In that moment, she had to watch
herself not to overturn the contents of her glass on his head. All the thoughts
and insults running through her head which she could heap on this guy. She
calmed herself down, got up, took her purse which was hanging by her side on
her chair and walked out of the restaurant. One of these days, someone was
going to push her too far………………
**************
‘Maybe I overreacted a bit. I could just have suffered through the next
hour and a half and then say a very nice goodbye.’ Esther thought through her date and how it had
gone down.
“Which part of Spintex are we going,
Madam?” the driver interrupted her self recriminations.
“Rainbow. Do you know the place? It’s
after Coastal.”
“I know Coastal but I don’t know this
Rainbow place.” He replied.
“Don’t worry. I’ll give you
directions when we get to Coastal.” She remembered she hadn’t called Fiifi back
and she decided she’d call him right before she sleeps tonight. A friendly
voice on the other end of the line would help her a lot. She wondered how
George was doing. As soon as the thought came to mind, she discarded it for
more musings on her date but her thoughts came circling back to George. She was
glad she didn’t come home to change into different clothes for this evenings date.
It would have been wasted time and effort. They had decided to go for dinner
straight from work because of traffic and it turns out that was a sound
decision.
Her phone vibrated just then to
notify her of Kwame’s text. The text message was one of an apology as to how
the evening had gone. She appreciated the gesture. She however refused to give
him the impression that she thought she had overreacted. So, she sent a text
back gracefully accepting the apology and saying she’ll see him on Monday.
Whatever he wanted them to be, she hoped that expectation would die a natural
death.
When George knocked on the door to Esther’s apartment that
evening at 7.00pm, he refused to accept his loud and erratic heartbeats were
because of fear. The fear of finding out how much better off she’d been without
him. Fear that he had been replaced and most of all, of what she would do when
she laid eyes on him.
He wondered if she was home, if she
has gotten a job and if she was dating somebody. Miriam opened the door and
smiled at him but he could tell she didn’t really mean it.
“Good evening, Miriam.”
“Good evening. If you are looking for
Esther, she isn’t in.”
“Okay, but may I come in and wait for
her?”
“Suit yourself.” Miriam went back to
the kitchen to continue with the meals she was preparing leaving George alone
in the living room. He sat there on the couch, going over conversation starters
in his head, trying to find the best one to use with Esther. ‘Does he start right on with an apology or
does he start with a banal subject? He wasn’t sure. He supposed it will depend
on her mood when she sees him.’
As he waited, he heard the sound of a
vehicle, most probably a car, as it stopped outside the house for a while and
then sped off again. Next, he heard the front door to the girls’ apartment
open. He heard voices in hushed conversation and he could only assume Esther
was home and Miriam was giving her a heads up about his presence before she
came in and met him.
“You have a visitor waiting for you inside.” Miriam told her at
the door.
“Well, hello to you too. Is it Fiifi?
I was planning on calling him back.”
“And are you ever going to tell me
the person’s name, or should I guess?
“………Oh no! don’t tell me it’s George.
Not with the day I’ve had and the mood I’m in.”
“Yeah, it is.” Miriam answered.
Esther sighed out loud and headed
straight for her room to change her clothes. On her way, she saw George
standing just inside the doorway of the living room, watching her. Without a
word to him or even a glance to acknowledge him, she entered her room. She
spent a few minutes sitting on her bed, gathering her scattered thoughts
together. She missed him. She was happy and angry at the same time to see him.
As she changed into a pair of slacks and a tank top, her anger won over and she
went out to meet George with all the self control she could muster. As soon as
she entered the living room and sat down, Miriam came in and informed them both
that she was stepping out for a few minutes to buy something down the street. ‘Thank you so much, Miriam, for leaving me
alone to deal with this mess.’ Esther thought to herself. They both heard
the apartment door slam as Miriam walked out.
Over the silence that followed,
George ventured to break the ice. “So, Nana, how have you been?”
‘So we are back to calling me Nana, abi?’ His use of the familiar pet name
just served to infuriate her the more.
“What are you doing here, and what do
you want George?”
“Is it wrong for me to inquire about
your health?” She didn’t dignify the question with an answer.
“Won’t you ask me how I am also
doing?
“You are not going to make this easy
for me, are you?” Still no answer. He realized she planned on saying little
until he had exhausted every reason he had to stay, to try and make things
right. Then maybe he would leave her alone. He remembered the smart thing to do
when she got this way was to provoke her into a reaction, mostly anger. With
the issue at hand, he knew it wouldn’t take much to get her there.
“I came to say I am sorry for what
happened with us and to ask that you give us another chance. A chance for me to
make things right.”
“Okay. You’ve stated why you are at
my house. I have heard and I’ll think about it. Now, if you’ll just excuse me,
I have stuff to do.” she dismissed him.
“It’s not like everything was my
fault. If you hadn’t been so stubborn, we wouldn’t have had to break up in the first place.”
“What did you say?”
‘Finally!’ he
thought with some satisfaction to himself.
“You came all the way to my house to
tell me it is my fault that you were weak-minded enough to cheat on me? On
second thought, you know what? Yeah, it’s my fault. Now that you’ve made that
clear I hope your business here is done. I’m kinda busy.”
First blow landed, fair and square
and it wasn’t pleasant. He wasn’t giving up yet. Until all the anger is out of
the way, they can’t have a rational conversation anyway.
“Weak-minded huh! How do you feel
getting that off you chest?”
“I don’t want to see you or talk to
you or have anything to do with you. How about that for getting things off my
chest?”
“Or, is there someone else you are
not telling me about? At least I accorded you the courtesy of telling you the
truth that I was going out with someone else.” That did it! She was surprised
her blood vessels didn’t burst from how much blood her heart was pumping. The nerve of the guy! She really wished she
were dating someone else at the moment.
“That is enough. Get out. Get out of
my house George. Get out!” with every issue of the command for him to get out,
her voice rose a little higher till she was almost yelling it at him.
‘Where was Miriam when you needed her?’
“I am not going anywhere till you
calm down and we talk about this.” They were both standing nose to nose now.
She turned around swiftly and went to her bedroom, took out her purse from her
bag and walked out, leaving him alone in the house. She was about a hundred
metres away from the house when she realized she had left her phone in the
living room. She refused to go back for it. She boarded a bus on its way to
Roundabout. She was on her way to Fiifi’s place. She’ll be there till 12.00am
before she comes back home. By then, she knew George would be long gone. She hated
that this was becoming a trend. As if she was always running away from difficult
situations.
Miriam came back home around 8.15pm. When George heard someone
opening the door, he thought it was Esther coming back but it wasn’t.
“George, you are still here. Where is
Esther?”
“She stormed out of here a few
minutes ago. Didn’t you meet her on your way back home?”
“No, I didn’t. What did you say to
her to make her angry?”
“Nothing much. Just my presence, I guess.”
Miriam eyed him doubtfully.
“I suppose you came here to win her
back? Good luck with that. Right now, you are all that is wrong with her life
so you are going to need all the luck you could get.”
“By the way, where is your
girlfriend, Pokua?”
“She isn’t my girlfriend anymore.” Shaking
her head disappointedly, she said; “Guys! Good luck. You are really going to
need it.
“While we are waiting for her to come
and kill you, we might as well feed you and fatten you up. I’m bringing you
some rice.”
They ate and waited, and waited. Two hours
into waiting, George grew apprehensive and asked Miriam if this was normal for
Esther. Miriam reassured him that she was alright. He refused to leave then,
claiming he wanted to make sure she was alright. Miriam guessed she was
probably at Fiifi’s place so there was no cause for alarm.
Fiifi drove Esther home after
convincing her it was the grown up thing to do. He also reminded her that she
had been waiting for George to come back to her for a long time, so she should
go and sort things out with him. At five minutes to twelve, she said goodnight to
him as she got out of the car. She found the same pickup truck parked by the
house but she still didn’t make the connection that it was George who drove
that truck there. She decided to call him up tomorrow for them to talk this
through. She had left her keys and phone when she left so she knocked on Miriam’s
bedroom window. She responded from inside that the door wasn’t locked.
Esther found George sprawled out on
the couch, asleep. “He refused to leave. Said he had to wait and talk to you. Are
you going to wake him up?” Esther heard Miriam say behind her.
“No, we’ll talk tomorrow.” She went
inside the room and took out the mosquito coil Miriam had burning away by his side in the
room, to keep the mosquitoes away.
“He reacts strongly to the stuff. Better
the mosquito bites than the coil fumes.” She explained to the askance look on Miriam’s
face. She didn’t even realize that she was fussing and Miriam wasn’t about to
draw her attention to it. Miriam had already covered him with a sheet so when
she entered her room, she just brought out a pillow for him. She gently raised
his head and placed the pillow under it. When she turned to leave to her room,
she found Miriam staring at her.
“You have just one pillow.” Miriam said.
“Yeah, so?”
“And you gave it to him.”
“What’s your point?”
“And you are still angry at him.”
“Miriam, I still don’t see your
point.”
“You are pretending you don’t see my
point but it’s okay, I’ll explain. You are angry at the guy and yet you give
the only pillow you have to him. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.”
“Whatever you say, madam matchmaker. For
me, I’m tired so I’m going to bed.”
By 6.00am, she was wide awake but she
refused to leave her room. She heard a faint knock on her door about half an
hour later and she called out to the person to come in. She already knew who
would walk through the door and she was right, it was George. He came in and
knelt by the foot of her bed as she rose and leaned her back on the headboard.
“I’m really sorry, Nana. For everything.
If you really don’t want to see me or talk to me, I understand but I hope you
give me the chance to make things right. Whatever you need; time, space,
anything, you just name it. Pokua and I, we didn’t even last two months. Do you
know why? Because she wasn’t you. Just tell me how to make it up to you and I will.
I’ve been wanting to come and do this for two months now but I never could
muster up enough courage for the feat. What I did was wrong and I am sorry I blamed
you for it last night.”
‘Oooooh, that is so sweet.’ She however could not find the voice to say that out loud
because her throat was clogged with her tears.
“I have something for you. It’s a
piece of jewelry. I don’t mean to buy you off or pressure you into forgiving me
but if you do forgive me and are willing to give me a second chance, then you
can take this right now. If you want time to think about it too, you may take
all the time you need. I love you and would love nothing more than spending my
life with you.” With that, he brought out a ring that was obviously meant as a promissory
ring. She stared at the ring for so long until her tears blinded her eyes. That
was when she knew she was going to say yes. It was almost like she didn’t have
a choice in the matter. Not after he had been so sweet.
Yes, she was going to
say yes and hope the projection of their forever become an experience they
would both tell stories about to their grandkids someday in forever.
*************THE END! *************
