The Girl with the Louding Voice(75)

We leave the market just as the sun is going down, as the sky is turning orange. We walk slow, Ms. Tia dragging her feet and her nylon bags full of shopping (she refuse me to carry anything for her, she says her own two hands are working well), until we find ourselves in front of Frankie’s Fast Food, where Michael dropped us off in the early afternoon.

“Would you like something to eat?” Ms. Tia ask.

“Yes, ma,” I say, licking my lips. “I am too-too hungry.”

“‘Starving’ is the word you need, Adunni. ‘STARVING.’”

How can she even think sense to be correcting my English in this hot sun and after all the walking?

We enter the cool, air-con shop, and I pick the third seat by the door, slide into a red leather cushion chair that look like a rich man’s bench, with a high wood table in the middle of it and pictures of giant meat pies and sausage rolls and sliced boiled eggs on the walls to my left.

“I will order something for us,” Ms. Tia say, dropping her bags of shopping and walking away.

She return a moment later, set a tray full of meat pies, sausage rolls, small yellow cakes, and orange juice on the table.

“That was crazy fun,” she say, sliding in with me. “We should do this again. One more time, maybe after the bath. I will ask Ken to speak to Florence. Go on, eat something.”

I look at the food, swallow spit. I don’t think I have eaten anything like this in my whole life, and I wish that I can have Kayus and Enitan here with me, eating this plenty food, laughing and talking. The feeling come quick, drag down my spirit.

“This is so much,” I say, forcing a smile to pick up my spirit. “So much food.”

“Well, you are starving. Go on, eat.”

I taste the meat pie, close my eyes as my teeth sink deep into the bread of the pie and break it, as the thick, warm soup of meat and potato flow out of the bread and melt on my tongue.

When I open my eyes, Ms. Tia is watching me, smiling.

“You really shone today,” she say. “Confidently haggling with those women.”

I shrug, pick a sausage roll, bite it.

“My mum’s unwell, again,” she say as she pick up a fork and knife and begin to slice the cake into small cubes. She pinch one with a fork, eat it. “I’ll be going to Port Harcourt next week. I will be there over Christmas and the new year. We’ve completed the application form, and I have written your reference and printed out the supporting documentation as a guarantor. All we need now is the essay. Adunni, you need to write it very soon. Can you work on it over the next two days, and bring it to my house?”

“I will try,” I say. True thing is, I have been waiting for the right time to pick up my biro and write it, pushing the day forward, afraid of what I will say, how to make it the best.

“Make sure your handwriting is clear, and that you use a good pen. When you are done, fold it and slide it under my front gate. I will take it to the Ocean Oil office myself to make sure it gets delivered before I leave for Port Harcourt. Can you bring it in two days?”

When I don’t answer, she pick up my hand, hold it tight. “Are you scared?”

“A little bit,” I say, wiping the crumbs from my mouth. “I am afraid of what to write.”

“Write from your soul,” she say. “Write your truth. From a place—” She drop my hand, stop talking. Her eyes are on the swinging front door, her face looking shock. I follow her eyes, see what she is seeing: the Thin Woman from the WRWA meeting. She is wearing a black English suit, but with a skirt, the collar of her jacket like she about to fly up in the air.

“Shit,” Ms. Tia say, whisper. “It’s Titi Benson. She’s coming this way. Duck, Adunni. Now. Duck.”

“A duck?” I say, looking around. “Inside this restaurant?”

“Get under the table,” she say, talking through her teeth. “Now.”

I climb under the table, hide behind the bags of shopping, my heart beating fast.

The Thin Woman, her legs like thread, is walking to our table, and I am not understanding how her legs is not breaking into two with how she is strolling so fast on her high-heel shoe.

“Tia Dada,” she say, stopping at our table, her smell of costly perfume swallowing up the smell of my meat pie and sausage.

“What are you doing in Balogun market?” she say. “Let me guess—running a report on the pollution in the area?”

“Titi,” Ms. Tia say, sounding like the cake is a brick in her throat. “Good to see you. How are you?”

“I’m good,” Titi say. “That is a lot of food. Are you expecting someone?”

“Yep,” Ms. Tia say, then laugh a painful laugh. “Nope. It’s all mine. I am famished. Ridiculously so.”

“Ah, famished,” Titi say, voice like a sudden singing-song. “Are you trying to tell us something? Is there a bun in the oven? How far gone—”

“I am loving the bag,” Ms. Tia cut in. “So chic.”

“I know, right,” Titi say, stroking a hand on the blue box of a bag that is hanging from a thick gold chain on her shoulder. There are two gold letter Cs crossing each other on the clip of the bag, and it look too costly, just like her black shoe.

“Do you know I’ve had this boy for three years?” she say. I can hear a smile in her voice. Like she is proud of her boy of a bag. “It’s the most stunning calfskin. And your bag is lovely. Italian?”