Le Voyage_5

Part 1        Part 2        Part 3        Part 4

For the next four hours or so, I forgot all about being broke or being a shrewd business woman and was initiated into the clan. That’s the only description I could come up with, The clan. The five of them had grown up together and had known each other right from kindergarten. Through the years, they’d stuck together even when they had all gone off to different universities and lived in different cities. Matt had gone off to McGill, Bella to Toronto and Raj all the way to Houston while Liam and Adele had stayed behind in Edmonton. After Uni, they had all found their way back to Edmonton and the clan had been re-united.

You couldn’t have found a more interesting group of people and watching them all evening was a pleasurable experience. I couldn’t find any two people in that group that were of similar characters yet each person seemed to compliment the others in just the right places. It was like having pieces of a very complicated puzzle with no two pieces similar, yet each one fitting nicely in place to create a well, very colourful picture! I liked each one of them instantly, from the very eccentric Bella, to cool, calm and collected Adele. Matt was the heart of the clan, witty, sweet and unflappable. Raj was the voice of reason, the grown-up who kept everyone in line. At least he tried to. He was such an English man, all prim and proper and polite. It was a shock to know he’d never been to England, he would have fit in so well.

After the show, we headed to Café Sorrentino and of course Raj held the door open for the ladies to go in first. He was so adorable it was hard to take him seriously sometimes and he reminded me so much of Timmy Patel. Inside we were lucky to snag a table just big enough to fit us all in and Matt brought an extra chair over from another table and squeezed it in.

            “What’s everyone having?” Matt asked.

             “Ladies?” of course Raj asked the ladies first.

            “Can’t make up my mind yet.” Adele said. “I’ll come with you.”

             “Bells?” Matt asked.

            “The usual.” She said and made her way towards the rest rooms. “And a muffin.” She called out above the noise.

             “Lemon and ginger tea please.” I said.

             “Just a coffee for me.” Liam said looking at me across the tiny round table and I wanted to disappear from sight! “With milk please!”

             “Come on, give me a break!” I hissed immediately the others were out of ear-shot.

             “What?” He asked with false innocence.

             “They’ll think I’m a dolt! What a great first impression!”

             “Of course not, they love you!”

             “Pretty please, don’t ever tell anyone about the Cheerios!” I implored.

             “Come on, they’ll think it’s really cute.”

             “Serious, promise you’ll never bring it up!”

            “Bring what up?” Bells asked taking the seat beside me.

             “Nothing!” I said much too quickly, shooting Liam a warning look.

             “Just something that…”

             “You promised!” I hissed slapping his hand across the table.

            “No I didn’t!”

             “Hmmnnn, interesting.” Bells said, leaning in to get the gist. “What’s our Chezza been up to?”

             “So one day, Frankie invites me up for coffee.” Liam started and I covered my face in embarrassment. I’m going to kill him, Mark Petersburg or not!

Then Bells’ phone rang. Who would have thought, saved by the bell, both puns intended!

            “Hold that thought.” she said getting up. “Be right back.” With that she made her way towards the entrance to answer the call outside.

             “Please, please, please don’t tell them, I feel so embarrassed already!”

             “Hey, don’t be.” he said squeezing my hand. “We can invite them all over for breakfast, get through the Cheerios quickly and get rid of the evidence!”

I couldn’t help it, I laughed out loud at that.

             “Yeah right! We’ll feed them Cheerios without milk.” I said.

             “Or sugar!” He added.

We both dissolved in laughter.

             “Thank you.” I said when our laughter subsided.

He smiled warmly at me. “What for?” He asked.

It was my turn to squeeze his hand. “For everything. Sharing your wonderful friends with me, helping me fit in, for a great night…” I trailed off and smiled.

He smiled back at me, and then he leaned forward slightly and kissed me. When he pulled back from me, I just stared at him. I was speechless and even if my life had depended on it, I wouldn’t have been able to say a single word.

             “I wasn’t sure you guys wanted crisps or not.” Adele said from behind me and I practically jumped out of my skin. I had totally forgotten all about the others, and everything else for that matter.

 Oh God, what just happened?!

            “You alright?” she asked and I tore my eyes away from him and forced a smile at her.

            “Yes, I’m fine!” I only just kissed your Boyfriend, everything’s peachy!

            “I am so stuffed, I’m sure I won’t get even one drop of my smoothie in!” She continued seemingly oblivious to the charged atmosphere at the table. Here we were, hands still clasped, both of us still leaning slightly towards each other, and she still went on chatting like the sky was blue and the birds were singing! Ha! She came around and dropped the tray she was carrying on the table and resumed her seat between us. Liam was forced to scuttle his seat back to make room for her and only then did he let go of my hand. Matt,  Raj and Bella  followed soon after and the conversation started up around the table.

             “…it was the courteous thing to do!”

             “I was carrying half a dozen drinks, it was physically impossible to hold the door for her!”

             “Chezza, don’t you just love our Raj?”

I laughed and to me it sounded loud and ridiculous, more like cackling.

Babbity Rabbity and the Cackling Stump. Yeah, that was me.

             “We totally should go bungee jumping next.”

             “Seriously?!”

             “Or abseiling.”

             “Where do you get your crazy ideas from?”

             “Come on, don’t be such a kill joy!”

             “Opera.”

             “Say what?!”

             “Or a West-end Musical…”

For the rest of the night, I talked too much, laughed uproariously, told dumb jokes, I couldn’t seem to stop. Somewhere at the back of my mind, I wondered how I was managing all that because underneath it all, my mind was totally and stupidly blank.

Liam was the only quiet one at the table and I could feel his gaze on me like laser beams but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. Oh dear God, what just happened?!!!

My Portrait Of You

The shrill sound of my phone roused me from a deep, dreamless sleep. For a moment, I felt dazed and disoriented and couldn't for the life of me figure out where I was or why. My head felt heavy and woozy and I imagined this was how an over-ripe water melon felt. I reached for the phone, or at least attempted to. The dull ache in my neck and my rubbery arms confirmed my suspicions that I'd fallen asleep at my desk.

"Hello!" I croaked into the phone just as the person at the other end rang off. In that split moment before the line went dead, I thought I'd caught the sound of a voice. I didn't know if it had all been my imagination or the ripe fruit waiting to burst out of my head, but I couldn't help feeling that if only I'd been a fraction of a second earlier, I would have just caught the voice and somewhere just out of reach of my subconscious was the speaker's identity. I was going to return the call but the caller had withheld the number. Just great!

I got up from my desk feeling stiff in the clothes I'd had on yesterday. I decided to take a bath and get on with the day even though it was just a few minutes shy of 4 am but of course there was no running water yet again. Knowing it was still too early for the meruwa to be pushing their water charts about, I resigned myself to starting the day with the sickly sweet smell of stale sweat. I pushed the windows open all the way and the netting too, ignoring the mosquitoes that immediately swarmed around my head, their love songs buzzing in my ears. I pulled myself up onto the window seat and stared down at the streets of Igbosere. In the darkness, it all looked peaceful, beautiful even. It was hard to believe that in just a couple of hours, these same streets would be transformed into the chaotic entity the world thought it knew. At that moment, it was all quite, shrouded in the seeming solemnity that bellies the madness that is Lagos. It brought back memories of another morning like this one, me, up well before dawn and having absolute no idea what the day would bring: another dull day of lectures and papers to hand in, or news that would change your life forever. Somewhere in the darkness, someone started to belt out some drunken tune, fracturing the serene picture. I sighed. So much for my little daydream, or rather dawn-dream. My drunk companion seemed to be weaving his way towards my building because his voice started to get loud enough for me to hear. Or should I say her. I really am not sure but what I'd taken as a drunk's voice actually turned out to be probably the most hauntingly beautiful sound I've ever heard. I had no idea what song it was, I couldn't even make out the words but the voice was soothing and for a few seconds, I was able to forget everything, past and present, and I let it wrap me up in its cocoon. As slowly as it had drawn close to me, it faded into the pre-dawn gloom and the world was silent again for a moment or two before a bus conductor's voice shattered it. Lagos had come to life.

When I finally got my act together and set out for work, I felt a tad better. At least, my neck didn’t ache so bad if I was mindful not to move it and I’d managed to cover up the mosquito bites on my arms with a long sleeved shirt despite the temperature being somewhere in the forties. Just the way random and totally unrelated thoughts can sometimes interfere with your thought process, I remembered the sun beating down fiercely on me that Wednesday morning a million years ago and how numb and ethereal I’d felt. While waiting at the bus stop, my phone rang and the call that woke me up came to mind. I fished the phone out of my bag, my fingers starting to tingle, not with pins and needles this time but with anticipation, you know, that feeling you get when you’re so sure you’re close to unravelling some mystery. My bus rocked up just then and I made a dash for it along with what seemed like half of Lagos. I snagged a seat by the window and hit the green button desperately hoping I wasn’t too late again this time.

            “Hello!” I gasped as the woman who’d wrestled her way onto the bus after me squashed me into the side of the bus.

            “Hey, you there?!” And just like that, my bubble burst and I felt the crushing weight of disappointment even though I’d really had no idea what I’d been hoping for.

            “Mr Ahmed?!” I said as the very generously proportioned woman beside me forced what little air I had left in my lungs out.

            “Are you on your way in yet?” He asked.

            “Yes…” I choked.

            “Something’s come up on site. You need to head there now.”

            “What? Why?! I’ve got a meeting with…”

            “I’ll take care of the meeting. Head straight to site and sort out whatever the issue is.” He replied curtly.

            “But…”

The line went dead and it was all I could do not to scream in frustration. In all fairness, I really didn’t have any air left in my lungs for a scream, but a girl is allowed her theatrics right? Trust my colleague-from-hell to pull rank on me and dump me in the deep end. Never mind that the only “rank” he had on me was a six month head start at the company and maybe six odd years in age. That was his style and I didn’t expect any better from him, but still, it  made me spitting mad that he always made me do all the dirty work and he took all the credit. I imagined my generously proportioned neighbour wrapping her beefy hands around his scrawny neck and giving him a good shake!

Typical of Lagos weather, the temperature that had been threatening to boil us all alive less than twenty minutes before, dropped suddenly and it actually started to rain. I sighed in resignation. On top of everything else, I was going to get drenched as well. I heaved my biggest poor-me-everything-is-so-unfair sigh and stared out the window absently as the bus crawled through rush-hour traffic. Across the road from me were two little kids, no more than about three or four years old. They had probably slipped out of home when their mum wasn’t looking, and they ran out into the rain with their arms flung out and screaming in glee. I watched them jump and splash in rain puddles like it was the very best thing in the entire world. One of them raised his face to the sky like he wanted to kiss the rain and I could see the sheer delight on his little face. I could almost feel each individual rain drop hit his face, feel the exciting shock of cold water-balls on soft skin, feel the rivulets they formed as they charted their course down his face, slipping into the cracks between his eyelids, streaming down the slopes of his cheeks, into the hollows of his ears, falling onto his little pink tongue. I felt suspended in time even as the boy disappeared from my line of sight and in that moment, I forgot all about my anger and frustration and self-pity and the fight went out of me. There really is nothing as humbling as a three year old raining on your pity party, pun intended, and that gave me quite a bit to chew on.

At my stop, I got off the bus using my hand bag as a make-shift umbrella. Literarily two seconds later, a jeep zoomed by and covered me from head to toe in muddy rain water. That definitely wiped every last image of magical rain drops from my mind! I gasped in shock and disbelief and then quickly spat out as some of the filthy water got in my mouth. Then another vehicle passed by and I got a second, more thorough dousing. I had absolutely no idea whether to laugh or cry or scream or tear my hair out. If there had been anything child-like about me right then, it definitely had nothing to do with the simplicity and innocence I’d seen no more than ten minutes earlier, I desperately wanted to stamp my feet and throw a mighty tantrum! I angrily wiped the muddy water from my face, gritting my teeth, and it was then that I saw it. Just pushing its way out of the dark, angry clouds was the faint outline of a rainbow. I stood there on the side of the road, shivering and dripping from head to toe like a drowned chicken, staring in wonder at the rainbow and all I could think was that life had never felt as beautiful as it did right then. 

Looking back now on the events of today, I realize it doesn’t always matter how bleak and dreary life might seem. All it takes is a voice at the other end of the line or a beautiful song at dawn, dancing in the rain or a rainbow after a storm to bring out the beauty and to turn those shades of grey into splashes of vibrant colours. And that was how you lived, in full colour, no matter what. You always saw the cup as full, regardless of what filled it, whether it was air,  water, a little bit of both, or even coke (I remember you always did love coke!) and that is how I remember you, always seeing the silver lining, not just the storm. Love you babes, still miss you like crazy…

Le Voyage_4

Part 1        Part 2       Part 3

             "Gotta run Babes!" I said stealing a peek at the clock at the bottom of my screen. I’d been skyping with Ama for the better part of two hours and as much as I missed her, it was time to hit the books.

            “Where are you running off to?” she asked wiggling her eyebrows at me. “ Hot date?”

             “I wish!”

             “Come on Chale, gimme gist!”

             "Got course work to finish up."

            "Don’t be such a geek." she retorted. "Which one is course work again? Are you not supposed to be creating a robot or finding a cure for cancer or something?"

            "Err, news flash, I'm still just a student and I've got 90 credits to make up for."

            "You're such a bore! You've been there barely 3 months and you're already spending all your time studying. No wonder that big fat pimple is getting fatter and fatter!”

            "What? Is it bigger than it was yesterday?!" I asked patting my face frantically.

            “Perks of being a boring geek." she retorted.

I scrambled off my bed where I'd been skyping with her and went to the dresser to examine my face in the mirror.

            "Shouldn't you be asleep?" I asked. "It’s almost 2 am over there." the bloody thing did look bigger!

            "Whatever! So, what's new with your sexy landlord?" she asked. Again.

            “What?” I returned to my laptop, still poking and prodding at the pimple.

            “Your sexy landlord! And stop pinching it, you’ll just get an ugly spot”

            "He's not my landlord!" I said for about the millionth time that evening.

            "Irrelevant. At least get a picture!"

            "And I haven't even seen him since..."

            "Since when?!" she pounced when I trailed off.

            "You know what? I really have work to do and I have to go.”

            "You start talking now Chesca or I’ll…."

            "Love you Ama, talk to you later." I said.

            “Francesca!” she exclaimed sternly and through the thousands of miles separating us and hp’s Gorilla capacitive touch screen, I could still feel the glare of that look!

            “Ughhhhhhhhhh! Okay, don’t bite my head off!”

            “Now spill!”

I sighed in resignation. I could as well just get the whole thing off my chest. She wouldn’t let me have any peace until I told her anyway!

                      *                                 *                                   *                                       *

            "Hey guys, this is Frankie!" I said when we met up with the others that Saturday afternoon.

            "This is Matt, Rajesh, Bells and Adele."

            "Nice to finally meet you!" Adele said hugging and air-kissing her. “You can call me Del.”

            “It’s actually Bella, but never mind him!” Bells popped in, taking her turn with the hugs and air-kissing. “We've heard so much about you!"

The guys just stood and stared at them awkwardly. Girls.

            "Pleased to meet you guys too!" she said.

            "We should hang out, just we girls." Bells was saying. "You know, properly welcome you to Edmonton, show you all the nice spots.”

            “Yes, we totally should!” Adele added.

Matt cleared his throat. “Ladies, are we gonna see the movie or what?”

            “Don't be such a kill joy!” Bells chided him.

            “What are we seeing?” Adele asked.

            “Where are you from?” Raj managed to add.

            “Come on! Let the girl breathe! What's with the 50 questions?” Bells had assumed the mother-hen role. Classic!

            “What...?!” Raj spluttered. Poor dude!

            “Girlfriend, ignore the guys. They like to think that...”

Bells linked her arm with Frankie's and dragged her off with Adele on her other side. I smiled, happy that my friends had taken to her instantly.

                      *                                  *                                  *                                    *  

             “Okay, what was so bad about him introducing you to his friends?” Ama asked. “They sound like pretty nice people to me.”

             “Of course they are!” I exclaimed.

             “So what was the problem then?”

             “It wasn’t anything to do with them, it was…”

             “Girl, you are supposed to be the smart one, but right now you’re  not making any sense!”

I sighed. “I don’t really know what happened, how a perfect day out with lovely friends turned into a marshmallow situation!”

Ama gasped dramatically. “Marshmallow?!”

Marshmallow was Ama-gibberish for a really messy and awkward situation.

             “Which one of them squashed the marshmallow?” she asked. If I hadn’t been so upset, I would have told her not to be such a drama queen.

            “Was it Matt or Raj?” she asked.

I sighed again.

             “Okay, this is what happened…”

Le Voyage_3

Part 1     Part 2

As far as starting your life over again goes, I was having the time of my life. I’d spent almost three months in Edmonton, I had 90 credits to make up for in course work and I was bordering on broke. But all in all, life was beautiful and I’d never felt better!

The first week I was here, I’d stayed in one of the bedrooms in the main house until some furniture had been moved into my - what do I call it? Apartment? Whatever. Then I’d decorated it just the way I’d dreamed of it being, right down to my potted plants. Small wonder I was broke, at least until I sorted out the paperwork for my grant. My landlady was the sweetest person in the world and I love her to bits! And mind you, that’s not just cos she happens to be Grandma to the most gorgeous man alive. She kinda reminds me of Mrs Weasley from the Harry Porter movies, fussing and scolding and watching out for me to the point of distraction. Most nights, I would go downstairs and have dinner with her and sometimes, Liam would join us. Somehow, he seemed closer to her than he was to his parents or his sister. I’d never met any other member of the family but I picked up on it, more like intuition or something. Dunno what you call it, I’m doing a Ph.D. in Engineering not psychology! I loved watching them together, they sort of clicked in a way I’d never been able to click with the adults in my life, especially my parents. I doubt they both knew how much it meant to me that they let me into their “circle”. After all, I was just some student from a little town in Manchester they had probably never even heard of. Don’t even bother mentioning my native hometown, Ejisu. Accra is about the only thing they know about Ghana. And maybe Malaria!

So, here I was, without two cents to rub together literally, but I was happier than I'd been in a long, long time. And that also had nothing whatsoever to go with a certain gorgeous Grand-landlord. Honest!

There was a knock on my door and William poked his head in. Talk of the devil. More like think of!

            "Hi!" I said. "Your shift ended early today."

            "Actually, was on the night shift and I’m not on call today."

Well, my sexy grand-landlord was no Hollywood star, he was a doctor. He was an attending physician at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. The man sure was full of surprises.

            "Ok. Care for a coffee?" I asked.

            "Yeah sure."

            "How do you take your coffee? Hope it's black cos I haven't got any milk." I said going to fill the kettle.

            "Really?!" he said sounding like he thought I was kidding. I could imagine what he was thinking. He'd walked in on me unpacking my very large shopping and it must have looked like I was having a laugh.

            "Well don't look at me, blame the cheerios!" I exclaimed defensively.

            "Errr I’m not sure I follow..." he said taking a seat at one of the high stools in my little kitchenette/dining area.

            "Well," I said grabbing the boxes of cheerios and stuffing them out of sight in the shelf above the sink. “They were going at three for the price of two, I couldn't resist!"

            "O-Kay" he said looking like it was far from okay.

            "You still don't get it do you?" I asked and he laughed.

            "Nope!"

I continued to stack my shelves as I explained.

            "Well, by the time I got to the checkout, my shopping came to $25.60 and my budget was $25. So you see, something had to go!"

He continued to give me the look that said he was trying hard not to look at me like I was bonkers!

            "Well, the cheerios were an irresistible bargain!"

He laughed again. "Of course they were!"

            "Alright, just say it! I'm an idiot who doesn't even have any milk to eat the cheerios with, but what does it matter!"

            "No you're not. I think you would make a shrewd business woman in another life."

            “Yeah right!" I retorted and we both laughed.

            "Coffee is served!" I announced pouring the boiling water into two of my mis-matched set of mugs. I’d found them at a garage sale and even though they were old and chipped and one of them was missing its handle, I loved them cos they were mine.

"Hope you got a bargain on the sugar." he said and my hands flew to my mouth.

 Damn! I knew I had missed something! He simply laughed at me.

            "Come on, I’m sure Nan won't mind if we nick a bit of milk from her." he said getting up.

            "And sugar." I said feeling like the world’s biggest idiot.

            “Yeah and sugar.” He chimed in.

            “And maybe coffee too.” I muttered.

            “Yep. Coffee too.” He said. “You really would make a good business woman!"

            “Yeah right!” I scoffed.

            "What are you doing Saturday?" he asked as we finally drank our coffees. "I'm off and I'll be hanging out with Adele and the rest of the gang.”

Even though I’d found out that he wasn't married like I’d thought, my darling Mark Petersburg look-alike wasn't up for grabs. I’d heard quite a lot about this Adele and my intuition told me she was the one. Oh well, a girl can't have it all! It was good enough just to see the guy every other day, plus I had a picture of me and him on Facebook which was still garnering comments and likes. What more could a girl ask for eh?

            "We’re going to see The Buddy Holly Story. It will be fun, it’s a dinner theatre.” He said.

            “Huh?” dinner what?

            “Trust me, you’ll love it.” he said smiling.

            "Sure!" I said.

It really would be good to make friends and let my hair down for a change like Ama had been banging on about. I’d found out the hard way that being a research student was way different from being an under grad and that I wasn’t going to have friends within a week of being at Uni. For starters, there were very few research students in my department and we were all working on different things with different professors and our paths didn’t cross often or long enough to really make any bonds of any kind. I missed my friends from back home, especially my best friend, Ama. We’d both grown up together first in Kumasi and then my family had moved to Manchester a year and half after hers’ had. She was the only one I’d told about applying to Alberta and she had understood the need to breakaway even before I really did. For all her eccentricities, and she has a lot of them, she has her head screwed on tight and she was usually the grown-up of the two of us.

            "Great! I'll pick you up at four on Saturday then."

            "Rightio!" whatever this dinner-thingy was, it was sure to be better than spending the night on my own.