Gold Coast Dilemma

Chapter 5 Ofosua

CHAPTER 5 OFOSUA

ADINKRA SAYING: (Pempamsie) A symbol of foresight, readiness, steadfastness, hardiness, valor, and fearlessness.

HELEN ADDO: Eh, sometimes running is the only answer.

Eight long months of avoiding the elders as they had tried to piece together the wreckage of my marriage. In the weeks after the wedding, there had been many a group chat about how I needed to seek guidance from God on how to be a better wife.

My favorite was how they prayed for me so I could find forgiveness. Not once did anyone pray over Yofi to keep his dick to himself.

The final straw for Mum and Dad had been when the pastor suggested he come and pray over our marital bed… while we were in it.

Surprisingly, Yofi had been helpful in the separation negotiations by adamantly stating he did not want to be married to me. That and the fact that we hadn’t done the legal bit at the courthouse made things smoother.

Considering the traditional ceremony had happened in New York, my parents and I had still gone home to Accra to meet with the elders and take care of the simple returning of the drinks. Normally, going home to Ghana was a way to breathe and relax and unwind. But the few weeks we’d been there had been tense and fraught.

Interestingly, the Tutus had refused the jewelry and cash, so Mum was holding on to them for me, but she could keep the money and jewelry for all I cared. I wanted nothing from Yofi or his family.

It had taken eight long months, but I was officially “divorced.” A twenty-five-year-old divorcée. It was wild enough that I’d been getting married so early. At least among my American friends.

But for the last eight months, I had been a Ghanaian social pariah. As if divorce were something you could catch. Or being bad in bed were contagious.

The real insult to injury was, since we’d finally gotten divorced, Yofi had called me a couple of times. He hadn’t left a message either time. But every time I’d seen his name pop up on my screen, I’d gone full blank zombie for several minutes.

What the hell did he want? Why wasn’t ruining my life enough for him?

“I don’t remember agreeing to go to church with you. It’s my day off.”

“I don’t remember asking,” she said forcefully as she tugged on my duvet.

My mother had a round of churches she liked to attend. Ghanaian church was really the see-and-be-seen of the Ghanaian community in New York. The Ebenezer Williams church was in the fancy part of Brooklyn and attended by Ghanaians all over Manhattan. Let me rephrase that. The right Ghanaians. The ones my mother insisted that I was going to get to know: sons of captains of industry and daughters of would-be royal lines. Everybody would be coming in full shada, which meant the right outfits, the right makeup.

I knew people who had a glam squad prep them for church. After all, the makeup and hair had to endure, because church would be at least a six-hour affair.

I was going to need snacks. I was going to need to hydrate. Or… you don’t go.

I dragged my duvet off my face for a moment. There was another option. “Ghana church or African church?”

African church was His Holy Spirit Church, located uptown. That one was all the upper-class Africans in New York, not just the Ghanaians. It was massive. One of those megachurches with another five- to six-hour service. But with that one, it would be less conspicuous if I made an early escape.

“African church. I still don’t feel like dealing with Yofi and his people.”

My heart squeezed. I had done this. It was my fault she was hiding from her favorite church. She didn’t want to face the judgmental stares and whispers.

Her poor mother. Do you think it was because she doesn’t have a master’s?

Her poor family. She couldn’t even satisfy him in bed.

Her poor mother with a daughter who is a failure.

“Wait,” I said, suddenly realizing the disturbance in the force. “How did you get in? Did one of the girls let you in?”

She sucked her teeth. “I believe this is my house.” She reached down and tugged my sheets. “Come on, we’re going.”

Ah yes, that constant reminder. I was in my parents’ spare apartment. At least I had somewhere to go. And I hadn’t moved back in with my parents, because that would have been even worse.

But they were next door. One thing I had insisted on, though, had been roommates. I knew my mother. Not allowing me to pay rent would be one more way to control me, and roommates made this place more affordable.

You have a trust fund.

Okay, yes. But it was the principle.

Glowering up at her, I muttered, “Mum, I don’t want to go. Please, can you go back to your own apartment? Remember, you’re my landlord; you’re not my roommate.”

“I can come in whenever I please. This is my house.”

“Mum, that isn’t how landlords work.”

“I don’t need permission to enter my own flat.”

I knew it was futile. She wasn’t going, and she wasn’t going to acquiesce. All I could do was drag the covers over my face and silently scream into the nothingness before dragging my ass out of bed. “God, I need to sleep.”

She tutted. “No, you don’t. You’ve been asleep long enough. Time to wake up. Because we are going to solve your Yofi problem. And you can’t do that if you’re moping around in bed all day.”

And with that, she strutted out. And then I noticed her outfit. She was wearing a kaba and slit, and white Manolo slingbacks, looking like hot stuff. She was fifty-one this year and honestly looked like she was in her late thirties. “Nice shoes,” I muttered.

“Thank you. They’re from your closet.”

I had no choice but to give another silent scream because I knew they looked familiar. There was no stopping her. When she wanted something, she was going to make it happen. Regardless of what the doctor said about my stress levels, she obviously really didn’t even think that panic attacks were a real thing.

Well, you haven’t told her how bad it’s been getting.

And I wasn’t going to. She wouldn’t believe me anyway, so what was the point? I would be screaming into the ether. Nope, I would keep popping Xanax like they were Tic Tacs and working out like it was my job, and I would eventually get far from my problems.

That sounds like a fantastic solution.

I scowled at my inner self as I climbed out of bed. From out in the hallway, mother called back, “And for the love of God, Ofosua, put on something nice, eh? Some makeup, lipstick, and look like you’re trying, yeah?”

Dressed under duress, I shuffled into the living room, hoping that I could somehow yank my white slingbacks off my mother’s feet, only to find my roommates howling with laughter, sitting around our massive glass dining room table, scarfing down Ghana pancakes.

They were like the thicker, sweeter cousin to the crepe and my absolute favorite breakfast food. My mother had been buttering up my roommates. I could see where this was going. She was about to enlist their help in her torture.

I glanced at Megan, whom I’d interned with one summer during college. Megan was all East Coast liberal crusader. She liked to say she used her blonde American Girl looks to help even the playing field. Every time I turned around, she was fighting for some cause. That traitor had five pancakes on her plate, all rolled up and dusted with sugar.

Cora was just as guilty as she spread Nutella on one of her pancakes. She shrugged and tugged on one of her locs as she made an I’m sorry face. She was one of my closest friends from college. She and her boyfriend, Travis, had been fixtures in my life since my first day of freshman year at Columbia. I’d thought their twenty-four-hour Black lovefest would have been like a knife wound to my soul. But it was comforting to have her here with me. Until this.

“Et tu, Brute?”

Cora laughed. “What? Your mum can cook. And you know I love these pancakes.”

“Traitors, both of you.”

Megan swallowed and then took a swig of… Was that fresh-squeezed orange juice?

They at least had the grace to look ashamed. I shook my head and then marched into the kitchen. As I started stacking pancakes on my plate, my mother counted and slapped my hand at four. “Eh, we’re going to church. There will be men there. You don’t want to look bloated.”

I stared at her. “Mum, you know that these outdated ideas of the perfect woman are just that— outdated —and a little misogynistic. Who cares if I look bloated? Also what’s wrong with bloated? It’s still me. If someone can’t like bloated me, they’re not worth it.”

She rolled her eyes. “Mmm, you can mumble your big words at me. You’re not the only one who went to school. As for me, I am old -school.”

I rolled my eyes. “Please, God, don’t say ‘old-school.’?”

When she turned her back to fry another pancake on the stove, I snatched a fifth. If I was being dragged to church, at least I was going to be well-fed.

When I rejoined my friends at the table, Megan leaned forward. “I’m sorry. I let your mum in this morning.”

I shook my head. “She has a key. She would have come in anyway.”

“Well, if she’d come in any earlier, she would have seen Emily leaving,” she said with a wry smirk.

My brow furrowed. “Which one is Emily? The brunette?”

Cora shook her head. “No, you’re thinking of Elsa. Elsa is the one with the tongue trick.”

I laughed. “Wait, am I late? Because I thought it was Max.”

“Uh, who said it wasn’t all three?”

We all choked on a laugh. Megan laughed the hardest before Cora lifted her glass to lead us in a salute. “All hail to the queen.”

Megan’s relationships were legendary. She was that girl who was the definition of free-spirited. Did she get a little messy sometimes? Sure. Overlapping partners, forgetting to notify one that she was already in a relationship. But everyone loved her. Men, women… didn’t matter. She was a dating rock star. I needed some of that energy in my life. The thing was, I hadn’t really dated much.

Until Yofi. And then he’d broken me.

Cora leaned forward. “You have that look on your face.”

Megan leaned over and pinched my arm.

“Ow, what was that for?”

“You don’t remember? You insisted that anytime one of us caught you thinking about Yofi, we were to pinch you, slap you, hit you. Do you want me to take a jab at you, or do you want Cora to do it?”

I scowled at them both. “Fine. Yes, it was a brief thought.” I grabbed my arm where she’d pinched me. “I don’t like you.”

She grinned. “I love you, though.”

I grumbled at that. Why would I ever ask them to do that? God, I was an idiot.

“You don’t look dressed for church,” my mother called from the kitchen.

I rolled my eyes. Cora stepped in. “Want me to help fix you up?”

Oh Lord, I needed her to. I really, really did. But I didn’t want to say that.

“Okay, fine.”

Cora squealed and pulled out the makeup bag she obviously had ready for this. Megan grabbed my purse and began stuffing it with several snacks and a bottle of what didn’t look like water. “You think we don’t know what you need?”

I glanced around at them. Knowing exactly what I was going to need and what I was going to want. With friends like these, who needed a man?

My mum came out with the rest of the pancakes. I looked at them longingly through one eye as Cora applied shadow. “Eh, okay, since you’re all here,” Mum said, “I want to tell you the plan. We’re getting Ofosua a man.”

I blinked at my mother. “Excuse me?”

She shooed me. “Hush. If you won’t do it yourself, it’s our job. We love you. So I’ll be bringing by some possible prospects.”

My eyes went wide. “Uh, Mum, maybe—”

My mother shushed me again. “Eh, you small girl, sit down. Be quiet. It’s been eight months. Time to get back on the market.”

I dutifully shut my mouth. Cora and Megan trailed their gazes to me, and it was Cora who tried to help. That fool. “Oh, um, Dr. Addo, maybe—”

My mother tsked at her. “Didn’t I tell you to call me Auntie Helen? Everyone calls me Auntie Helen. Please.”

“Okay, Auntie Helen, maybe we should give Ofosua time to, you know, get back out there on her own. We can get her on some apps, maybe, but I don’t think you finding her a boyfriend is going to be a good idea.”

My mother was in no mood to listen. “You do your part in your way. But my part, I’m doing in my way. This is how it’s done in Ghana. How do you think people meet other people? Introductions are made. Besides, you young people with your dating apps and things, you don’t get the right kind of people. You know what I’m saying?”

I stared at the three of them as they chatted about my dating life, makeup forgotten as if I wasn’t there. I cleared my throat. “Um, is anyone going to ask me what I want?”

My mother turned her attention back to me. “No, staying single and living your life on your own is not an option.”

“Mum, haven’t I had enough fanfare? Can I have like a year before you try and marry me off to the next eligible bachelor? This isn’t the Middle Ages. I’m only twenty-five. Maybe I’ll meet someone at the library.”

She laughed. “What kind of men are you going to find in a library?”

“You know, ones who read.”

“Listen, he must be educated, obviously. But you know how it is: lawyer, doctor, engineer, those are the only acceptable professions. Not some bookworm or, God forbid, librarian. You want someone who can take care of you.”

“I can take care of myself, Mum.”

She glanced around at all of my belongings in her apartment. “Uh-huh, sure you can. Look, I know what’s best for you. Matter of fact, my friend Wanda has a son. His name is Peter. I can bring him by. He’s a doctor.”

I stared at her. “If I say yes, will you stop talking?”

She laughed again. “No. Also, I see you took a fifth pancake. You don’t listen to me. Now you will be bloated.”

I sighed, smoothing down my own simple three-piece kaba and slit. The skirt fell to my knees with a split up the center to below midthigh with a simple purple-and-pink kente design. The top was like a halter and came with a crisp peplum jacket to go over it.

I knew it was stunning. If I was going to have to show my face, then at least I looked good. “Mum, maybe I can try meeting someone myself. You don’t have to push me into it. No stress, remember?”

She waved her hand. “Tsk, don’t go buying into these panic attacks. That’s not who we are. That’s not what our people do, eh? Besides, we’ll find someone better this time. I have a plan. You’ll have a new Ghanaian fiancé in no time.”

An hour later I was seated on a pew in the middle aisle and already bored. The church could seat a thousand in their dark wooden pews. The saving grace was the soft cushion on top to save our behinds. To the far right there was a section for the first choir of sixty people. The children’s choir of about twenty kids were seated in the first few pews to the left. The band had a setup just to the right of the massive altar.

The cross that hung from the ceiling was twice the size of a man. And the sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows made it appear that there was a halo around the cross.

Up front, there were five large calabash containers with painted-on adinkra symbols that would be used for the collection. We’d be seeing those come around at least five times during the service.

“Where have you been hiding, gorgeous?”

I turned around to find my cousin in the pew behind me, looking absolutely amazing in her wide-legged red, white, and blue trousers with adinkra symbols sewn on the white patches. Kukua also wore a white wraparound top that looked vaguely familiar with a crisp blue blazer over it. And her bag was Hermès, obviously . Because if it wasn’t the most expensive one you could find, had you even come in full shada?

I squinted at her blazer, getting a better look. Was that a crop top underneath? Leave it to my cousin. Oil on canvas was her art specialty, but fashion was her life. And while the old folks had all lost their collective minds over her pursuing something like art, there hadn’t really been much they could do about it. She’d done a double major in art and finance at McGill. Then she’d handed her finance degree off to her parents and told them she was pursuing her dream. She’d moved to New York and within a year had her first gallery opening, much to everyone’s exaggerated horror.

“Cuz!”

“I knew Auntie Helen was only going to let you avoid church for so long before she had you back on the marriage market. Figured I’d intercept you here.”

“Weren’t you supposed to come around earlier this week?” I asked.

She leaned back. “Apologies, but I had a date. I should be sorry, but I’m not because he was very good with his hands,” she said with a smirk.

“At least one of us is appeasing the aunties.”

“Who said anything about appeasing the aunties? Mr. Nice Hands is not Ghanaian.” She shrugged. “Once a rebel, always a rebel.”

I snorted a laugh. “Next thing you’re going to do is tell me he’s Irish. The aunties would have much to say.”

She sucked her teeth. “We all know that generation loves to gossip about the scandal of interracial dating and then show off their korkor grandbabies with pride. The colonialism and hypocrisy run deep with us, love. In better news, I am so glad she dragged you to church.”

Kukua wasn’t wrong. All that complaining and it was as if the more korkor, or light-skinned, the babies were, the happier they were. Which was asinine.

“Only because I’m the one with the good snacks,” I said as I handed her the wrapped contraband, while keeping an eye out for my mother, who had been waylaid by an auntie.

She took a bite of the meat pie I’d made earlier that week and moaned. “Oh my God, I love you. Why don’t you tell your mother you can actually cook?”

“Because she will never let me live it down. So, if I act like I can’t cook around her, she does most of the cooking.”

Kukua shook her head. “Machiavellian.”

“I learned from the best.” I frowned as something occurred to me. “Wait, what are you doing in African church?”

She answered my question with the gossip. “My mum and your mum were talking. Apparently, Yofi’s mum had something she wanted to tell them, so they are deliberately avoiding her. They want a united front, so for now we hide in African church. Are you ready for a six-hour stint?” She leaned back and groaned dramatically. “I’m going to need a drink.”

I took out my metal water bottle and handed it over.

Knowing me well, she raised her brow. “What’s in here?”

I grinned. “It’s a national.”

Her eyes went wide. “You brought a mixed cocktail… to church?”

I clutched a hand over my heart. “It’s just pineapple juice with extra ingredients. Yesu Kristo, you act like you never had a cocktail before. And the way I figure it, you’re probably still half-drunk from last night. Consider this cocktail medicinal.”

My cousin grinned at me. “I’m only slightly inebriated.” She took a sip and then moaned. “Oh my God. This is amazing.”

“Hey, not so much. This has to last six hours, okay?”

At least I wouldn’t be forced to endure this on my own. We cackled and gossiped about my work people, and Kukua regaled me with tales of her date’s very unfortunate bent penis. “So, I was saying, hey, we can work with this, but then he…” Her eyes went wide, and she froze.

“What’s wrong with you?” I glanced surreptitiously around.

Yofi.

Something pinched in my heart, sending a stabbing, shooting pain throughout my body as all traces of oxygen evaporated. It was like getting an involuntary ice bath and being blasted with a flamethrower all at once.

Yofi was here, at African church, with his mother, talking to someone at the front of the church. But Yofi and his family always, always went to Ghanaian church. Why were they here? Auntie Judy looked like she’d been dipped in head-to-toe Fendi. Mom said you could tell the nouveau riche because they always wore the designers wrong. Logos everywhere and far too much. I once saw one of the latest up-and-coming boxers covered in head-to-toe Louis Vuitton. Every article of clothing he wore was emblazoned with the LV logo.

Yofi was wearing an ice-blue traditional suit with traditional leather sandals. He was far more understated than his mother. The quality still screamed money.

As I stared, my stomach knotted. His perfectly shaven dark skin gleamed. And that jaw… I had built temples to that jaw. Worshipped at his gorgeous face.

Fuck me sideways.

From the looks of it, he was with just his mother. There was no woman with them, hanging on his arm. I had avoided any news about him. I refused to stalk him on social media. Kukua did it for me. But he hadn’t hard-launched anyone. So at least I’d be spared that embarrassment today.

If I didn’t do something, he was going to see me.

While I was drinking.

In church.

I was going to hell. No, scratch that. This was hell. I was in some kind of horrible, hell-like purgatory. And I was trapped there with my mother at the end of the pews, still talking and laughing. I could feel it then. The dimming of the edges of my vision and the too-rapid breaths. I couldn’t get enough air, I couldn’t think, and I… Oh God, oh God, oh God .

I quickly slouched down in my seat, grabbing my purse to toss over my shoulder.

Kukua leaned over the pew. “What are you doing?”

I reached for her and grabbed onto the lapel of her blazer. “We have to go right now ,” I whispered. I could feel the walls vibrating closer and closer, inch by inch. I was going to suffocate if I stayed there. I knew it in my bones. I tried to remind myself that the fear wasn’t real. This was a panic attack. I was not going to die.

She must have seen the look in my too-wide eyes. “Okay, okay. Yeah, let’s go.”

Except as she scooted up her pew, I realized I couldn’t move. If I went toward the center aisle, Yofi would see me. If I turned to go the other way, it would be my mother. I was trapped.

There were two options. Stand my ground and face him. Or hide and live to eat jollof another day.

I dropped to my hands and knees on the teak flooring and crawled forward just as Yofi noticed me.

One day, I would look back on this moment of me scrambling across a pew, in church, with my skirt pulling across my ass, crawling away from the man that I used to love as he called my name. And I would reflect that this was not a good look.

But that would be another day.

Today, I was running. Or… erm… crawling. Chasing off the panic, running from my past, running from the truth. I had failed.

We finally reached the end of the pew, and Kukua reached out her hand and helped me to my feet to shuffle-run through the throngs of people from Kenya, Nigeria, and Cameroon, as they all piled into the unifier that is church.

There was no way we were getting a taxi, at least not unseen, and no way I could move fast enough to make a run for it in this outfit.

“Where do we go?”

“Restroom. He can’t follow us there.”

Finally, I got to safety and locked myself in a stall.

There was a knock on the wall next to me. And when I looked over, my cousin’s long nails held out a tissue. “Hey, here you go. In case you want to let out your feelings. I won’t tell.”

I took the tissue, but I did my best to suppress the anger, the humiliation, the sadness, and the fear, which all threatened to bubble up. I shoved them back down where they belonged. Deep, deep, deep down, so that they would never surface again. And I held it together. I had embarrassed myself enough over Yofi Tutu. I wouldn’t be doing it again.

“I’d rather die.”