Chapter 41 LAST MINUTE PLANS

EVE

I can cook.

I know I can cook.

I mean, I really know I can cook.

Okay, okay. . .

Who am I kidding?

I try not to burn the food that I cook.

My nostrils twitch as the smell of burnt food wafts into my nostrils, filling the kitchen with an acrid smell.

I know I'm going to smell like burnt food if I don't change what I'm wearing.

"Are you burning the noodles . . . again?" Ebere pokes her head into the kitchen but doesn't enter. "Who burns noodles, anyway? You obviously." She answers her own question. She decides to come fully into the kitchen. "You're very lucky you're getting married to a rich man. You'll have cooks and maids at your beck and call, ready to do your bidding."

I raise an eyebrow at her. She pointedly avoids looking at me and goes to the pot, lifting the lid up to sniff.

"Charred! Just as I expected. If on the other hand you were getting married to . . ."

Don't say his name. Please don't say his name.

Luckily, she doesn't say anything more. She shrugs instead and looks to me, a question already forming on her lips. I've got to stop her from talking about him.

"Alright let's just go out. How does Chinese sound?" I say in a rush, loosening the apron strings from around my neck and waist and flinging it onto the work table.

Mum is not going to take kindly to that, neither is she going to take kindly to me leaving two pots of burnt --- no, charred noodles on the cooker.

Well, I'm getting married tommorow, so I can practically get away with anything.

I'll just chuck it down to wedding nerves.

Yippee!

We leave the kitchen and begin the walk up the stairs, when Ebere gets a call.

"Let me just change, I'll join you downstairs." I throw at her over my shoulder and keep trudging upstairs.

The past one month has been hectic with wedding arrangements.

Mum has practically driven me crazy with dragging me around from store to store, buying this and that for a wedding that's only going to take place in one day.

The things she buys in my estimation are of no real value. They range from different items used in the kitchen, like plastic bowls to the smallest unit --- matchboxes.

She says they are keepsakes to give out to guests. How else will they remember my daughter got married? This is her usual reply to my complaints about her spending too much money.

I keep telling her to lay off spending so much money, but she never listens to me.

At least the wedding preparations have brought my siblings and I closer. I spoke to them some days ago.

There's Royce and Lionel who are both married with kids. They are lawyers who live and work in prestigious law firms in New York. They are followed by Kehinde and Taye, the twins. The twins are stay at home moms, living almost - joint lives in Canada, also married to twins.

Finally, there's Victor who is the first born of all six of us.

I also like to think he's mum's favourite. I meant, was.

Victor was somewhat of a rebel when growing up. He kept getting into fights in school, as I was told. I was still too young to understand what went on. He didn't go to a traditional school like the rest of us.

Victor went to a military school, because mum wanted him to take after her father who went high up the ladder in his military career. Poor Dad couldn't do anything about it and so had acquiesced, much to mum's delight.

It was the worst period for all of us, because whenever Victor came home on holidays, he would beat up people in the neighborhood for the fun of it. He became a local menace --- a brute.

Years later he saw the light, as he succinctly put it. And in order to 'repent' for his misdeeds, he left the military and took a brief course in photography. After his course ended, he decided to get a job as a freelance photographer with one of the Tv news channels. He made sure he always asked to be sent to war - torn countries.

His goal was to expiate for his sins by showcasing the recipients of war to the whole world.

How that would help him atone for his sins, I wasn't sure.

I was soon to find out.

He was posted to Serria Leone to take pictures of the unrest taking place there.

Rebel forces had made their way into Freetown, the capital, to take it over. Rival armed factions also battled for the capital, as well.

Now because their election slogan was 'There is power in their hands,' the rebel forces began hacking off the hands, and sometimes, the feet of the common man. But this wasn't the only reason they were doing so.

As is usual of conflicts of war, it involved a power tussle. With Sierra Leone, the power tussle was over precious diamonds found on their land. So they cut off people's hands so they wouldn't be able to mine diamonds which might be used to support government troops.

The world was agog when gory pictures of bloodied stumps began making the rounds on news channels, both local and international.

It is true what they say about bad news travelling fast.

The news of Victor's kidnap roared like wild fire.

Our house became a shrine, as people from different societies in the church came over to our house to say prayers for his release.

But . . . God either took delight in making the Olaitan family pass through pain or we were meant to be shining examples to other families on how never to allow their children be foolishly led astray.

A public execution took place and my brother, Victor, the first born son of our family, was assassinated, together with many other men, while the world watched in horror.

As I stated earlier on, I was young, just three years old. So the story was told to me years later, in hushed whispers, by my older siblings.

As expected, mum was devastated and dad became an ogre at home, directed mainly at mother.

He blamed her for killing his son. It took the intervention of family members and the passage of time, for him to forgive her.

Naturally, during those years, it was creep creep creep around dad, so everyone, except me, wanted to get out of the toxic situation at home.

I was blissfully ignorant. All because of my age.

When my siblings saw an opportunity, they took it.

They all decided to travel abroad at the first opportunity, in order to get away from the cold atmosphere at home.

After playing the American lottery, all of them won. And that's how they hightailed it out of Nigeria, leaving little me, all alone at home.

There, they got integrated into a different society.

So it was not easy getting everyone together because of their busy schedules, but mum managed it, informing them weeks ahead.

They'd huddled together in front of the computer screen and asked a zillion questions about my impending marriage and how arrangements were going.

I noticed that the twins looked more like separate individuals, than twins. While Kehinde had put on weight, her normally slim face was now puffy with fat, while Taye maintained her slim features. She said she didn't want to ruin her figure by having more children.

Royce and Lionel still looked the same as I remembered. I think. After all, I was just seven years old when they travelled. Although, I had seen them after that, via Skype and video calls.

They never visited Nigeria again.

When questions began flying around about how I met my soon - to - be husband, I'd frozen up, not knowing what to say. At that exact moment, the network took it upon itself to glitch, distorting their images. When it righted itself, they moved on to talks about the wedding preparations and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Royce and Lionel couldn't come, but, Taye would definitely make it, thankfully. She was the closest to me out of all my other siblings with a three year age difference.

She had told me years ago before she got married and moved outside away from Nigeria, that she would never get married.

"Marriage is for weak women, Eve. Strong women like us don't need a man to lean on, nor support us." She'd thereafter launched into a tirade about how love doesn't exist between man and woman and it was all lust and passion only.

She was my idol, you see, and I looked up to her. We'd sit on her bed, legs akimbo, eating popcorn and watching film after film of empowered women owning their businesses and being bosses in their own rights.

Her mantra was my mantra, too.

Until she went abroad to do her master's degree and met Phillip. All talks about women, single hood and empowerment flew out the window.

She fell in love with him. She fell really hard. So much that she moved in with him within the first week of their meeting. Three weeks later, they got married. No one got wind of it, until mum and dad got a call from her informing them she was on an unknown island for her honeymoon.

As usual, mum was over the moon, and I felt betrayed.

With the impression she'd created, how couldn't I feel that way? So I vowed never to speak to her again.

She called and called, but my mind was made up. I didn't want to have anything to do with her again.

She'd filled me with lofty ideas and beliefs, yet when the first Caucasian man came her way, she fell like a park of cards.

Years passed with her trying to mend fences with me. But I turned a blind eye to it.

And then I heard she was visiting home with her husband.

Unfortunately, their visit coincided with my long vacation from university.

That got me in an even deeper rot.

How was I to get out of seeing her?

Taye told mum and dad that they would only be staying the night, because they had an early flight the following morning.

So I came up with a plan.

I made sure to keep busy with friends, by staying away the whole day. I even put my phone off so I wouldn't be contacted.

I got back home late in the night, feeling victorious that I'd given my sister the slip.

Whistling, I walked into the kitchen to get some water to drink, switched the lights on and . . . there she was, waiting in the dark like an avenging angel, or a witch. Take your pick.

She took one long look at me and I felt naked and trapped under her scrutiny.

She'd gotten up and walked to meet me, painstakingly slow, and I fidgeted, wanting to run away.

"Please don't!" Those two words stopped my flight.

She apologised for leading me astray with her ideologies and grudgingly, I agreed to forgive her.

Philip, her husband, left the next day to Kenya to visit friends, but she didn't go with him. She stayed back, mending burnt bridges with me.

I must admit, she looked great. She looked amazing, more like. She was three months pregnant and I'd never seen pregnancy look so good on a woman as it did on her.

We went for long walks which was good for her and the baby, but better for us as siblings, because we talked. Rather, she explained her reasons for getting married and so suddenly too.

She told me how she still believes in her ideologies, even though she's married now. Phillip only came to tweak them a bit, with his selfless attitude, always wanting to help and care for her.

That day it dawned on me, that indeed, true love isn't about lust, neither about passion.

It's all about sacrifice.

If you love someone truly, you'd do anything for them, even at the expense of your life.

Thank goodness she agreed to stay back, because our relationship became stronger and better than before.

And now she's coming for my wedding.

And I can't wait to see her.

I center my attention on removing my clothes, picking out the first dress my hand touches. After slipping it on, I turn to the mirror and grimace as I take in my unruly hair.

After dragging a brush through it, I dab on some perfume, leave my room and skip down the stairs.

Ebere has already dozed off, spread-eagle, on the couch.

Her pregnancy is making her lazy.

I gently nudge her.

"Whazat?!" She springs up, looking comical, her kaftan billowing and deflating around her.

She has taken to wearing kaftans. Says she doesn't want anything tight around her mid riff. Her pregnancy isn't even showing yet.

"You know." I start. "If you keep wearing these kaftans, Dipo's eyes might settle on some other chick wearing tight jeans showcasing her big boo ---"

"He wouldn't dare try th --- "

"While you waddle around as your tummy grows bigger and bigger and --- "

"I'll kill him and eat his brains for breakfast if he so much as looks at another woman."

Leaning my hands on my laps, I let out a loud guffaw that rings out, echoing clearly through the whole house.

She joins me in laughter as we both head out.

*

"Please now. Let's just go to Johnny Rocket's in V.I. Pretty please!" She bats her eyelids at me. "You know we pregnant women have cravings. Mine is a double ham burger with crispy chips on the side, right about now."

"Alright, alright! We'll go, if only to stop your badgering."

She squeals and jumps on me, making my hand slip from the steering. This causes me to swerve, almost hitting another car in the process. "Simmer down, already." I chastise her. "We don't want to go to our deaths before you eat your precious Johnny Rocket's burger and fries, do we?"

"Oops! Sorry!" She giggles, clamping a hand across her mouth.

I spare her a glance, shake my head in consternation and turn my attention back to the road.

She'd been badgering me for the last twenty minutes about wanting to eat burger and fries from Johnny Rocket's which is situated on the island.

Driving from Surulere to the Island, takes about thirty minutes, without traffic.

And today is a Friday, a work week. The rush would be crazy. Luckily, we are setting out early, so I hope we wouldn't encounter any traffic.

Good thing I don't have any last minute preparations to make for the wedding.

Still, I go over the important things in my mind one more time.

Wedding dress --- Check.

Bridesmaid's dresses ---- Check.

Hair and make up --- Check.

Femi ordered my wedding dress and his tuxedo from a well - known French designer and they arrived a few days ago. It's a perfect fit and I daresay I looked absolutely breathtaking when I tried it on.

All my bridesmaids have tried on their dresses and Ebere being my chief bridesmaid, had her dress specially imported from France also.

Luckily, she doesn't have a baby bump yet, so it's a perfect fit.

I had a little bridesmaid shower some days ago, courtesy of Ebere and Taye, so I've put that behind me. So everything is cleared on my to-do pre-wedding list.

Thirty minutes later see's us at Johnny Rocket's. After making our orders, we choose two seats beside the see - through, floor to ceiling window, settling down to idle talk.

Ebere excuses herself to go to the toilet, while I busy myself scrolling through my phone, checking my unread mails and messages.

I'm still going through my phone when I notice a lot of notifications from Facebook. This peaks my curiosity, and so I click on them.

My forehead furrows in shock, when as I open it, I come face to face with congratulatory messages from my school mates on my upcoming wedding.

How did they know?

I continue scrolling, only to come across a message Ebere put up last week, about my wedding.

She even tagged me.

She clearly does not know the meaning of 'hush hush.'

I told her I wanted it quiet and not publicised, but does she ever listen to me?

Not at all.

I hear the scrape of the chair on the tiled floor as she settles herself into it.

Without looking up, I begin to berate her. "I've seen your handwork. Thanks for publicising my impending marriage to all and sundry when I expressly said I wanted it quiet."

I take her silence for remorse as I continue scrolling through my phone.

When the silence becomes extended, I become curious, raise my head and stare --- straight, into startling dark brown eyes.

The same face that has plagued my dreams --- night and day.

The same face I'd been longing to see, is staring at me with blatant naked desire blazing in his eyes.

Batman.

He's looking at me with an intensity that hitches the breath in my throat.

We gaze at each other for almost thirty minutes.

Actually, it seems more than that, but I know it's only been a few seconds.

My mouth becomes unhinged as he stares at me and I at him.

It's becoming obvious to me he's going to keep staring at me like I'm something he's lost and just found, so I decide to help him out . . .

I break the silence first.