Love By the Book

Simone

SIMONE

“W here is your sister?”

Simone took the bowl of carrot salad from her mother and placed it on the family dining table, a table she felt would soon audibly groan under the weight of jollof rice, waakye, roasted chicken, fried plantain, and tilapia cooked with chilies, bell peppers, and onions.

“I don’t know, Ma,” she answered. “Jenni said they’re aiming to get here by six. It’s only just past the hour now.”

“Yes,” Simone’s father, Fredrick, said, squeezing his wife’s shoulders. “Rush hour traffic is likely keeping them.”

Simone’s mother, Afua, faced the hallway mirror and pulled the tightest coils of her hair apart to produce more volume. “I just feel they should be here by now.”

“You must relax,” Fredrick said, stretching the last word and taking his seat at the head of the table.

Moving away from the mirror, Afua said, “You must un-relax!” Her husband crossed his eyes in response while she fought a smile.

“This is serious business, Freddie,” she said.

“Your youngest daughter, with all her men troubles, is finally bringing home a proper boyfriend. If she’s bringing him to us, it must mean big news.

Imagine, our Jennifer, engaged .” She clasped her hands and held them tightly to her chest.

Simone understood why her mother was excited; for once, Afua was not getting ahead of herself.

Simone’s sister, Jennifer, only twenty-five years old, had dated a series of men with the goal of being married by twenty-seven so she could be a mother before thirty.

Unfortunately, the majority of men her age, motivated by the knowledge that they could have children until they were dead, did not share the same goal.

Consequently, both Simone and their mother had been on the receiving end of many heartbroken phone calls and in-person rants.

Until Dominic.

For many nights Jenni had kept her elder sister awake until the early morning, waxing lyrical about Dominic Addae, whom she’d met at a friend’s housewarming.

They’d been dating for seven months, and it was even him who suggested he meet her parents.

From what she’d heard, he sounded fine—Simone had decided long ago that no one would be good enough for her little sister to be rated any higher than that.

Not that this fact had stopped boys from pretending to try.

Jenni may have been four years younger than her, but she’d always had more boyfriends (and friends) than Simone.

In school, Jenni was the popular one, while Simone kept her head down in class, focused on her work, and never really had a social life.

She walked and talked with acquaintances, sat beside them in the library or the canteen, but there was no one she hugged hello or laughed endlessly with.

When she was younger, Simone had made it a habit to study her little sister—if there was one thing her endless textbooks refused to teach her, it was how to make friends.

In school, her inability to do so seemed odd because, if you put Simone down on paper, what was not to like?

She could laugh easily and tell a joke; she was quick to help; she was patient and a good listener—although sometimes she wondered if her preference for hearing other people’s stories rather than sharing her own gave off an apathetic air.

Before she knew it, it was too late, and everyone had already decided who their friends were.

Since Simone had failed to develop any real, or the more likely, proximity-based, friendships in her school years, it meant that in adulthood, the only person she really had was Jenni.

The strangest thing, however, was that this suited Simone just fine because, from the day she was born, Jenni had been the most fascinating person Simone had ever met.

Thankfully, the feeling had been mutual.

Obsessed with Simone, baby Jenni would follow her wherever she went; in seventy percent of their childhood photos, Jenni was seen trailing Simone with her arms outstretched, reaching for her. This hadn’t stopped, no matter how many years they’d both circled the sun.

They spoke almost every day, and the sisters had even spent a short time working together.

At a crossroads with her career, Jenni turned to her sister for guidance.

Simone then got her four weeks as a temporary teaching assistant at her school to see if that was something Jenni deemed worth pursuing.

It was not. But Simone had treasured having Jenni work in the same building, if only for a month.

Still, even though Simone was happy for Jenni, she couldn’t help but think of how it would make her look: the single elder sister with little desire to be married or pregnant while the younger sister planned her wedding and brood.

Society’s opinion Simone could ignore—she’d been doing that for long enough anyway—but she couldn’t bear to think about their aunties (called this not due to blood relationship but out of respect) focusing all of their attention on her—a sweet tenor in their voice, but judgmental eyes and pouted lips.

It was seen as the natural order of things for the elder to complete everything first; they would claim that this reversal, using the biblical story of Leah and Rachel as evidence, would only slow Simone down further.

Simone failed to understand how she could be “slower” when there was no race to be won.

“I like the sound of Dominic very much,” Afua continued, bringing Simone back to the dining room of her parents’ house.

“A Godly man, Ghanaian, in the medical field, both parents are professors, hmm?” She turned to Simone, considering her with a tilted head, trying to find something, anything , to explain why her elder daughter was still single.

As a mother, Afua refused to pit her two daughters against one another in any category of life, but over lunch, her friends would often point out how objectively beautiful Simone was.

How eloquent, elegant, and self-assured she was.

Really, Afua, it doesn’t make any sense!

Will she not reconsider my son? He is a doctor, you do remember?

Then again, children did hide all sorts from their parents; perhaps there was a secret man in Simi’s life, and she was simply biding her time. Jenni was always the eager one, while Simone preferred to be more measured. Regardless, she would not push the case tonight.

“You know,” Afua said, because she could only help herself so much, “lately it’s been looking like it’s too much to ask for your generation of men to be African, financially secure, handsome, ready to marry, and Godly.

But we thank God always, and we pray the same news that has found Jenni will flow into your life as well. ”

“Amen.” Fredrick nodded.

Simone kept her attention fixed on straightening the laid-out cutlery.

“And we say ?”

Simone looked up at her mother. “Amen.”

“Good,” said Afua, satisfied. “You are twenty-nine now, is it not true?”

“Not twenty-seven?” Fredrick asked with a frown.

Afua rested her hands on Fredrick’s shoulders.

“This is why we have our deal,” she told her husband.

“I remember the birthdays and buy the presents, and you give me the money to do so.” She smoothed the invisible creases in his tunic before appraising Simone’s tailored black trousers and knitted top.

“You look very nice,” she said, reaching out to feel the fabric of Simone’s trousers.

“Good quality. I might want a pair for myself. Where are they from?”

Simone hoped she’d hidden the Emilia Wickstead label well enough as she said, “Just the charity shop near mine. I’ll have a look online later.”

Afua nodded and finished her inspection. “All black is a bit too much like a funeral, but you do look very nice. You could wear anything because of your beautiful face.”

Fredrick laughed. “This is a compliment to yourself, is it not?”

Afua smiled, showing the gap in her front teeth and accepting his kiss. It was no secret that both her daughters took after her in appearance, more so when they were younger, now that Jenni had filled out more and adopted a more glamorous makeup style in comparison to Simone’s lighter touch.

“Delicate features,” everyone at church used to say at the sight of the two girls. “Soft-soft. Make sure your face remains soft-soft, hmm?” Fredrick took to calling the women in his house “genteel”—unassuming eyes, gently pouted lips, heart-shaped faces, long necks, and slim frames.

The Beduah household had a running joke that their mother was out of their father’s league, but whenever this was brought up, Fredrick would just rub his round head and pat his rounder stomach and say, “You see, girls? Personality and charm will get you far in life.” Behind him their mother would stick out her tongue, rubbing her thumb and two fingers together to say, Money, too .

“Aha!” he’d exclaimed when he’d caught her in the hallway mirror one evening. “Mrs. Comedian?” He’d playfully kissed his teeth. “Don’t mind her, girls. Your mother fell in love with me before I had a penny to my name! Not that we are rolling in pennies today, but still!”

“Okay,” Afua said now. “Let me go and check on my fried rice.”

“Ah, there is more?”

“Big occasion, Freddie! Big occasion!”

When she was gone, Simone took a seat next to her father. He smiled at her, briefly remembering the first time she had wrapped her newborn fingers around his thumb and widened her eyes at the sight of him.

“Don’t worry too much about tonight.” He looked over his shoulder to make sure his wife was out of earshot.

“After we meet your sister’s friend, and your mother approves, her sights will be set on you, but listen.

” He reached his hand across the table and Simone took it.

“You mustn’t worry. God will bring you the right man at the right time and it will all make sense then.

You concentrate on your career, on nurturing the minds of tomorrow, and let everything else fall into place. ”

“The minds of tomorrow?” Simone repeated with a shake of her head. “I teach Year One, Dad.”

“Is that not where it all begins?”

Simone smiled. “Actually, I have heard of another opening, at a school called Linwood Primary. It pays more than what I make now, and I might even have an edge. I found out about it from the headteacher at my school, who’s retiring soon.

The job ad doesn’t go up for another week, but she’s put my name forward. ”

“Look at that!” Fredrick exclaimed. “Only a year into teaching there and already receiving referrals! Simi, this is great news.”

Bashfully, Simone shrugged. As a father, Fredrick doled out praise like free samples from a start-up.

He’d always had to “earn” the acknowledgment of a job well done from his parents and swore he would act differently with his own children.

He kept his promise by showering both his daughters with audible admiration at any opportunity, whether it was directed at Jenni’s colorful, ambiguous artwork he would then stick on the fridge door, or the academic grades that put Simone in the top five percent of her year.

Consequently, she was used to his praise, but Simone’s heart still swelled any time she made her father proud. “Thanks, Dad.”

He shrugged as if to say, Who else? Then he stole a plantain wedge from the bowl, popping it into his mouth. “Shh, don’t tell!”

The sound of a key in the front door straightened Simone’s back, a smile already breaking forth while their mother emerged from the kitchen at lightning speed.

Simone pulled the bag at her feet closer to her.

Jenni had had her eye on a pair of Doc Martens for months now, and the sisters had even stopped for her to gaze adoringly at the store’s window on the way to their fortnightly lunch date.

“They’re a waste of time,” Jenni said to a specific pair behind the window.

“Yeah, they look good, but I heard they take so long to break in, and with the money they’re asking for, they should be ready on purchase.

” She grabbed her elder sister’s hand, slotting their fingers together.

“Let’s go.” Simone took a mental note of the shoes before being dragged across the street, toward Jenni’s restaurant of choice.

Now, in the bag beside her feet, Simone had the very shoes in a box she’d tied with ribbon, a Just Because note attached.

Simone gently adjusted the blister plasters on the back of her heels before she stood to welcome her sister.

They had the same shoe size, and so Simone had spent the two weeks prior to this evening wearing the Doc Martens around her flat for thirty minutes a day, so that when Jenni began wearing them, the shoes would be comfortable but the soles still clean.

Simone’s mother was at the door with outstretched arms before it fully opened. Then entered Simone’s heart, her little sister. Jenni’s hair was braided in two long plaits and the edges twirled into tendrils. She wore a white T-shirt, flared jeans, and trainers.

Simone would always remember the way Jenni looked that evening.

It wasn’t until after Jenni had greeted their parents and turned to Simone, embracing her and smelling of floral perfume, smiling with the dimple that echoed her sister’s, that Simone remembered Jenni had not come alone.

She looked beyond her little sister, ready to introduce herself to her potential future brother-in-law—and there he was holding a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of wine that almost slipped from his hand.

Simone stared with her mouth slack, her heart climbing up her throat and her arms hanging limply beside her, because she already knew “Dominic.”

Only three nights ago, he’d told Simone his name was Caleb.