old Grinch like me for a whole day.” He replied.
“You’re not a Grinch” I protested, giggling.
By now we were standing at the door of my flat. Apart from me and him, the small corridor was empty. I could hear the sounds of a television coming from another flat. I felt awkward. Should I invite him in? I wondered. Wouldn’t that be tantamount to taking us somewhere I wasn’t sure we should go? I fumbled in my bag for my keys. He took them from me as soon as I got them out. I realized that my hands were shaking. Suddenly the air seemed to be filled with the scent of him, his cologne, his presence. I should say goodnight, I thought, as he unlocked the door, but I couldn’t speak.
He opened the door and I stepped inside. He didn’t follow me. I turned around to look at him. He was standing there, just outside the door, leaning on the door frame and smiling at me.
I smiled uncertainly. “Goodnight?” I said.
Goodnight.” He replied.
He still didn’t move, just kept on standing there. I have to close the door, I thought frantically, suddenly afraid of what could happen.
I started to close the door, my eyes didn’t leave his. I felt a little hypnotized, the door was almost closed when he started to lean towards me.
I stopped and watched, my eyes locked on his as he bent his head and gave me the quickest of kisses, right on my lips.
It didn’t last for more than a moment, by the time I could think, he was gone. Leaving me standing by the still open door, wondering what in the world I was going to do.
5. Sunday Kisses
At early morning mass the next day, I could still feel a slight tingling on my lips from Michael’s kiss. I kept thinking about it and about his face as he stood by my door. I was so angry with him, what was he playing at, why was a grown man stealing kisses from me like a secondary school boy, but there was also pleasure, pleasure that was still now making my lips tingle and my cheeks heat up even as the priest challenged me to a life of piety.
Most Sundays after church, I would drive down to my parents’ house in Magodo, to eat a hearty lunch and raid the freezers for soups and stews, and also to see my parents and my younger twin siblings Cynthia and Chris, who when they were not at university, still lived at home.
Because it was a Sunday, there was zero traffic leaving the island, I did Third Mainland Bridge in less than five minutes and in less than twenty minutes total, I was at home. If only Lagos traffic would always be like that, I thought as I drove into my parent’s compound, Lagosians would be happy and helpful all the time, instead of grumpy and quarrelsome.
My parents were still at church, but they had left the house keys with Ahmed, our Fulani gateman, he
was full of happy smiles as he gave me the keys, exclaiming that he hadn’t seen me ‘porberybery long time’. I answered all his enquiries pleasantly and left him still smiling happily at me.
The house was very quiet. I remembered how noisy it used to be when we were children and for a moment I could almost feel the regret that parents feel as their children grow up and leave the home. Upstairs, my bedroom was exactly the same as it had been when I still lived in it. I sat on my old bed, smiling at the memories of times past that filled my head. I took off my shoes and bag and went back downstairs.
In the kitchen I saw that my folks had taken a quick breakfast before leaving for church but as usual, there had been no time to do the dishes. As I tidied up the kitchen, I took the stew out of the freezer and started to prepare rice. We had grown, like many other Nigerian families, on Sunday afternoon rice and stew, and things had not changed in my parents’ home.
As soon as I got things cooking, I went to tidy up all the other downstairs rooms, I hadn’t particularly liked household chores growing up, but since I left it had become a pleasure, whenever I came back, to do the chores I’d never liked because of how much I missed home, plus I liked to see the look of pleasure on my mother’s face whenever she came home and saw what I had done.
Working would also help to keep my mind off Michael, I thought. It was too easy to get carried away, to imagine myself with him, to imagine him as mine and only mine. It was a dangerous line of thought. He was in a serious relationship which was not to be lightly disregarded, especially since it had reached the stage of an engagement. But try as I did to keep thoughts of him off my mind, my imagination won over and as I tidied my parent’s living room, in my thoughts I married Michael, had his babies and grew old with him.
I had finished the cooking and dozed off on the couch in the living room when my parents returned. It was my Dad’s voice that woke me up.
“My baby girl is home.” He was saying. “I can smell the evidence.”
“Sophie! My darling!” My mother came to hug me as I stood up to greet them. I hugged her and then my father.
“Look how lean you are.” She exclaimed in the chorus of mothers everywhere. “Don’t you eat at all?”
Sometimes I think my mother’s mission in life is to get me fat. I sighed. “I am not lean, mummy”
She shrugged. I think she was about to say something but was cut off when Cynthia, my younger sister bounded into the room screaming. “Sophie!” She crashed into me in her own version of a sisterly hug.
“What’s up?” I said smiling, hugging her back.
Her reply was a huge smile.
“Food! Thank God!” It was Chris. “And thank you too big sis. I am hungry!” He gave me a smile and a wink before heading to the kitchen and food.
“He’s always hungry” My mother commented before following him to the kitchen. In minutes we were all having lunch with the twins doing most of the talking. Cynthia wanted to know everything about my life, the parties I went to, the people I met, she knew every name that had ever appeared in the social columns and she asked me about all of them, I answered her as best as I could, adding the little titbits I had heard but which the social columns had missed. All the while my dad snorted about women and gossip.
Chris wanted to show me his new Nintendo, which my older brother Dan had sent to him from the US. He kept talking about what it could do in terms nobody at the table really understood. It was kind of refreshing to be around eighteen year olds again though and to remember what life felt like when I was that age.
After lunch I had to go and watch Chris play something on the Nintendo, after about thirty minutes I was finally able to escape, but not after he had placed a gamepad in my hands and made me fight someone called something ridiculous, who beat my fighter silly of course.
In my room, Cynthia was waiting for me. I gave her my make-up bag without question, and watched as she experimented in front of my old mirror, all the while asking me some more questions. When she was tired of my replies she started to fill me in on her life, the boys at school, the ones who liked her and the one she liked. She dismissed my question about her studies with a wave of her hand. I didn’t press it, even with her interest in makeup, boys and gossip, Cynthia was surprisingly a straight A student.
We were still talking when my mother came in, having sent Cynthia on some manufactured errand, she sat by me on the bed. “How are you?” she asked.
“I’m fine” I replied. “I miss my bed though” I said, patting my soft old bed.
“You know you can always come back” she said. “I heard that traffic is not as bad as it used to be, you can go to work from home.”
We had been through this topic before, so I only shook my head.
“How is Eddie?” She asked. My mum was fond of Eddie Bakare, my partner. Sometimes I wondered if perhaps she wasn’t secretly hoping that we would get together.
“He’s fine” I said, sighing inwardly. I knew what was coming next, she would ask me if I had found someone special and I would say no and she would say that I ought to start thinking of setting down and I would say I was seriously thinking about it.
She didn’t disappoint, we had the same conversation we had had a thousand times before, one more time.
I wondered if I should tell her about Michael, she had met and liked him back when I was in school. She’d often asked me about him after he graduated, only stopping when she figured out I didn’t want to talk about him. She’d once accused me of throwing my friends away and I knew she had been talking about Michael. I decided that with my mind already in such a state of turmoil about him, I probably shouldn’t bring him up.
“When are you leaving?” She asked me, when our interview seemed to be completed.
“Around 5” I replied.
“Okay, let me allow you sleep” she said getting up to leave.
I nodded.
Later I sat in the living room and watched TV with my parents, while my brother and sister remained upstairs in their rooms. My father wanted to know how the magazine was doing and what my plans were for the future. My mother informed me that my older brother Dan’s wife was pregnant.
“Yay!” I exclaimed. I jumped up to give them both a kiss. “Grandpapa and grandmamma” I teased.
“He called and told us this morning.” My mother informed me. I knew she was wishing that I too were married and about to give her a grandchild. I gave her a reassuring smile.
Soon it was time to leave. My mum helped me load my car full of all the food she had prepared for me.
“Drive carefully” she said. “And don’t let it be too long till you come again.”
On the drive back to the island, I thought about my mother and her desire for me to get married. Parents always seemed to want something for their children, and ever since I graduated from university it had been marriage. I hated to disappoint her but there was only one person I wanted to marry. I couldn’t have him, so what was I going to do?
Speaking of Michael, I noticed his car in the parking lot as soon as I drove into my compound. I tried to fight the excitement building in my belly. I parked, feeling weak at the thought of seeing him, why did he persist in torturing me like this? I wondered. I couldn’t bear it.
He was coming down the stairs as I started to climb them, his tall lithe frame taking the stairs two at a time. He stopped when he saw me. I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. “Hi Michael.” I said, it came out as a whisper.
“Hi Sophie” He replied, and smiled.
How could a smile reduce me to such a mess? I was tempted to go to him and put my arms around him. Is it part of love for women to become weak and foolish? I wondered. I took another deep breath.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
He sighed “I feel really foolish” he said, shaking his head. He walked down to where I was standing and took the packages I was carrying from me. “I have to go to Abuja tomorrow” He continued. “I thought I’d pop in and let you
know”
“I’m sorry” I said. “I went to my parent’s.”
He nodded as I opened the door to my flat “Have you been waiting long?” I asked.
“Not really” he grimaced. “At least not this time”
“This time?” I asked.
Michael nodded, actually looking shy. “It’s the third time I’ve been here today”
I giggled. “Sorry” I said, still smiling as we stuffed my mum’s packages into the freezer. “Is that why you’re feeling foolish?”
He nodded. “Part of it.” He said. “May I have your phone?” He asked when we were done.
I gave it to him and watched as he went to stand by the living room window.
“What are you doing” I asked going to sit on the couch.
“Becoming one of your contacts.” he said. Not taking his eyes off the phone. “And making you one of mine, on BB, in your phone book, etc. I’m putting myself on your speed dial”
“I don’t do speed dial” I laughed “and you could have just asked for my number.”
“I know!” He exclaimed. “That’s why I felt so foolish standing outside your door knocking when I could have just called you.” He shook his head. “I’ve just been too busy looking into your eyes to ask.”
And giving me fleeting kisses on my lips, I added silently. I felt suddenly shy but I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I wondered if he could see the desire in my eyes. If it was obvious to him that all he had to do now was touch me, and I would have neither the will power nor even the desire to resist him. Maybe he knew, maybe that was why he was standing so far away, as far as was possible in the confined space that was my living room. I swallowed and spent the next few minutes studying my shaking fingers.
“I’ll be back from Abuja on Wednesday.” He said.
I nodded.
He walked over and gave me my phone. “I will call you every day.”
I nodded again, not trusting myself to speak, taking pleasure in the promise and yet knowing that I had no right to it.
Always Yours (Lagos Romance Series) Page 3