Blame

The stool was starting to seem uncomfortable. It was the most comfy one she had ever sat on three hours ago, when she took her seat in the bar and ordered a drink. Now it was not any more comfortable than the bar table where her empty bottle of Hennessey stood. She wasn’t thirsty when she ordered that bottle. Neither was she drowning her worries. She was rather killing time, and her heightened anxiety as she waited for him. Her three hours waiting here seemed like years, she had not been stood up like this before. Well, maybe she had, but only one other time. She was fifteen at the time, and her high school crush had agreed to meet her at one of the abandoned classes at the other end of the school compound after school hours. She had waited and waited only for him not to come. She was enraged, but not anymore when, the day after, he explained to her that some of her classmates knew about them meeting and had hidden out in strategic places with more than enough voice recorders and cameras than needed to implicate them. Well, you can’t expect any less trouble when your high school crush is your English teacher, can you? He left the school three weeks later though, without a note of any sort, and she never heard from him after.

She shifted her attention back to the bartender, Kenneth. He was her lone companion now, as she had done a very good job of turning the fourteen guys that had come to ask for a dance, or to buy a drink, or to even sit beside her down. Not like he was the jealous type or something, but she didn’t want the night going wrong because she was with another guy when he finally arrived. The bartender was obviously a good story-teller and was bearable company, but she wasn’t in the mood for stories. He went on and on about the girls in his life, about his job, and the first time he smoked.  She couldn’t tell if he liked her or just had a lot of things to talk about. Either way, he picked a wrong time to talk.

She had only been to this bar one other time, some fourteen years before, when she and three other friends escaped the hostel grounds and came to drink and party. The walls of FGC, Odogbolu had their secret openings, the kind that needed more of a slim body physique than ‘open sesame’. They had all made it out, changed to skimpy dresses, and got a taxi to the location. It was so much fun, the kind that you knew you wouldn’t try again. But they all got too drunk. She somehow luckily escaped getting raped that night, but her friends didn’t have so much luck. To add insult to injury, their stunt got discovered and they were suspended for their hooliganism. Two of the friends never returned to the school. She became pretty much a good girl after the incident, treading carefully not to step on any toes, especially the huge, swollen ones of the school principal, Mister. Till they left school, no one really figured out his reason for asking to be called just ‘Mister’. It was not like his real name, Wole Otun, was any difficult to pronounce. In the same way, none of her own colleagues understood why she kept trying to be retransferred when her bank posted her as branch manager to Odogbolu.

The bar was a lot better than what it was, as its management had been changed since she was last here. It was world class now, with exquisite glass and furniture adorning the multicoloured walls. The air was fresh, cold and a bit odd, typical of high technology air conditioning systems. Here and there, she noted about four large ones, and a number of smaller ones hanging on the wall. The ones in her office were of a previous model to these ones. She preferred natural air. The drinks were superfluous, and there was hardly a drink not to be found here. Some men played pool in a corner while their women, most of which were not their wives, clung possessively to them screaming and shouting incessantly. The dance floor was dimly lit, and the strobe lights darted back and forth like they were looking for a missing item. She always hated strobe lights. They had this crawling feeling on her body, and she felt like a fool when her dates told her to ‘calm down, they’re just strobe lights’. She froze.

She knew that honk, and obviously the bartender too recognized it. The ‘him’ she had been so long waiting for was the owner of the bar, and if there was anyone that’d have an acute cognition of the sound of Oga Tunde’s car horn, it was Kenneth. Tunde was the kind of boss you liked and didn’t like. As much as he gave out huge tips, bonuses, and holidays to the workers, he was a perfectionist. He wanted the bottles in appropriate position on the shelves all the time, the stools always cleaned dry, the upholstery polished black, the toilets scrubbed white. The workers knew that, and so there was always a rush when they heard him honk, and confirmed it was his car at the gate of the building. Tunde was successful, and in fact widely acknowledged as the most eligible bachelor of Odogbolu. He had all those kind of awards that gossiping ladies gave out when they met and partied; perfect gentleman, wealthiest young man, etc. Even more than all that was that he was very much caring, but facially, he wasn’t all the most handsome.

She never liked fine boys though, after her fifth boyfriend. She always got hated by some other girl, and they were all proud, like it was their handsomeness she was out for, and then she had to hang out with about five other boys that shared the same mentality. At a point, she detested rich boys too.  She never had any luck with love. She was awesomely beautiful, and it was no feat to see her name, Simisola Dogunro, on the paper award for the most beautiful among her mates, from secondary school all through university. She had the African woman kind of body, full rump and ample bosom, and not the Cinderella and Snow White type. As a result, a lot of boys wanted her, and she always loved the wrong ones, ranging from the ones that used her to show off to the ones that always wanted to get in her pants. It wasn’t like she was a saint in such matters, but she longed to be really loved. Maybe being beautiful came with its own cross.

She felt real love when she met Tunde. It was for the first time at that meeting where the banks had met to contribute towards the renovation of the roads since the government had refused any assistance. They had both been sent as representatives, and she couldn’t help but notice how he talked compassionately about the people and the good things of the area. He had been there only two months, but talked like he was born there, and it was obvious he cared a lot about people. The banks didn’t agree eventually, but at least she left the meeting with a new phone number and a lot of hope. She saved his number as ‘hopefully’. They went on a number of outings and she was hooked on him. His best friend had told her secretly, and made her swear to act normal, that he was going to propose to her tonight. After twenty eight years on Earth, this was to be the best night of her life. And he was three hours late.

She nearly stood up from the stool to go and jump into his arms, but she kept her cool. She watched as the black Range Rover entered the compound, and stole a glance at her BlackBerry phone that had been dead since afternoon. Kenneth didn’t have a phone either, and she didn’t recognize anyone at the bar. In such moments, she could be really shy. She replayed her angry routine in her mind. She wasn’t really angry, but needed to show him he should never leave her alone like that again, ever.  She almost jumped as she heard ‘Hey, Simisola’ behind her.

It was Kayode, Tunde’s younger brother.

He kept talking about how awesome his day was, how Tunde let him take his car out, how much fun he had with some Annie girl he always talked about, how much fun the movie was, how awful the popcorn tasted, how he almost fell down the stairs, how Annie was scared of going on the escalator and on and on. She didn’t hear a word he said until he asked ‘What are you doing here?’, and then hell was let loose. She let out all her frustration on Kayode and only took a deep breath five minutes later. She was really sad now.  He soothed her and gave her his phone to call him. She thanked Kayode and sat for a few minutes pondering over what to tell him, how’d she’d thank him for wasting her time, for spoiling her night, for letting her wait for more than three hours, for making her go into a bar she had promised not to again, and leaving her alone. She dialled the number and waited for it to ring. As the phone rang on the other end, it suddenly struck her.

She had earlier asked that the venue be changed to her house!