‘You promised, Amadi.’ She looked at him as he stood by the window looking guilty but defiant. ‘You promised you would never break my heart.’
‘It’s why I’m doing this, Bimpe.’ He looked earnest now, but still defiant. Like he wanted to tell her something without his actually saying it.
‘What are you trying to say, Amadi?’ She looked hurt.
He went quiet again.
She got up and went to the door. Bimpe stood there because she wanted to be as far from him as she could, and because she wanted him to come to her. Hoped he would come to her. Tell her all what he had been saying was gibberish and that he still wanted to be with her.
She hugged herself. ‘It’s just not something I can do, be without you.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t envisage it.’
‘Baby,’ he came closer to her this time but he was not quite there. And then he stopped, like he saw something in her eyes that discouraged him. ‘Bimpe. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’
They stared at each other. Bimpe trying to understand. Amadi trying to say goodbye in the best way he could.
‘I’m really sorry.’ He looked away.
She faced the door to hide her tears. Although she was literally begging him for his love she still had some dignity: she did not want to cry for a man, especially not in front of him.
She opened the door and stepped out.
* * *
They met at Primers’ Restaurant. She had rushed in that day to grab her only meal of the day to take home and devour after a busy workday. But seeing the food and perceiving its aroma, she knew there and then that she would not be able to withstand the hunger until she got home. Without thinking twice she ordered the meal omitting telling the server the planned ‘take-away.’
She sat and sighed and started eating her meal in the most quiet empty table she could find, glad that she would regain some energy before driving home, and also that she would not need to cook that night.
And then she saw him sitting two tables away from her staring at her like he was seeing something more than herself. She sighed again. This time a tad angry because she knew she was not going to be able to eat her food as greedily as she could afford to in public.
She decided to ignore him as much as her self-consciousness would allow. She bent her head and pressed nothing on her phone while eating like she was guilty of something.
She looked up again and he was still looking at her, eating as unashamedly, as she should. But he was not glaring any more. She saw something in his eyes. Understanding maybe. But she still did not want him looking at her eat, so she bent her head to her phone and food again, wishing the food would disappear and appear in her stomach so she could stand up and leave.
‘Hi.’ It was him.
‘Hi,’ She raised her head and looked at him. She would have smiled at him: she smiled to strangers a lot. But he was not smiling. He had an intelligent look on his face. That same look he had some minutes ago when she had glanced at him. It held her eyes. It was better than a friendly smile.
‘May I sit with you?’ He looked like he was gentlemanly enough to go back to his seat if she, per chance, did not want to sit with him.
‘Sure,’ she gestured.
He sat, put his tray of food before him like it had to be set right or else there was no continuing the meal. And then he focussed on her again. Piercingly.
She smiled shyly, and looked away. She picked her food. Suddenly she was not hungry anymore.
‘I couldn’t resist. I hate eating alone, and you look like an interesting company.’
She imagined herself as him, staring at her looking awkward sitting there and staring at her meal like it was the one doing the talking. Then she raised her head. Looked straight at him.
‘Are you usually this terrible a judge?’
He threw his head back and laughed. A rich laugh. Like when he laughed nobody else needed to laugh again. It was like his stare.
‘I’m Amadi.’ He shook his head to calm down and stretched his hand towards her.
‘Bimpe.’ She shook his hand.
* * *
Amadi felt to Bimpe like the person she had been waiting for all her life. He was Igbo and it was an immediate dis-qualifier, because all her friends that dated Igbo men complained about them sometime or the other, that they were proud and authoritative. She did not want that. Her favourite quote was from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women which went ‘but a kind word would govern me, when all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t.’
Amadi was not like that. He was assertive and cocksure of himself but it was nothing more than men’s innate desire to tell women what to do for their own well-being.
He asked her to date him when she was already weary of hoping he would ask her out, a month after they met. Which made her realise that he was biding his time, making sure she was ready and would definitely say yes. So she knew she had to be intentional as well. She planned to accept three weeks after, but she did after two.
Amadi came into her life and showed her all the colour in her existence when all she used to see were grey areas.
* * *
There favourite place was the beach. Bimpe felt like a queen there. Like the world was all hers for the taking. Amadi loved watching her queen it. They went there every week, once. At first on Fridays and then on Tuesdays after work, because they discovered it was more serene on weekdays.
Now Bimpe went there alone, hugging herself and wondering how her kingdom that felt so sure and right came crumbling down so fast like a sand castle. She also went to watch the waves fight, like they were making determined attempts to wash away the pain and the fake kingdom till there was nothing there.
Only there too, did Bimpe allow herself to cry. She pretended she was not crying, that she was only contributing to the water body that was the ocean. And when she thought of it that way, she could stand in one spot for long minutes, allowing the pain to go away. The more she gave away the tears the more she felt she could give away Amadi. Shed him until he was no longer there. Not like she ever believed that. One could only try, for sanity’s sake.
Amadi saw her once or twice. Once or twice he wanted to go to her and repeat the useless words ‘I’m sorry’ when he saw her wipe the tears, but he stopped himself. He too wanted her to heal. Needed, her to.
It was a mistake. He’d swear to anyone it was. Bimpe was his all in all. He never looked at another woman twice. Well, until Kasie.
* * *
Her name drew him first. At the same place he met Bimpe five months ago. He only knew one person that bore the name. And it was his mother. And his mother’s was Kashie, not Kasie, because she was from Owerri and they usually ‘sh-ed’ other dialect’s ‘s’es’.
He turned to the counter to look at the bearer of the name and for a moment he was spellbound. Her figure was perfect, and he could not take his eyes off.
Her friend who had called her name dragged her lightly towards the door, but then Kasie had noticed him stare. She smiled the faintest of smiles at him, like she knew about her figure but also was not conceited about it. Like she understood what it could do to people.
He looked away. It was one of those inevitable attractions that one saw everyday.
But the next day Amadi found himself back at Primer’s Restaurant. Alone. He had not insisted when Bimpe texted him that she would not be making it to dinner with him as planned due to a Zoom meeting that had to be at night because they had to align with the time zone of a foreign client. He had not sent her a sad emoji to show her that he would miss her. He had ‘texted her ‘Do your thing,’ with a love emoji.
Now he wondered if things would have been different if she had suspected him and said something like, ‘Oh, you won’t miss me? Best boyfriend in the world.’ Maybe that simple statement would have jarred him back to his senses, and he would have remembered how flooring his love for her was.
But she did not. So he went back to the restaurant to prove his interpretation of Kasie’s look right or wrong.
He was right. She was at the restaurant waiting for him at the table he sat the previous day. He went to the counter and ordered food automatically without paying much attention to the cashier because he was already hoping to see Kasie again, from behind. And talk to her.
‘Kasie.’ He dropped his tray on the table before asking, ‘May I?’
She smiled in response and he sat down.
* * *
She said she had a boyfriend, although they were not in such a good place right then, and he said he was seeing someone too, although he did not tell her how outrageously he loved Bimpe.
They acted like school children, sneaking out to meet each other, saving their contacts with that of their genders so their partners would not suspect.
Until Bimpe went on this work trip in Iowa she was so excited about because she had never been abroad. He faked his excitement for her because he was just eager to know what it would be like to be alone in town with Kasie so he needed her to go.
He got in bed with Kasie.
She was just like he expected: sex with big glutens.
When they were done, he remembered Bimpe poignantly and guiltily. He wanted to call her immediately and tell her what he had done, but Kasie, reading his expression, told him she would never know. And then they fell into bed and did it again, Amadi imagining he was doing it with Bimpe.
* * *
His worse fears came to pass when Kasie called him some 2 months after they had sex, one month and two weeks after he told her he did not think he wanted to continue with the ‘thing’ they were doing.
She was pregnant, and she was Catholic and did not believe in abortions. Her mother thought so too. He wanted to ask her what her mother suddenly had to do with them, but he did not. He hung up and thought of how much of a cow he was, for the heartbreak he was going to cause Bimpe.
* * *
Besides just standing there and staring at her, Amadi also wanted to go tell her that he was still the gentleman she always called him, because he was so calm and collected, and even respected her wish to wait until they were married to have sex.
He wanted to tell her that he was still the gentleman who could not hurt a woman, which was why he was leaving her, because he could not leave a woman who was carrying his baby. Also that she was never the problem, but it was all him.
But he would not go and tell her that. He was a coward: he did not want to see the hatred for him in her eyes. So instead he called Brian.
‘Do you still need that Finance position in your company?’
‘Oh yeah. We haven’t quite seen someone that fits the role.’
‘Bimpe lost her job. I know you know she’s good. Give her this chance.’
‘Wait, are you still seeing Bimpe? Your marriage is in four weeks!’
‘I know, ok? I’m not seeing her. Justina her friend told me. Just… help her. Do this for me, bro.’
‘Sure, man. I can do that. Just, tell Justina to get her to send in her CV or something.’
‘Fine. Hey, I owe you one.’
‘What? Na me owe you for this life.’
Amadi chuckled and hung up.
He called again. ‘Don’t go telling her why I broke up with her.’
‘She’ll still know, guy.’
‘I know. Just… let it not be from you.’
‘Fine.’
He looked at her standing there like a statue for the longest time. He knew she lost her job because of the heartbreak he caused her, and helping her get another one was his way of apologising.