Birds With Broken Wings

35* Graffiti World

"Nah," Jemima countered, "they said the photographer had an impromptu emergency so they had to look for another one. They initially wanted to cancel but we couldn't fix another date into Tamara's schedule."

"Oshey baddest manager," Goke jabbed-joked as he leaned on the other side of the car, "but what is the meaning of impromptu emergency though? Is there any emergency that isn't impromptu?"

"Shut up jhare," she threw the throw pillow that she was holding at him and he caught it effortlessly. The two continued their ever-continuous banters and I drifted off to a place where I couldn't hear what they were saying.

While I was indifferent about a lot of people, they were both a tiny winy bit of exclusion. I didn't share a relationship that was beyond strict professionalism with my previous managers and stylists or makeup artists because Gina didn't even allow that to bloom and because they never even stayed around long enough for us to develop a relationship.

But Jemima and Goke were different. They've stayed longer than all the people that have worked for me since I was 17 combined together because people always ran away after dealing with mom's over-excessiveness for just mere weeks but Goke and Jemima didn't think of mom that way, if anything, they think of her as slightly different from other celebrities that they know and they both have come to a mutual conclusion to describe mom as oddly pleasant.

How pleasantly surprising.

They both weren't bad people, I've come to that conclusion and they were strictly professionals with their works too and we were starting to settle into a sort of relationship where we talk over drinks and we share silly things such as smiles and jokes.

"That reminds me!" Jemima screamed out of nowhere and her scream was quickly punctuated by a loud banging of her hands, "I heard Jay is performing here later in the evening, should we go and watch?"

"Nah, you know we're not supposed to keep Tamara out of the house outside of what her schedule says."

"Hmm hmm," Jemima rolled her eyes sarcastically at him, "should you be reminding me of my job? And besides, Gina isn't around and won't be around till three days so we should be free to do whatever the fuck we want to do."

"And make her livid when she returns?" I asked her, "no, thanks, I'll pass on that offer."

"There's no way she'd know, Tamara."

"Mom always knows everything."

"But anything that has to do with Jay has always been an exception, she's not going to get so mad that you attended a performance of her favorite."

I ignored her, putting an end to the conversation because they knew that the minute I don't say anything more in a conversation, I consider it to be over.

I knew Jay was performing here today. It has been the talk of the city for weeks even though it wasn't a big show, it had Jay in it so it was big enough to gather all sorts of attention, and the fact that it was a collaboration with an NGO made it even more prominent.

It was already the first week of the last month of the year so the happening activities in the city had tripled and increased in fours as the whole city was getting thrown into the whole frenzy of the upcoming Christmas and New year celebrations.