Chapter 25 Moyo
Moyo
THE DOOR CLOSES BEHIND ME WITH A THUD THAT SOUNDS eerily like the pounding in my chest. My hand flies to my cheek, remembering Niyi’s warm breath over my flushed skin.
Anjie coughs obnoxiously, her eyelashes batting overtime like a plane about to take off.
“So…” She draws out the final syllable and cups her face as she looks at me all starry-eyed. What this babe does for gist.
“So, what?” I roll my eyes as I retrieve the emergency ice cream pints from the freezer.
Late-night visits like these are rare and thus extremely important.
The vulnerability of showing up at someone’s house late at night—even when you’re basically sisters—isn’t lost on me.
So, to increase our comfort and reduce tension, in all our freezers, we girls each always have three pints of ice cream on hand: cookies and cream for me, butter pecan for Sewa, and chocolate fudge brownie for Anjie.
Anjie takes her googly-eyes off me when I place the mini bowls and spoons in front of her. She heads towards the couch when I latch onto her gray hoodie.
“What?” She looks at my arm, and I quickly let go.
“Let’s talk in my room.”
Anjie narrows those piercing brown eyes at me and kisses her teeth in the dramatic way my mother does. “You were fornicating on the couch, abi?”
I bow my head and angle my body towards my door. “Anjola, nitori Olorun, let’s sit on my rug.”
“You’re a nasty, nasty girl.” She snickers behind me. I don’t let her see because that would be admitting defeat and affirming the accusation, but I smile a little as we step into my room.
The ivory shag rug in front of my bed is one of the softest things I own and truly one of the best purchases I’ve made since moving in.
We usually don’t eat on it, but since the couch is out of commission, it’s the second-best place.
Anjie sits crisscross on the rug while I lie back against my footboard and spread my legs out.
She expertly scoops some chocolate into her bowl, and I do the same with my cookies and cream.
“What’s up?” I ask. The spoon hangs in my mouth.
She takes another spoonful before she answers. “Can we talk about you first?” Her eyes are gooey, her version of puppy-dog eyes, which she hardly ever uses. I give in.
“It was…” I pause, and Anjie leans in expectantly. “Amazing!” I yell, and she squeals. In seconds it’s as though we’re back in our college dorms, sharing hookup stories and giggling the night away.
“I will need the couch cleaned immediately!” she exclaims, but it’s all punctuated by smiles and shrieks of laughter. “Who is he? Will you see him again? Will we see him again?”
“Okay, promise not to scream or to call Sewa right now,” I demand.
Anjie’s eyes question me, but she crosses her fingers, kisses them, and places them across her heart. The little gesture signifying promises we’ve made since the days of sharing bunk beds and public showers.
“It’s the app guy.”
She screeches like a freaking owl. “I knew it!” She shoves her spoon in the bowl so she can properly dance using her arms. She looks like a baby learning motor function. I bust out laughing. “Sewa owes me fifty dollars,” she mutters as she kicks her feet.
I almost scoff, but at this point, we’re the suckers for getting roped into one of Sewa’s bets. “Normally, I’d feign upset, but I’m happy she lost. What did y’all bet on?”
“Oh, she said y’all would fuck in a month.”
I blink rapidly. “And you said?”
“Six weeks. I knew you needed more time to warm up to him.” She licks her spoon, realizes it’s empty, and refills her bowl.
“I hope you guys know I hate you.”
“Love you too!” Anjie reaches over to squeeze my neck, and I allow myself to be drawn into her embrace.
“How did y’all know it would happen?” I suddenly feel self-conscious. Knowing and accepting my attraction to Niyi is one thing, but it’s another thing for my friends to cosign it. I don’t need their blessing, but their approval means something.
Anjie recognizes the change in my tone. “The fire behind your eyes and voice whenever you talked about him was enough to heat several rooms.”
“I—”
“Abeg, don’t even start. You’d brush us off whenever we mentioned him, but there was always some underlying heat. You were attracted to him. It was a no-brainer.” She shrugs and returns to eating her ice cream.
Her words force me back to my initial interactions with Niyi. How he looked at me on the first day. The way he’s looked at me since, when he thinks I can’t see. Apparently, when you’re the one involved, it can be tough to see past the fog.
“I need half of the cut, by the way,” I chime in once I’m done going down memory lane.
“You didn’t even tell me anything apart from ‘amazing,’” Anjie says. She mimics my voice horribly with some high-pitched mess.
“I don’t sound like that,” I bite back.
“Sure, love-struck.”
Anjola is the most insufferable person on this planet.
“All I’ll say is that you did indeed interrupt something,” I divulge, and her mouth goes wide. “Now, tell me why you interrupted my night before I kick you out.”
Anjie puts one last scoop in her bowl.
“Heard about The Cook-Off?” Her eyes grow clear and serious.
The name doesn’t ring a bell, so I shake my head.
“New TV show. A culinary contest for small restaurants owned by BIPOC in the Greater Boston area. The winner gets a hundred thousand to invest in their business.”
I smile, and the tension between my shoulder blades relaxes. A cooking contest? I am not worried one bit.
“No, don’t look excited,” she says. “I didn’t apply.”
The confession blows me out of the water.
Anjie loves her restaurant. She’s constantly recipe testing and ensuring the best customer service and working conditions for her handful of chefs.
She does everything herself and frequently laments about not having enough money to grow the restaurant.
There’s no logical reason she wouldn’t want to apply for a contest with a hundred thousand big ones on the line.
“Don’t look at me like that.” She crosses her arms.
“Like you’ve lost your mind? I will keep doing that because a hundred-fucking-thousand isn’t chicken change.”
“I know!” she whines.
“So, you’re regretting not signing up?”
“Not at all. You know regrets aren’t my thing,” she hurriedly corrects.
Now I’m utterly confused because if she didn’t sign up and isn’t regretting it, then why is she here? I cock my head and wait for her explanation.
“Someone signed me up. And I don’t want to do it,” she reveals.
“Why?”
“Moyo, how am I supposed to know why the mystery person signed me up? If I knew who they were, I’d ask,” she snaps, voice dripping with enough sarcasm to flood a small country. She reaches to pick up the pint of semi-melted ice cream. “Sorry, that was snippy. I’m a little overwhelmed and stressed.”
After knowing someone for all your adult life and all of your teenage years, it’s hard to be surprised by their moods.
Despite being the most serious of us all, Anjie’s mood has always been all over the place.
Once, during our first year of secondary school, we went three weeks without talking.
It was miserable, but over time we learned to communicate through grunts and glares.
“It’s okay,” I say, and rub circles on her palm, tracing the age spots from our many years braving the Lagos sun without sunscreen. “But I meant, why don’t you want to do it?” Her silence lingers for a few beats. “Talk to me. What’s really going on? ’Cause it can’t simply be food.”
Anjie pushes the pint away with her other hand and sighs deeply. “It’s reality TV.”
“Oh.”
“See?” She jumps up. “You hate the idea of me on reality TV. You know I can’t control my tongue.”
“I never said any of that,” I interject, but the whole idea does stun me. Anjie doesn’t have the bubbly personality needed for those kinds of shows. She finds them abhorrent. This explains why she didn’t sign up.
“I’m gonna be so screwed,” she moans.
“You’re the best chef. You’ll be fine,” I say in my most soothing voice and reach for her hand once more. We sit there a second, and I wait for her breathing to regulate before I speak again.
“Do you have to go alone?” I ask quietly.
“We get to bring one person along from our restaurants.”
“Mike?”
“Who else would it be?” she deadpans. Mike, the man I’m almost certain is in love with Anjie, has been her pastry chef since the beginning.
“Asked him yet?”
“He doesn’t know. I’m still trying to get out of it.”
“Because it’s reality TV?” I ask, and she nods. “A hundred-freaking-thousand dollars would do so much for you,” I whisper.
“I know…” She trails off wistfully, looking at the ceiling.
“It does seem fortuitous that you were signed up,” I say, and she shoots daggers at me. “In fact, someone would call that fate.” I wink, and she hisses.
“Stop stealing my lines. Fake spiritualist.” She eyes me but then mouths a solemn “thank you.” She rises from the rug and moves to shake out the worries—a thing we usually do to end our heart-to-hearts—but I stop her ’cause I’m not done.
I lift myself from the ground and look her in the eyes. “Anjola, darling. I have been your friend since we were prepubescent kids. I have seen you at your worst—”
“Are you talking about the three-week fiasco? It’s been decades.”
“Like I said, at your worst, and I’ve seen you at your best. Which was yesterday, today, and will continue tomorrow.
You’re hilarious, brave, and talented. You’d be amazing on TV.
And I hate to think I’ll have to share you with the rest of America, but I’ll manage.
Don’t let your insecurities stop you.” I give her my most reassuring smile and squeeze her palm.
“Thank you,” she says, audibly this time. “I needed that.” She pulls me in for a hug, and we embrace like we always have. She gives me one last squeeze before we pull apart, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
“Awww,” I coo. “Are you crying?”
“Allergies,” she sniffs. “You know I might not even be on the show.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s an initial mini-cookoff where we make one appetizer and one main for the producers before they decide which final ten teams go on the show.”
I can’t believe my ears. “You got all pissy over some TV show you’re not even on yet?” She nods quickly. I pinch the bridge of my nose. “So, technically, you might not even be chosen? And this whole convo would’ve been for naught?”
Anjie rubs the back of her neck. “Well, when you put it like that, it does sound a tad bit overdramatic.”
“A tad?”
“Okay, it sounds very overdramatic. Is that what you want to hear?” She playfully shoves my arm.
I’ve got to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.
Here I was, getting some for the first time in months, only to lose out because my best friend was feeling too many things about maybe, possibly, potentially being on TV.
It’s hilarious, but I wouldn’t change a thing.
Okay, that’s a lie.
“When you think about it, this is me being confident that I’ll nail this informal round and get to the reality TV portion,” she says.
“You know what? You’re right, and I’m very proud of you.” I pull her into another hug, and when we let go, we shake out our worries. As always, we start with our arms, flinging wrists every which way until we feel satisfied, and then we move on to our feet.
When we’re done, Anjie’s face is relaxed.
“Know what you’re making for the initial mini-thing?” I ask.
She gives me her smug, all-knowing, Anjie smile. “The mini-cookoff? Why do you think you’ve been taste-testing a lot more dishes these days?”
“Wait, how long have you known about this?”
“Right after Thanksgiving.”
That was weeks ago.
“I initially thought it was a joke but then decided the menu needed a revamp anyway. But last week, I got another email asking for co-chef registration and everything felt a little too real,” Anjie explains.
“You submitted it, right? When’s it due?”
“It’s due tomorrow at noon.”
“Anjola Kuti, you call Mike first thing in the morning and get this sorted!” I yell.
She jumps back. “Okay, okay. I hear you. Don’t eat me like he was—”
“Don’t.”
The annoying mischief in her eyes doesn’t die and neither does my stern look.
Luckily for the both of us—because we would’ve stood at a deadlock till someone broke, our record is eleven minutes—my phone rings.
The caller ID makes me smile, and before I know it, Anjie looks over my shoulder and nudges me.
“Answer,” she whispers.
I do, and somehow my smile gets wider.
“Goodnight,” she calls out, exiting my bedroom, and I hope my entire house.
“Who was that?” His voice comes through, and heat shoots to my core. It’s barely been an hour and my body already misses his touch.
“Anjie. She’s leaving.” I flop into my bed, getting comfortable.
“Everything good?”
“Impostor syndrome reared its ugly head, but yeah. She’s good.”
“Lovely. Is your Saturday free?” he asks.
It takes everything in me not to immediately say yes. “Can I check my schedule and get back to you?”
“Take all the time you need. Just know, I need to see you again.” There’s no mistaking the bass in his voice.
“Why do you need to see me again?” I ask playfully. My stomach tightens, and my inner thighs get wet. I hope he follows my lead.
“Because we have unfinished business,” he says with some strain.
“What kind of business?”
“Moyo.” His voice is harsh.
“Niyi.” Mine is smooth.
“This woman,” he chuckles, and I wish I could see him laughing. He looks stunning when joy outlines his features. “Are you free tomorrow? Well, technically today?”
“For what?” I question. Regardless of his response, I know my answer, but if I don’t make him sweat a little, then who will?
“Wine tasting…and maybe some other tastings.”
I smile. What better way to follow up tonight than with more wine and, hopefully, a room where we won’t get interrupted this time? The infinite possibilities run through my mind: Niyi’s mouth on mine. And after that, all over me.
I smile, not bothering to keep the rasp from my voice.
“It’s a date.”