~Sarima's POV~
"No carry your life take play basketball o, oyibo man don talk am say health is wealth. Dr iguedo the goko cleanser, e dey helep comot all kinds of yama yama Disease and infections from your body..."
The robotic voice from a small speaker sitting atop a vehicle with cartons of the said concoctions in the open boot for people to see and patronise was nearly drowned out by the other noises in the vicinity.
The clouds looked like it was about to pour their frustration on the earth.
The particles of sand and dust that the wind carried along with its movement were blinding.
Owners of kiosks and shops that had initially sampled their wares outside were sending them back inside.
Trying to avoid the near chaos and spitting out the sand particles that had made their way into my nose and mouth, I could still see a yellow MTN-labelled umbrella with its insides out, the ironed ropes supposed to hold it together, jutted out, indicating that it was damaged.
It had initially been used as shelter from the sun by a fruit seller struggling with the wind for balance as she tried to fix the umbrella.
The noise from the public vehicles as they honked impatiently was incorrigible.
Squinting my eyes and dragging my feet, I scanned the vicinity for a safe place to stay until the wind would be over.
I saw the Lebanese kids that usually hung around this axis to beg passers-by for money. They were as usual in their worn-out football jerseys with their long attractive curly hair and ebony skin. Still, this time they were all huddled Inside an old abandoned keke, not in their usual spot and were equally turning to face the other side shielding the sand from entering their eyes too.
It was going to rain. The gusty weather was quite weird for a Sunday afternoon.
My long flowing gown didn't make my swift movements comfortable, so it was folded on both my empty hands exposing my ankles and lower legs as I slung over my bag on my right shoulder on my thick denim jacket which I'd worn over the strapless gown despite the initial sunny weather.
I spotted a pine tree from a distance beside an unending big fence; it had only one occupant, and I wanted to go there too, but stories of trees falling during this type of situation popped up in my head. So I decided against it, seeing as the wind carried the hard-to-notice branches along in a frantic motion.
Boarding a tricycle home would be better.
"Aunti!" I turned at the sound of the unsure voice. I wasn't sure it was me that was being referred to, so I continued my movement, too impatient to find a suitable shelter or a keke to even scan for the person who'd called out.
"Aunti", I heard it again and saw the man standing under the pine tree calling me.
aunti ke
He looked very much older. I tried to decipher if I'd seen him somewhere but couldn't. But, maybe because of the wild weather, I needed to see clearly.
He beckoned me to come as my movement slowed, and I scanned him, checking if he was one of those retards that was left to roam the streets cause it was a common thing.
His clothes were neat _Check. His hair wasn't in thick locs or the least bit dirty or bushy _Check. He had no harmful objects with him, just a big satchel bag hanging across his chest. Moreover, if he wanted to try something evil, this road was busy _Check.
"Comot for road", A short man muttered, half running past me, leaving a vestige of smelly sweat behind.
I moved away from there, approaching the smiling man under the tree, my right hand shielding my eyes from the sandy wind.
Okay, he began to seem familiar as I took closer looks at him, but I couldn't fathom where I'd seen him.
"Aunti, is me Jude, I works under oga kene", He nearly squirmed from my unwavering gaze, wringing his hands nervously or maybe from his poor English structure.
I wasn't one to make someone uncomfortable, so I jumped into Pidgin English, quickly recognising him as one of Kene's boys.
"Ah Jude, sorry o I no quick recognise you", I said with a small smile. "How you dey na?"
"We dey manage o, God dey". He never stopped smiling, showing his pearly white teeth with a gap in the middle.
This place was pretty good for a makeshift shelter, but I wanted to avoid getting wet by the slightest drop of rain.
"Ah Ejima, you just dey fine anyhow o, see as you dey glow", Jude complimented me, glancing down at the scar on my hand to confirm If I wasn't Somi. I smiled, noticing what he did.
"Abeg no dey whine me, na manage me just dey manage", I waved it off playfully.
"No o, if na dah one no go there o, you no dey manage this one at all , you too cute!" I laughed at his choice of words. "We no dey see you around again, I hear say you don stop work there."
"Eh dah one na long story, How's your boss?" I waved it off again, avoiding details and slipping back to English.
His eyes weren't reaching mine. He was shy.
"Oga Kene travel go Calabar, then go Abuja again, but he don come back Sha" I didn't see Jide-Kene as someone that would travel to both destinations within such a short period, and I wondered if something was up.
"Hope all is well o", I tried to clarify my doubts. The Cheshire cat grin Jude pasted on his face said that all was well.
He indicated that he was waiting for someone and I didn't want to spend time there with the weather like this.
"Greet everyone for me o. I'll come around sometime, make I waka abeg, the weather no be here, take care."
I turned to face the whirlwind again, saw a tricycle approaching, and decided to board it rather than wait for the rain under a static shelter.
"Okay na, greet your sister o, take care". He waved as I nodded and made my way to the Keke, flagging it down.
I told the driver my destination and joined the other passengers, relieved to leave the whirlwind for a while finally. However, my mind returned to Kene until I saw the older woman with a child in the tricycle.
She reminded me of mama and our days back in Rivers State with her doting on the child, causing nostalgia to hit me.
That woman cared for my sisters and me more than my birth mother.
I recalled a time during one Easter holiday when we'd gone to stay with her in the village as usual. I'd gone to the market with mama's house help, Nnedah, to buy meat. I was ten years old then.
Nnedah had asked me my thoughts on the price of the meat which we were given in our native Ikwerre dialect. I replied to her in English, telling her to provide the man with the amount he'd asked for, even calling out the amount of money mama had given us to purchase the meat out loud, ignorant of the signs she was giving me with her eyes to keep quiet.
She'd given me a knock on my head. When we left the meat sellers' abattoir, I'd cried all the way home even though she'd apologised at some point.
Nnedah was forced to explain why I was crying at home, and mama was so vexed that she'd laid a finger on me. Mama had scolded her in our language and pidgin English, asking her if she'd sat down to teach me how to speak our dialect for a day.
Nnedah sulked and refused to talk to me again. She was 16 then, giving only her attention to Somi and Homa. I'd bribed for her forgiveness with my Easter meat and drink.
The rain began drizzling as I descended from the tricycle at my junction. I paid the man and waved back at the little boy from the keke who had been engaged with me throughout the ride.
I hurried down to get home quickly as Omekannaya by mercy chinwo played loudly from the speakers in front of a shop that sold movies on DVD and was also a phone repair shop. It had posters of Nigerian movies on the walls and the shop doors.
Within a short time, I'd gotten to the compound, and it wasn't as noisy as usual on regular days.
Mama chidiebere's shop wasn't open yet. Maybe they weren't back from church, but the high Life music that papa Chidiebere Loved playing, loudly boomed in the compound from their house and his Volvo parked at the side of the compound.
Maybe they were back and hadn't opened yet, or papa Chidiebere was at home alone.
The clothes Homa had washed Yesternight were still hanging outside on the balcony; some had even flown off, gracing the floor and dirty stairs. Only the clothes she'd held with the pegs had stayed on the ropes.
It's like they've not done this girl something before. She should think this is that suburb part of the mainland where she'd lived with my mom and her husband in flats.
They'll steal all of her clothes if she keeps on being careless with her belongings here.
I picked up the clothes from the floor before climbing the stairs. I even wondered what they were doing inside the house that they hadn't noticed the weather.
The smell of something mouthwatering filled the compound, and I knew it was from our house.
I pulled off my sandals before pushing aside the curtain at the doorpost.
Somi, rounding up with her cake icing, smiled when she saw me.
"Come and have a taste of this, please, shebi, it's nice?", She walked towards me, giving me a taste of the dough I guess was for chin chin in between her flour-stained fingers.
I nodded, throwing Homa's clothes on her lying figure on the bed and giving Somi a thumbs up. "I'm sure the cake will taste as nice as it looks, too", I said, eyeing it.
I put my finger into the bowl again to taste the dough again, removing my hair tie with my other free hand.
Homa removed her clothes from her body, muttering a welcome to me and standing up to arrange her clothes. She was still wearing the clothes she'd worn yesterday.
"Are you not seeing this weather? And you left the clothes you washed yesterday outside," I asked her.
"I forgot," she excused lazily, Putting her glasses into the case to secure it.
"Keep on forgetting until all your clothes would get stolen in this compound" I hung my bag on the wardrobe knob, removing my Bible and phone from it and placing them on the extensive study table, which had some books and novels, textbooks and handouts.
The cake was on this table too.
The centre table was filled with flour bowls and the like. Somi had been paid to make some snacks and cake for Boma's birthday get-together happening this evening at Yaba, where she stayed with her boyfriend.
"I thought you were having cramps, abi it was an excuse just to avoid church." I was referring to Homa again.
"I took pain killers nau. Do you enjoy seeing me in pain?" She replied, folding her clothes into her box with a frown on her sleep-induced bloated face.
"Why are you still wearing the shirt you wore yesterday?"
"I can't be wasting my strength to wash clothes when they're not dirty, Biko, I just wore this shirt last night, and it's not dirty or smelling", she replied, still with an irritated frown.
"Smelly," I corrected her, and she rolled her eyes.
"That one that you're doing is for me abi?" I asked, casually taking off my jacket and my choker.
"Ahn ahn, Babe free the girl na." Somi said, amused as she cleaned a wooden board With a paper towel.
This one is happy because she'd gotten considerable profits from this job _" Monica."
I'd said that out loud.
That was the lame nickname she earned from mama because of her unrequited love for money.
"Monica's twin," she winked at me.
"If you touch that...", She used the spatula inside one of the bowls to swat Homa's hand off the chin chin dough. "...Because I've given you drugs na, after you'll be doing like someone that wants to die because of that small pain," she spoke, flattening the dough on the board which laid atop the table with the rolling pin, her full perky breasts following her movement.
She was just on her favourite red shirt and a pair of jean bum shorts.
"You think menstrual cramp is a small pain cause you usually don't experience it, na," Homa replied bitterly.
"So it's not a small pain, and you want to take something sweet, ride on... in fact, come and eat everything here." Somi raised the bowl to Homa's face and withdrew it immediately, her voice laced with sarcasm.
"As if the dough on the chin chin is even sugary." Homa pinched some of the dough with her fingers before Somi withdrew the bowl entirely.
Somi gave her a stink eye then turned to smile sweetly at me, "Abeg, beta pikin, come and help me dice these." She placed the flattened dough on the free part of the table where she was working.
"This one?", She looked at Homa who was walking past through the curtain on the entrance and exit door post, "if I send her she'll eat everything 'cause she doesn't have sense", she replied to the question I had on my face.
"Even though you like food, at least you have a small amount of sense." the knife she held out for me still hung in the air.
"Small sense?" I sized her up, the edge of my upper lip lifting.
"Have you tried calling JK since that night you missed his calls?" Somi questioned ignoring me with a bit of seriousness etched on her features.
I nearly grimaced at the nickname she'd given Kene, washing my hands in a bowl.
"What has that got to do with anything?" I feigned nonchalance, collecting the knife from her. "How'd you even know he called me 'cause I don't remember telling you anything." I absentmindedly slipped a diced dough into my mouth, and my eyes met her warning glare. I smiled sheepishly at being caught doing that.
"There is soup in the Kitchen if you're hungry o,"
"Which soup? I thought it had finished."
"I poured water into the pot and made something out of the leftover one."
Trust Chef Somi on that one.
"Jk asked me if you're good when we were chatting." She continued the earlier discussion. Her eyes glistened like I should applaud her for the insight.
My insides warmed at the revelation. But I still asked.
"Which one is Jk?" not still being able to hold back my grimace at the nickname.
"So you have his number, how?, Cause you weren't one to socialise at the salon _also, you didn't tell me he was interested in you," I replied with my eyes on the dough I was cutting.
"So you're jealous," she replied, and I looked up, meeting her blank stare.
I scoffed, "Jealous," I guess I overdid it because she giggled.
"Aunti, your boyfriend is certainly not interested in me o biko..."
"... He's not my boyfriend, I barely even know him."
"Whatever, you're sha attracted to him..."
"...I don't like him!"
"...admit it or not," she continued, ignoring my interruptions. "He's a fine man, you know," she wiggled her eyebrows at me-I hate when she does that. "Tall and funny, abi you're denying your feelings because he makes furniture."
"Really?"
"see ehn, He's very hard-working...he looks very promising and, he's fun to be with. Abi you're doing shakara because he's not a rich man? You sef are you rich?"
Something is wrong with this one. I shook my head and ignored her until she returned to her senses.
Already tired of waiting, I interrupted her. "I thought you wanted to say something before now."
"Well..." she dragged her words, "Last week when I left the house to the police because of," She nodded towards Homa, who was making the bed. "I met him on the road, and I told him. He escorted me to the police station and all. After the police movement, we exchanged numbers, and he got your number from me, too, as he found out he wasn't going to see us around the salon area anymore."
"So you started giving yourself mumu ideas because he collected my number. Does Jide-Kene look like someone that'll be interested in me?"
"Ha! so you're interested in knowing if he can possibly be interested in you?" She chuckled, then continued. "Okay, then why did he ask me about you today during our little chat on WhatsApp? Like anytime we talk, he must mention you. I don't even think he knows that he does it."
"So Jude saw me today and asked about you. I think he likes you."
She looked at me like I was crazy." How does that make any sense?" She gestured with her right hand out like she was demanding my sanity.
"Exactly! But Jide-Kene asking about me means he likes me?"
She rolled her eyes and muttered something about me being childish about the situation.
"You won't understand. I've Sha told you my own. He thinks you're upset at him or something that's why you ignored his calls? cause he sent you a message on your WhatsApp and you've not replied too."
"Have you seen me online for the past week?" I roll my eyes at her.
"Nawa o," Homa laughs...we both turn to give her the stink eye.
"Nawa kill you...shebi no be your mate dey hustle for street?" I asked her, chewing some dough.
"No o leave am... hustle she no go hustle, follow better man wey get money kwa, wahala, her own na to keep hair like Queen Charlotte sit down for house," Somi join me.
"Abegi, because I don't go about Hawking sachet water doesn't mean I'm not working towards my financial stability, I've got things planned out for myself and us, I'm even working on my plans," Homa replied with a smug look.
"Master planner!" Somi hissed.
"Believe it or not, I saw this Ethereum thing in my department group chat. Register and refer up to 5 persons; by the end of the week, you'll cash out 75k. When I get the money, I'll add up to my savings, get a laptop and..."
"...Aunti, it is a scam!" Somi spaced her words dramatically for effect.
"You no see as she nor get sense?, na people like am Yahoo boys dey use start business," I stuff my mouth with some more dough.
"It's because you're just so close-minded about risk taking that's why you've not had money to even do 200 naira sub for the past one week," she said and dashed into the bathroom as I abruptly stood up from my sitting position, she bolted the door from inside.
"Get ready to die inside there today," I said, sitting down back and absentmindedly slipping a giant mould of dough into my mouth again.
"Oya e don do!" Somi pulled the table closer to her and away from me. "Na so so chop chop you just dey chop since you come here, wetin you don cut sef?"
"Please, I'm hungry." I stood up going into the kitchen to get food to eat, making a mental note to call Kene later.
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