Love Drops E-Book

by Seun Odukoya

  She smiled shyly and looked away, brushing down the sleeves of my suit gently. I felt awkward.

  “Um…thank you,” I said.

  She nodded quietly and offered me a seat on a small plastic stool, the only seat available. I looked at her and patted my bulging tummy and then looked at the seat. She chuckled and averted her face, and I started to feel awkward.

  “Hey, it’s stopped…the rain has stopped,” I said, pointing from under the umbrella. She did not look at me, she just nodded.

  I got out of there before I embarrassed myself any further.

  But all the way to the office, I kept looking over my shoulder and I would catch her looking at me, smiling. Once I’d crossed, I waved and she waved me off – but she was still smiling.

  I don’t know – but it feels strange that she has that effect on me.

  What kind of effect, you would ask?

  For one thing once it was sometime around noon at work I’d go to the window in front of the office and look for the easy-to-spot umbrella. As soon I spotted it, I waved till she saw me and waved back. And then I’d watch her for a bit – obviously embarrassing the poor thing; before I returned to my office.

  This had become a routine of ours – such that she also looked for me when it was around that time. And when she saw me, she curtsied and waved. And we would exchange all sorts of signs and symbols. She’s also so amazing at making funny faces. She has an animated one – her face is the most alive thing I have ever seen, and so she has me laughing like I have no cares.

 

  Long after I leave, I still feel an amazing lightness in my chest.

  I didn’t think about what that meant to me till I went to the window yesterday and she wasn’t there.

  It was a small shock. It was the kind of shock you’d feel if your BlackBerry phone; the same one you have been using for almost six months suddenly sent an electric jolt up your arm as you took it from your pocket.

  I was that shocked.

  Till I left work yesterday, I kept walking back and forth between my office and the window – hoping for a glimpse of her or at least, that bright yellow color. I saw none of the above. I went home feeling as though a black cloud hung over me. I could barely sleep.

  What could be wrong; I kept thinking. Could she be sick?

  I was bothered mostly by the fact that I didn’t know who to ask after her from. I was ashamed of myself because she was like a convenience to me – right up to that point. I had not asked for her number, not tried to get to know her more because; well, I kept thinking about the problems of mixing business with pleasure. I just thought…

  “Seun,” I said to myself just before my eyes closed, “you no try at all.”

  So I wake up this morning and head to work, determined to find her no matter what. I know that sounds somehow; I know; that I cannot just open Google – as so many of my readers are fond of reminding me, I know I’m in Nigeria – but there must be somebody around there who knows more about her than I do, someone who can give me information. There are some things I need to clear off my desk – but as soon as I’m done with those…

  I get to work and I look for her. She’s not there – which is not surprising because she hardly gets to work as early as I do. It is somewhat disappointing, still. So I just go upstairs and try to focus on the day’s work.

  It is not easy.

  I keep thinking about her calm face…about the patient way she handles herself and treats her customers. And then I start getting worried. What are you doing, I ask myself. Are you falling in love with her – this girl whose name you don’t know?

  I can’t answer. So I keep doing what I’m doing while also keeping my eye on the clock. As soon as it’s 12:00 noon, I bound up from my chair and rush to the window, heart in mouth.

  The yellow umbrella is not there. But she is.

  She’s standing there – shading her eyes from the harsh midday sun, looking up at our window. She sees me and smiles, and I feel at that moment that I don’t want to be with anyone else. I signal to her to wait, and then excitedly jump into the elevator.

  The moment it opens I rush out, impatient to get to the other side of the street where my sweetheart is waiting. I almost rush into the street – but the blaring horn of a Keke Napep stops me. I look to the other side and I see her laughing. I make faces at her, and jump across as soon as I can.

  As I get to the other side, she comes forward to meet me, eyes lowered shyly. I understand what she feels – in fact I feel terribly awkward myself but I don’t mind. It’s a good feeling. I want to hug her, to hold her and – but I keep my hands at my sides and hope she cannot hear the pounding of my heart.

  “How are you?” I say, through the sudden dryness in my throat. She nods and smiles again. “I don’t even know your name,” I continue. “Tell me, what is your name?”

  She does not say anything – she just leans against me, reaching for my hands. She has to bend a little; my limbs are longer than hers – but she finds them, one after the other and gathers them to herself.

  She raises my hands to her lips, looks me directly in the eyes – kisses them.

  She kisses my hands.

  There’s this rebellious side of me – the one who wonders and smirks and picks his nose every time I write romance – my ever sarcastic evil twin. He’s here now, looking at her and asking me;

  Hey – didn’t you once promise not to date a girl who was too into india films?

  I tell him to shut up and continue to look at her, something like awe on my face. I mean, we’re in the middle of Opebi during rush-hour traffic for freak’s sake!

  I try to speak – my throat is stuck together so I have to try twice – but finally I get the words out. “What is your name?”

  She smiles in my face – that smile that shoves a hand deep in my gut and twists – and she gently touches a hand to her ear, blinks twice rapidly and does some sleight-of-hand moves with her hand.

  And then it strikes me – hits me like the horse’s rear left foot in the pit of my belly all those years ago…

  The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen is also deaf and dumb.

  Labels – A Man and His Girl

  Here we are o. We don reach here. Again.

  Where is here? you ask.

  What is important; I fire back – where we are or that we’re together?

  You do not answer. You don’t need to. And I wonder; why do things have to be this way?

  Must everything be explained? Does everything have to have a name?

  I remember the first time we met – and I told you I had just felt drawn to you from the other side of the BRT queue. You laughed and asked; ‘which of us is the iron and which is the magnet?’

  You see; I was pissed you said that because I was serious. I meant what I said – I had no idea why; but I had just felt an urge to come to the other side of that queue. And when I saw you – the why became clear.

  But you asked me what I wanted. What it was I was saying to you that early on a BRT queue. And so I said love at first sight.

  Ah. I saw the relieved look on your face. I can live with that; your eyes said.

  Nice.

  Sometimes, I just want to sit and look at you.

  But you complicate things. You ask me; what are you doing? Angrily I retort; what does it look like?

  Does it bother you that I just want to take in every part of you – I want to learn all the lines on your face; so I know which one is responsible for your smile; which one is to blame for your tears…which ones herald the coming of what; just so I can forestall where necessary and when it is in my power?

  But you ask me to explain.

  And because sometimes; words fail even the most eloquent of poets…I cannot come across as clearly as I’d like to. And you wonder if I’m a psychopath.

  With you and me being Nigerians living in Nigeria nonetheless.

  Must you understand everything? Must I explain myself every time I suddenly re
ach for your hand – every time I kiss your mouth gently? Must I have an agenda whenever I call your phone – even though you’re in the next room?

  They – your friends; I mean – ask what we are; and it amuses and then saddens me – your attempts to capture this entire beautiful, amazing, uncomplicated, peaceful, lovely…this entirely unique connection with a single word. So I sit and watch you stumble through your lexicon; reaching for and discarding word after word as they fall short of explaining what we are.

  Friends, you say eventually. And I see disappointment darken the eyes of your interrogator(s).

  You guys should take it a step further; they verbalize. You look so good together!

  I snigger. And want to ask – so friends aren’t supposed to look good together; only lovers are allowed that privilege?

  Sad life.

  Your calls are like the random ray of sunlight that makes its way through the curtains and into a lonely room; the random smile that lightens many a darkened heart. You call at odd hours – and I don’t care. I like it, even though I know it must be costing you a crazy amount of money, calling my Glo line with your MTN. But we’re too old for Xtra cool.

  Or too stupid. Who cares?

  So you speak to me; in that breathless throaty voice that gives the fine hairs on my arms hard-ons and make my toes curl. Crazy; I know, but I’m that into you. And so I confuse myself and ultimately you. I say stuff like I love your voice…and I like you.

  Seriously, how does that work?

  How the fuck do I like the Coke bottle but love the contents?! Is it not enough to just say I love Coke?

  But the implications of telling you – of saying I love you hold me back; or maybe I’m just confused. Confused; because I know you give me a good feeling – a feeling so good – and yet I cannot describe it. I know fully well that what I feel for you is not merely like – I mean; that implies I want to kiss and hug and make love to a lot of Facebook statuses, comments and pages.

  No; like does not quite capture it.

  And yet I hesitate to use the L word; simply because it suggests something else; something deeper and more eternal. And I am not quite there yet.

  Or so I say to the fellow in the mirror.

  You see; I take words like that seriously. I do – which is why when you tell me you love me sometimes; I respond with an I know or a thank you.

  Can it be any more confusing?

  Must we be girlfriend and boyfriend or lovers or married? Do those words – those catchphrases mean something by themselves, or do we give them meaning – do we give them life? Is it the designer tag that gives the cloth value – or is the cloth valuable in itself?

  Or – maybe I am afraid.

  Maybe I hate the responsibility; the expectations that labels imply. Like if I was your husband I’d have to behave in a certain way, speak to you in a certain way – hell, make love to you in a certain way. Maybe I just don’t like responsibility and the enormous pressure it brings with it. Or maybe I just dislike boxes.

  And labels are boxes.

  I mean, imagine your reaction if you opened a box of Golden Morn and found Garri in it. Your first thought would be that you had been duped; after all Garri does not belong in a box of Golden Morn!

  It’s the exact same way with this, honey. Labels bring a look, a feel, a taste, an expectation with them. And with expectation comes responsibility. And with responsibility comes pressure.

  Take a moment – consider all your married friends. Can you honestly say their husbands treat them better than I do you? Do you think they are in a position to look down on you – to make fun of you?

  I have never cheated on you. The thought has never crossed my mind – because you’re just what I want. I wonder…

  Why do labels matter so much to you? Can’t we just be?

  Or am I just being selfish – not wanting the commitment a label brings…

  Or I’m afraid a label would make all-too-fleeting reality of this fairy-tale?

  Labels.

  What do they really mean?

  To Be Man - Me and You

  I think I made up my mind to hate you from the moment she told me about you.

  She – Tola; I mean.

  She stood there, uttered two words – and wrecked every dream I had created, every fantasy and special moment in my head.

  And it had taken her only six months to do it. Damn.

  Such is the power of the woman.

  The day she told me, I was playing Guns of War – I had the day off from work and the plan was to take off with her later in the day – maybe to the beach or a hotel from some intense R & R.

  So while she was puttering about in the kitchen and trying to figure out breakfast, I was getting tuned up by aliens on my Xbox. I had ‘died’ almost nine times – and I was taking a small breather to reassess my strategy when she appeared at my elbow, bearing a plate of chin-chin and a glass of orange juice.

  I was three-quarters through with the juice when I realized she was still standing, left hand caught in one of the million folds of her shortie gown.

  She always does that when she’s nervous, you see.

  So I asked her what the issue was – and after stuttering for a minute in that absolutely adorable way of hers, she told me about you.

  I remember how I felt at the news – how I went from surprise to shock to irritation –

  And then finally – anger.

  I did a good job of masking it though – I did what I was expected to; kiss and hug her and inform her that she just made me the happiest man in the world.

  The smile that brightened her face and the gleam that adorned her eyes made the lie worth it, and after she went back to the kitchen I crept out of the house and got in the car.

  I went for a drive.

  To clear my head, you see. We had agreed to wait for two years before entertaining the thought of an addition to the family – or rather; I had agreed and she had not. And as I drove down Allen Avenue that late morning, all I could think about was how this was going to change everything.

  Even I had no idea how right I was.

  When I got back home, she was frantic. I didn’t tell her I was leaving the house – and typically, I didn’t take my phone along. I apologized, kissed her – and one thing led to another…

  In short, we didn’t leave the house that day.

  And that was also the last time in a long time we had physical relations.

  I think every woman gets paranoid the first time – I mean, their entire being goes through so many changes almost impossible to keep up with – who can blame them?

  But I wasn’t ready. And really, I wasn’t expecting what I got.

  Everything was okay the first few months – I mean, except for the part where she wasn’t having me touch her. I understood it was first-time jitters so I let it slide.

  But after a while, it became startlingly clear to me that I had been replaced.

  I tried to talk with her about it. I sat her down and appealed to the part of her that married me – the part that told me ‘for better or worse’ – I couldn’t have argued better if I was the defense attorney in a murder trial.

  Her eyes stabbed daggers into my heart, and she told me in no uncertain terms that I was selfish just like is typical of men, that all I cared about what my dick and where it was going into.

  That hurt like salt in an open wound – because up until that moment the thought of being with another woman had NEVER occurred to me. Don’t get me wrong; I wasn’t no whitewashed saint and all, but there was one issue that had kept me from straying.

  I love Tola with all of me, and all I hope to be.

  It had really hurt to hear her say that, and I stormed out of the house – as usual. I went driving for hours, stopping to think – and then banging my hand on the wheel in frustration before driving off again.

  It was in one of those moments I realized just how much I hated you.

  Truth be told – I felt guilty. I
mean, it is the kind of stuff everybody does but nobody talks about – like pornography. I was ashamed of myself; I was appalled at the kind of thoughts I was having.

  I called on Jesus, Michael and all the saints for cleansing. I recited Hail Mary several times over and over – but for all the help that was, I might as well have been reciting an M.I verse.

  Still – I kept it together and played dutiful husband to perfection.

  Then, Tola and I began to drift apart.

  I still don’t how I came to realize she was obsessed with you. Or maybe I had known for a while – I didn’t want to accept it. Everything that should have warned me I chalked up to ‘first-time excitement on her part – I mean; it’s usually that way especially under the right conditions.