Apartment 7 (5)

ARISHA 

I open the door within a crack and peep into the living room. Finding it empty, I step cautiously out of the room and head for the kitchen. After my outburst two days ago, I have been avoiding Ladi and thankfully, he has been returning the favour. I am yet to get over the mortification of complimenting his looks like an awe struck teenager. I approach the kitchen on quiet feet, throwing a glance at his door and wondering for a moment if he is in the room.

I manage to make it safely to the kitchen without being discovered. There is a small tea mug in the sink with a spoon sticking out of it. The unmistakable line of dried beverage on the rim makes me realize that Ladi might not be in the apartment. I retrace my steps back to the living room and to his door. My knock is light and tentative

“Hello.”

No answer.

I knock again, the knuckles of my fingers barely making contact with the surface of the door.

“Ladi?”

There is no gruff reply to send my nerves over the top or any sound to indicate that he is in the room. I place my right hand on the door handle, its intricately carved tip cool and inviting in my hand. To push or not to push. I breathe deeply and go with the latter. I poke my head inside and scan the empty room.

“Hi,” I say loudly, just to make sure. When my voice meets silence for the third time, I straighten up, open the door wider and step through. Ladi’s room is all navy blue and white. The drapes on his windows are a heavy and I can’t tell from this point if they are made with brocade or linen. His neatly made bed is two times the size of my own and my eyes and drawn to the two bulky books at the bed stand. My curious mind yearns to explore the books but my cautious mind is aware of the fact that I am trespassing. I decide to return back to the kitchen but not before I breathe in the tangy masculine scent in the air.



In the kitchen, the upper compartment of the fridge door is filled with eggs. I pick two and move them to the kitchen counter top. I find a collection of small sized white ceramic bowls with flower patterns in the white cupboard above the sink and bring down the one closest to the edge. The next cupboard reveals spices and a medium sized container of maggi cubes. There is a transparent salt shaker and other containers beside it. I set to the task of whisking my eggs with the help of a small fork I find in the cutlery holder on the counter top, shaking a small amount of salt over the eggs.

Soon, the sizzling sound of frying fills the kitchen and I become more cheerful and less anxious of running into Ladi. Breakfast will be on my favourite sofa in the living room, my legs folded under me, and the television remote control in my hand. Bliss.


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LADI



I sit in the foyer of Protea Hotel and wait for Raina. The uniformed security men standing with hands behind them flash courteous smiles at guests and the red lipsticked women at the reception desk attend to the three white men, nodding as they receive a wad of money from the slimmest of the group. I sigh and look at my wristwatch. One hour before her flight and she is not down yet.

“I wonder what she is up to now,” I tell myself, feeling vaguely irritated by the mere fact that I succumbed to her teary pleas to drop her off at the airport.

“Hello Ladi.”

I raise my head to find out that she has somehow materialized beside me.

“Hi.”

Her face is bare of any make up, and her eyes look red rimmed from lack of sleep but she is still as pretty as ever. Even the rather severe hairstyle of swept hair held back at the nape of her neck does and the gaudy brown of her knee length dress with small puffed sleeves does nothing to diminish her beauty.

“Sorry for keeping you.”

I lean back in my chair and refuse to make things easy for her. I give her a nonchalant shrug and ask if she is ready for the drive down to the airport, but she sits down on the sofa opposite me and lowers her eyes.

“No.”

Alarm bells begin to ring in my head and I study her closely.

“Why?”

“Because I have decided to stay two more weeks in Abuja,” Raina tells me, eyes still studying the table between us.

“I find it hard to talk to the top of your head.”

Raina’s raises her eyes to me, filling them with tears in the next instant.

“I am not giving up on us yet.”

I place my hands on the table and lean towards her.

“Let’s go back to two months ago to refresh our memories, just in case one of us has suffered from amnesia overnight.”

Raina purses her lips and looks away to the reception desk. I shake my head at her attempt to avoid the conversation and continue anyway.

“I walk into your apartment to find you in the arms of another man…” I incline my head and watch her as she returns her attention back to me, “a day after I asked you to marry me.”

Raina’s voice is weak with guilt. “Aminu is just a friend.”

The picture of that moment of walking into the apartment Raina shared with her sister and finding her straddling a close family friend is making my resolve firmer by the second. There is no going back on my decision. I don’t care how deeply I once loved Raina.

“I had female friends Raina…I don’t place them on my lap and grope them.”

Raina covers her face with her hands and mumbles something incoherent. I look away from the picture of sorrow she is painting and focus on my environment. The two women at the reception desk are watching us now with unabashed curiousity. When I look back at Raina, she is dropping her hands and wiping a lone tear away.

“It was a moment of weakness….I was upset with you.”

“And letting some other man get under your blouse was the only way to resolve your issue with me?”

“Ladi please…” Raina says, lower lip trembling as she tries to reach for my hand on the table. I move it away just in time.

“It is really over Raina. I am just here because you asked me to help drop you at the airport, nothing more.”

Withdrawing her hand, Raina sits up with a straight back and looks at me with watery eyes.

“I am still going to try.”

At the end of my tether now, I pick up my phones from the table and stand up from my seat.

“I really do not care what you plan to do Raina. Goodbye.”

I walk away from the airconditioned foyer into the hot sun and locate my car at the end of the small parking lot. As I pull away from Protea hotel, I punch the button of my car sound system and drown out the voices of regret in my head. The timer on my dashboard blinks 12:00 in red and I turn the car back towards Wuse two. I have five more hours until my meeting with Uncle Hassan at Maitama.

The apartment is quiet when I step into it. I shut the door quietly behind me, careful not to make a sound. I walk to the kitchen and check for a shapely human with wide probing eyes. I find it empty and thank God. The television is alive and tuned to CNN. Images of what appears to be a burning bridge in the distance holds my attention for a minute and I resume my walk to my bedroom. It has been two days since we started this hide and seek game, and I am not planning to end it soon. I am not exactly standing in line at cupid’s door. Dealing with Raina’s betrayal has made it hard to trust women, and Arisha’s compliment that night after we shared pizza made me uncomfortable. It still makes me uncomfortable.



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ARISHA



I move around the room, dancing to the fast beats of Tu Face’s Ihe ne me coming from my blackberry speaker.

Whether from Kano or from Toronto

Shege Yaro, nothing like Gidigbo

This jam that you are feeling e no be beans oh

‘Cause if you wan shele, I go change the things oh

I snap my back and wiggle, finding my way back to the bathroom mirror to admire myself. The cups of my black lace brassiere has managed to make my breasts fuller than they really are. I skim my hand over the side of my body and admire the matching black lace panties. Lifting my head, I smile at my reflection in the mirror, feeling gloriously beautiful. I send quiet thanks to my brother’s long term girlfriend, Ruth, who swears by the gospel of sexy underwear. I had gotten the pair on my twenty seventh year old birthday last month.

Today is my first time of wearing them and I am enjoying the feel of the quite flimsy underwear against my body. The singing from the room calls my attention again, and I shake and wiggle towards my blackberry which is turned face down on the bed. Picking the phone off the bed, I unlock it and cut short Tu face’s happy singing. Sitting on the bed, I open google and type principles of investigative journalism but the signal bars disappear and leave me with a blank screen. Sighing, I look around for something to occupy myself with and then remember my recorder. I search for it in my bag but it is not there. I stand with my hand on my hips and try to remember where I left it. The memory comes to me almost immediately. After breakfast, I had settled in the living room to watch television and fiddled around with the recorder in a bid to master the numerous buttons on it.

“I left it there,” I tell myself, walking to the wardrobe with the intent of finding T-shirt to throw over my lingerie. I change my mind in the instant my finger touches the soft fabric of my red T-shirt sitting on the small pile in the lower shelf of the wardrobe.

“What’s the point?” I reason to myself, closing the wardrobe and walking to the door. “Ladi is out and, I am coming back to the room now.”

In the living room, I find the recorder tucked away into the right hand corner of the chair and pick it up. Just as I am turning to leave, the picture of the dark haired white woman standing with the scene of burning cars behind her on the television makes me pause in my steps.

…an helicopter crashed into a crane on a really, really tall building in this particular area. And then what happened was it tumbled on to the major road, crashed on top of two cars. The emergency got here on the scene pretty quickly…two casualties, two dead and two people in the hospital. Again, there was a dramatic scene where London fire brigades were essentially saying that they basically had to pull someone from a burning car who is now in the hospital.

It’s a dramatic morning here in London. You know, fire balls and plumes of smoke in a major commuter arrea. Think of something like a major area in New York City or Penn Station just shutting down. That’s exactly what happened.

I shake my head at the television and begin to turn away, but I freeze at the sight before me, my blood running cold. Turning wildly, I try to locate anything to cover my body with but to my horror I find none. Beginning to shake from the humiliation, I cross my arms over my breasts and endure Ladi’s dark gaze.

“Hi. I didn’t know you were home,” I tell Ladi in a voice that sounds alien to my ears.

“Okay,” is all Ladi says, and he steps back into his room, the door coming forward with a quiet click that resonates loudly in the room. I hurry to the guest room, turn the key in the lock and lower myself to my haunches. Grabbing my head in my hands, I try to stop it from reliving the embarrassing encounter.

“No, no, no…”



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LADI



I lean on the wall beside the door and shove my hands into the pockets of my pants. All I can see is the picture of Arisha running around in panicked circles around the living room in nothing but the skimpiest piece of black underwear I have ever seen on a woman. I shut my eyes, to avoid the memory but my photographic memory is doing its best to frustrate me. I see every outline, every peak, ascent and descent of the almost naked female I had run into minutes ago. I open my eyes, sigh in part frustration, part anger as I feel my body harden in response to that memory. Leaning away from the wall, I pull my shirt over my head and walk to the bathroom.

Stepping into the shower stall, I settle for the cold water faucet. It is when the biting cold water hits my skin that I finally see the humour in the situation. I smile for the first time in weeks, feeling genuinely amused at Arisha’s reaction at finding me standing in the doorway of my room. Feeling a little better, I step out of the shower.

“I think I should just go to Maitama now.”

I throw on a pair of jeans and black T-shirt. This time my escape is not quiet. I have just learned how badly creeping around the house can end.



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ARISHA



I pull the phone away from my ear and listen to the sound of a door closing.

“He just left now,” I whisper into the mouth piece when I bring the phone back to my ear. I slap a hand against my forehead. “God, I am so ashamed right now.”

My best friend Hannah is still laughing at the other end of the phone.

“Is there more to this? Are you sure your underwear was sexy at all?”

“Ooo seriously Hannah, stop laughing.”

I get a final guffaw and then silence. “But I am just trying to understand what happened.”

“He saw me in my underwear,” I repeat for the second time. “Is that not enough to make me feel bad?”

“Hmmm.”

“Hmmm?”

“Don’t worry I am thinking of something. Meanwhile, how is Abuja? I hear you pick money off the streets in that town.”

“Yes, that is why I am calling you with my diamond encrusted blackberry phone after just a week here,” I tell my best friend sarcastically. Hannah laughs and snorts in my ears. I roll my eyes and continue. “What do you think I should do now?”

“Arisha don’t beat yourself too much about it,” Hannah says when her laughter finally dies down. “Look on the bright side. You were having a good panty day.”

I find myself giggling at Hannah’s words.

“Can you imagine what would have happened if he saw you on a bad panty day?”

“I don’t have bad panty days,” I tell Hannah in between giggles.

Hannah snorts in disbelief and decides to move on to another topic.

“So, is he cute?”

I picture Ladi’s face as I saw it that night in the kitchen. “Yes…very.”

“Nice,” Hannah says breathily, her voice full of insinuations.

“No…” I say hurriedly before Hannah can voice out her thoughts. “We are not like that. He…is..just someone I am staying with.”

Hannah tells me not to worry so much about my encounter with Ladi.

“Act like nothing happened.”

We spend the remaining twenty minutes discussing inane things. I am reluctant to let Hannah go but I have to when she tells me her fiancé has arrived her house. She promises to return my call later in the week and we say goodbye. Alone and without the distraction of a phone call to bolster my confidence, my mind goes back to what happened a few minutes ago and I sink backwards on the bed, repeating Hannah’s advice.

“Act like nothing happened. Act like nothing happened.”



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LADI



Baba, Dipo and Joseph are walking towards the dining room when I walk into the house at Maitama. Baba’s girlfriend Aisha is with them. I meet them at the dining table and take a chair opposite Dipo.

“Is your dad upstairs?”

Baba shakes his head to my question. “He left the house like an hour ago.”

Dipo wants to know about Arisha. “How is she? I was hoping we could come hang out with you guys this evening, but Baba had other plans.”

I shrug and watch the Beninoise cook Jacques place a plate of boiled potatoes and vegetables in front of me.

“She is okay.”

Baba leans away from Aisha who had been whispering into his ears to shake his head at Dipo.

“You better go and look for your girlfriend. That chick is taken.”

I ignore my two cousins and concentrate on my meal. As I eat, I notice that Baba’s girlfriend is staring at me. I nod at her.

“Hello Aisha.”

Slim, dark complexioned and shy, Aisha is the direct opposite of her boyfriend. She rarely ever spoke when she was in our company and preferred Baba’s ears to any discussion taking place.

Placing a hand full of gold trinkets on the dining table, Aisha smiles at me, small perfect teeth in full display.

“Baba says your girlfriend’s name is Arisha.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” I tell her with what I hope is a friendly smile. “Baba is wrong.”

Baba lifts a piece of potato to his mouth and chews, his lips turning at the corners in a smug smile.

“I know how this story will end. It is all too predictable.”

I reach for the glass of water sitting beside my plate and release a long suffering sigh.

“I am not going to date her.”

“Guilty conscience,” Baba says, smirking at me. “Who says anything about dating now?”

Aisha waves to catch my attention. “Well, it will be nice to meet her.”

I am reluctant to make any promise but with Aisha staring at me as if her life depends on a yes, I nod my head slowly. I get a grateful smile for my pains.

“Thank you Ladi.”

When I look at Baba, his smile is broad and teasing. I have a feeling I just walked into a trap and there is no coming out.



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ARISHA



I am staring at my phone and trying to read the website I have found through google, but I am aware of Ladi opening and closing the living room door. I give up reading and stand up from the bed. I begin to pace up and down, feeling restless.

“Maybe I should just face him.”

I stop and consider the idea. “But what will I tell him?” I ask the room. “Sorry I stood in your living room in my underwear?”

When nothing better comes to mind, I walk back to the bed and decide to call it a night.

“I will just avoid him,” I whisper to my pillow in defeat.



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LADI



I pace up and down my room, wondering if I should just take the bull by the horns and apologize to Arisha for gawking at her when I found her half naked in the living room this afternoon. I know she is awake. I heard her a few minutes ago. Maybe she was on her phone.

“Better do it now before she sleeps,” I say to myself and walk with determined steps to the guest room. Arisha opens the door after three knocks. Her sleep shirt falls past her knees and she gives me a small uncomfortable smile.

“Sorry to bother you.”

“It is okay,” she tells me in a small voice, and then clears her throat.

Suddenly, I have a better idea. “Would you mind watching a movie with me?”

Arisha looks up at me, eyes round in surprise. “Now?”

“Why not?” I reply with a shrug. “I am sure we can find something nice on T.V”

After an awkward pause, Arisha agrees. “I will be with you soon.”

I walk back to the living room, telling myself that I am just being nice. I am not liking Arisha.



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ARISHA



We watch the movie in silence but I am really watching Ladi. I still can’t get over the fact that he asked me to watch a movie with him.

He is just being nice. Look at his face. Is that the face of a man lusting after you?

My inner voice is right. Ladi’s expression is rather serious as he stares at the television. I tell myself that his gesture is enough. All I want is a happy, relaxed atmosphere with him. I allow myself to fantasize about friendship. I could try.