Chapter IX
IX
That night, she found it hard to sleep. She could hear the light buzzing of a mosquito in the darkness.
NEPA had cut the power again, so she sat up, felt for the matches on her table and lit the oil lamp. Her back was drenched with sweat, even though all she had on was a camisole and shorts.
She could hear low chanting coming from her mother’s room, but she did not have the energy to reel her back from whichever portal she thought she’d opened. She thought about going for a walk in the garden; perhaps it would be cooler outside.
She heard the buzzing again. She clapped her hands and then opened them, examining her palms. No mosquito.
She would spend the next fifteen minutes trying to take the insect out, and in between she would think about the curse—about her ancestor Feranmi, and the generations of broken women who came after her.
But surely she wasn’t making the same mistakes.
Those women had chosen the wrong partners for the wrong reasons.
This was different. Kalu was a good man and he loved her.
She had already figured out what their future would be.
They would marry and finally have mind-blowing sex; they would travel the world—no kids for the first five years, because they were young, free and needed all that time to explore themselves.
She wished she could call him, but the house phone would wake his entire household. She needed to hear his voice, to be reassured that the dinner with this Amara girl had been uneventful. Or to have him wrap his arms around her and promise her for ever.
The mosquito was determined, but so was she. She suddenly saw it flutter by her in the soft glow of the oil lamp. She waited till it landed on her thigh. She gave it a few moments to settle in; and then she slapped her thigh hard and fast.
This time when she looked at her palm, there was blood.
—
She woke up grouchy and anxious. She wanted to stay close to the phone, so instead of going to the salon, she spent the morning shampooing, conditioning and stretching her hair; and then she engaged her cousin’s services to braid it.
She sat cross-legged in the east living room, with Ebun perched above her and the house phone on the coffee table, an arm’s length away.
Ebun worked in silence, using a cutting comb to part Mo’s hair and deft fingers to weave it; but for Mo the silence swelled and was filled with thoughts of Golden Boy embracing another woman.
It was one p.m., he hadn’t called yet and she needed a voice to reassure her.
She found herself confiding her fears to Ebun, and waited for her cousin to echo her boyfriend’s statement that all would be okay.
Instead, Ebun said, “You know, Chuka was asking about you the other day…”
“So?”
“I’m just reminding you that you are hot stuff. Some guy or another is always asking about you: Are you single? Are you available? Can I hook them up?”
“I don’t want some guy. I want Golden Boy.”
“Mo, Kalu is just some guy. This pedestal you have put him on…”
“You won’t get it till you fall in love, Ebun.”
“If this…if this is what love is, I think I’d rather be alone.”
—
When the phone finally rang, Mo almost fell over in her eagerness to pick it up. She was glad Ebun wasn’t in the room to see her. Her cousin had woven the last braid just minutes before the receiver danced on its hook.
“Hello? Hello?!”
“Hey, babe. You good?” It was a dumb question. She made a non-committal sound and waited.
“So I met her.”
“Oh? How did it go?”
“It went okay. She is a nice girl.” Nice wasn’t wonderful. At least he didn’t sound as though he had fallen head over heels, but it was immediately clear to her that he had not hated the dinner either.
“Is she pretty?”
He hesitated, then, “Yea. Kinda.”
“You could have just said no.”
“I thought you wanted me to be honest.”
“Do you think you’ll see her again?”
He sighed. “No. She is a nice girl,” he said again, though there was no need to reiterate it, “but she isn’t Monife Falodun. And I am in love with Monife.”
“Is that what you’re planning on saying to your mum?” He laughed. “Tell me how it went. Don’t leave anything out.”
“Babe, is that necessary?”
“Yes.”
He sighed heavily this time.
“Look, we ate food, chatted. I told her I had a babe, we laughed about meddling mums, and then I dropped her home and—”
“You dropped her home?”
“Yea.”
“Why didn’t she go home with her parents?”
“Monife. Come on. Her parents left and she stayed later and hung out. She knows my sisters a bit. It’s no big deal.”
“Right…right…And that’s it?”
“Yes. That’s it. Babe, listen: you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. Look, I gotta go, we’re going out, but I’ll call you later, okay?”
And then the line went dead.