CHOICES - a short story

Photo by David McEachan from Pexels

By Arine Adekugbe
"Hey you silly" a drunken youth snarled lurching at Anita who stood calmly by her duty post - the doorway into Mr. Billgs.
"You didn’t tell me an ordinary piece of meat pie costs 70.00 Naira he slurred menacingly as he staggered out of the fast food restaurant.

Anita smiled sweetly even as her insides churned in anger, in pain. The customer is always right she whispered quietly reminding herself or the company’s mission statement.

After all, she thought trembling slightly I am just a security guard in one of the hundreds of fast food restaurants that litter the Lagos Landscape; A guard whose unimpressive job is to welcome every jack and Johnson with a smile permanently glued to my face, to swing open the heavy blue tinted glass doors and to cheerily bid anyone or anything that happened to walk into the shop ‘a nice day’.

The khaki tunic uniform, which she hated, and the compulsory black beret which she simply tolerated conspired with each other to steal the little physical beauty she believed she processed. The shapeless tunic in particular hid her curves making her feel as shapeless and as worthless as the whitewashed walls of the fast food joint.

The very expression of her shame.

Then she trembled again waves and waves of shame engulfed her choked her and Anita’s tortured mind pleaded with her eyes for mercy hoping that the message they relayed was not true, hoping they had made a mistake somewhere in transmitting what they had seen.

They had not.

It was Rachel who has just alighted from a Mercedes Benz S Class. It was Rachel who was striding elegantly towards the door. It was Rachel who reeked of power, of opulence, of success. She had the same petite frame, the same chocolate complexion, the same long hair. That was where the familiar ended and the unfamiliar started.

This new Rachel’s comportment breathed extravaganza. Anita’s heart contracted in excruciating anguish as she compared herself in her shapeless uniform, standing by the doorway, to her old schoolmate decked in the symbols of wealth of power and her feelings of worthlessness escalated.

Rachel was wearing a turquoise coloured and sequined spaghetti top. It barely covered her ample bossom - it’s fragile overworked strings were in grave danger of snapping, under this was a knee length chiffon skirt, which swayed gently as she deliberately twisted her hips from one side to another, like a fashion model doing the catwalk. A dancer trying to mesmerize her audience. The nails of her right hand with which she gripped her bag looked like the claws of a wild animal soaked in the blood of its prey.

There was no escape for Anita, no time to compose herself, to think of what to say. Rachel was striding towards the door, confident, composed, captivating. Anita braced herself to face her old classmate.

Then it happened.

Rachel’s eyes met hers, she stiffened on the spot. For a fraction of a second time was frozen. It stood still. Mouth agape. Expressive brown eyes burned with thousands of questions. Then it was over. Rachel cloaked her emotions behind a mask of cool indifference. Non-recognition replacing recognition. Rachel looked right through her like she were invisible-a speck in the universe, an insignificant nonentity. Her face was as blank as a painter’s empty canvas.

‘Rachel’ Anita spoke weakly like someone just recovering from a bout of malaria, her voice was shaky, unsteady unsure of itself.

"Do I know you?" Rachel enquired her voice shrill and dismissive.

Anita choked on the words she wanted to utter, she had only wanted to greet Rachel her ex-classmate. The words struck in her throat, her tongue cleaved to her palate and she stood still like a statue, struggling to regain her composure, swallowing her saliva, blinking her eyes to hold back the tears, while Rachel, Rachel, with whom she had soaked gari in school. Rachel, with whom she had exchanged bed spaces. Rachel, with whom she had even sometimes played truant, glided past.

"Darling, the girl seems to recognise you" a short pot belled man, her escort who dangled behind her like stray bits of tread from a frayed shirt said. He was dressed in a heavily designed babariga and his cap was set on a jaunty angle on his head. He wore a Rolex wristwatch, which glittered as it caught the sun’s rays and the sandals he wore looked both foreign and expensive. The middle-aged man was old enough to be Rachel’s father but there was nothing fatherly about the way the palms of his right hand freely and in broad daylight roamed Rachel’s body. It was a hand that said no trespassing this is my prosperity.

‘Well I’ve never seen her"

Rachel lied tartly wiggling her body like a snake "probably one of those riffraff’s who hang around where I live" she added carelessly, flinging out a slender wrist on which several bracelets dangled.

"You" suddenly Rachel pivoted sharply as if stung by a bee and wagged a bejeweled finger in Anita’s direction, her painted eyes narrowing in contemplation.

"Throw this pack of rubbish somewhere for me" she held up this black polythene bag she had just removed from her animal skin leather bag, her eye narrowing in contemplation and flung everything at Anita. It landed near her ankle and slowly tumbled to the floor.

Anita shuddered, so this Job had consigned her to the rubbish heaps of existence. It had dehumanized her; she attempted to shield her pain the only way she knew how-by pretending she had not heard Rachel’s command. An action that could earn her instant dismissal.

Vivid Images came is her rescue.

They came dancing through the corridors of her mind.

She saw her old frail widowed mother slaving over odd jobs to feed the four children, of whom Rachel was the eldest. She saw her mother’s work weary body deftly navigating through traffic held up in the Lagos ‘go slow’ as she attempted sewing pure water and an odd assortment of local snacks. Vivid Images brought Anita back from the brink, back to her senses.

It was true, Anita’s working hours were long, and the salary small. But it assisted in feeding five hungry mouths, assisted in paying their school fees, enabled her to pay for the extra lessons she was taking and even aided in registration to rewrite her S.S.C.E. with these thoughts, she humbled herself, bent down and picked up the scattered rubbish strewn all over the floor.

As she walked home later in the evening, she recalled her secondary school days- five years ago, they seemed like yesterday. Then she had boasted that she would study law; that she would change the world. It was a great dream only sometimes things do not work out in reality as they do in dreams. In dreams you have distinctions in all your subjects, you live in a nice big apartment, you dine with the high and the mighty. In reality she had flunked all her major subjects, she lived in 2 rooms with four siblings and a widowed mother. They were lucky if they ate 2 meals a day, usually they ate once and supplemented this by drinking gari soaked in water.

She recalled the day her result came out, how terrible she had felt. Relatives kept promising to help, promises Anita had come to discover were as worthless and insincere as the breath in which they were made. A neighbour who appeared to be a good Samaritan had also promised to assist, but Anita had come to find out he was more interested in helping himself to her body and when she rebuffed his amorous advances, his loving and concerned attitude had varnished like dew under morning sunshine.

Suddenly a Lexus car screeched to a halt beside her and a middle aged man attired in expensive looking Agbada smiled at her, through the open widow, exposing perfect teeth.

"A beautiful girl like you should not be trekking under the sun" he purred in a tone of voice which was used to having his way with any lady pretty enough to attract his attention. He was so sure of his effect on girls that he did not even wait for a reply but leaned over to open the door for her, his eyes freely roaming her body; there did nor seem to be any secret place.

"Don’t worry" she replied as she continued trudging. The dust from the road coated her hair, her eyelashes and her lips was cracked by tiny lines that crisscrossed from one edge of her mouth to the other. Anita’s body was worn out from the stress of opening and closing doors, from carrying baskets of food from one end of Mr. Billgs to another.

The man trailed her in his car, his voice coaxing

"But I want to worry, men like me were created for the sole purpose of worrying for girls like you."

She ignored him and walked faster

"Okay lady, no sweat" amused and at the same time challenged that any girl could rebuff him especially one on such an obvious low social strata, when even university graduates and master degree holders were dying for his attention, anyway he consoled himself, that was her loss. He made to drive off, changed his mind and called out.

"Lets go over to that supermarket no strings attached. Just an admirer wanting to give a pretty girl a pretty time."

Anita’ s stomach rumbled as she considered the offer. Her gait slowed somewhat. Should she do it? Should she follow him? What was she keeping herself for, preserving herself for? This man’s money could take care of her, her mother, and her younger ones.

The phrase No strings attached rang in her ear, she grimaced. She hated the _expression, hated it to the core of her being. It was designed to make woman lose their guard and fall prey to men who calculatively broke down their resistance while professing no strings attached. She wanted to be an achiever like Ngozi Iweala, like Akunyuli, not some man’s toy, his plaything, a diversion when he was bored. But, her resolve firm and strong, when it was first made, was weakening day after day. She hissed, this introspection will not feed her, or clothe her or help her widowed mother.

"Yeye girl" the man sensed her reluctance and flung his complimentary card at her.

"In case you change your foolish mind" he shouted and zoomed of in a cloud of dust.

"You are a foolish girl" mama Rashe’s voice stung her out of her reverie. Anita could perceive the strong odor of the yam she sat frying by the road clinging to her. Mama Rashe made it her business to know all that happened on that road and some of the residents had nicknamed her ‘CNN’

"Yes you are a stupid girl" she spat standing up and gesticulating with one hand while attempting to wipe the other hand on her dirty wrapper.

"Na how much dem day pay you for what your work sef?" She came close to Anita and the smell of the cheap oil with which she fried the Yam almost choked Anita, her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper

"You mother don day old o, she no get strength again, make you help am, enjoy yourself, spend the man’s money. Or you wan come join me here dey fry yam. Dis one no be better work o." she spewed venom at the young girl.

Anita wanted to shout, to scream. She opened her mouth, then shut it. A huge tiredness descended on her, her shoulders felt as if she were carrying the whole world on them. Wasn’t she just being foolish, wasting away? Maybe she should do that millions of girls did, what millions of girls would do. Get a man, any man as long as he could take care and you effectively. Settle your bills, buy you nice clothes, nice perfume, a cute handset; one that had a camera of course, take you out for dinner. After all, every girl did it. She fingered the complimentary card, her index finger tracing the embossed name. Anita she had a couple of cards like it, given by men of varying ages at varying times all vultures eager to feast on her innocence, on her youth, on her beauty.

After a long sleepless night of tossing and turning, Anita made up her mind.

She would do it.

The next morning she hurried over to the address written on the card. She wanted to do it as quickly as possible, before she could change her mind, before her courage could fail. The receptionist courteously ushered her into a tastefully furnished room. There was a women silting there waiting, she was gorgeously dressed in a shimmering boubou and she had her hair wrapped up in a turban like style. The room reeked of her perfume as if she had soaked herself in it. Anita sat opposite her and even though they were only physically separated by a couple of feet. In the heart they were separated by jealousy, fringed on the edges by curiosity. Each one wondering what the other had come to see Lucien for, each one wondering how close the other was to him. To Anita, the woman looked overdressed and over painted. The ‘over pancaked’ face looked like a crumpled cloth from which some one had unsuccessfully tried to iron out the crinkles. The few braids that peeped out from under he turban looked like wind battered trees on a tired landscape. Here was a woman clutching to a rapidly disappearing youth. A desperate woman.

To the women, Anita was all she had once been but now was not. She envied her freshness, her youth, her beauty. Once, years ago, she had been more fresher, more youthful, more beautiful. Then, men, especially those who could afford her, scurried around her, falling over themselves, fighting for her favours. Then she had used and discarded them like yesterdays’ newspaper. A girl who know how to play the game. A girl who knew how to get what she wanted.

She had, over the past decade established several businesses, venturing from one to another like a wanderer searching for a home, a bird looking for a place to roost. Once it was a boutique, then a saloon, then a supermarket and now it was an Internet café. Not given to the rigors and discipline of hard work, to diligence and commitment in business, to thinking and planning. They had all flopped. She was now living in genteel poverty moving round from one office to another to curry favours from old boyfriends, if not for now, for old times sake.

"He wants to see you first" the male secretary said as he gently directed Anita into Mr. Lucien’s office.

"Well my dear girl so you stopped being foolish" Mr. Lucien drawled, standing up behind the big mahogany desk at the same time rubbing his hands against each other in self satisfaction - a Lion that had just caught a luscious prey anticipating its enjoyment. Lucien moved over deftly to where she was standing and flicked an Imaginary particle of dust from her bosom, his throat worked as he swallowed his saliva, unbridled lust was stamped all over him.

Suddenly the phone on his table rang.

"Yes" he barked into the receiver angry the interruption.

‘Sir it’s one madam Agnes, she wants to speak with you"

"Tell her I will not see her today, let her come back some time next week". Suddenly the sound of a scuffle indicating the woman had snatched the phone.

"But Lucien why are you treating me this way?" she cried into the phone.

"It is all over, what am I doing with an old hag like you?"

"Please Lucien" the woman was pleading, her tone mournful.

"Well I am not a waste refuse bin that you can dump yourself on. I’ve had enough of you. Leave me alone." He snapped squeezing his handsome face.

Anita walked over to a sofa in the room. It was large, comfortable and smooth. It soothed away her anxiety it made her forget about her financial problems, cajoled her into a state of well being she picked up a magazine from a nearby rack and pretended to be reading it. But she was listening, keenly to the telephone conversation.

"What did you do with all the money I wasted on you?" he hissed his voice sharp like a knife.

"Please, please let me see you, let me explain"

"Explain what?" his once was lashing like a whip. Anita cringed.

"I am fed up of you. You can keep the car for old times’ sake, but I am not really to bail you out of another one of your business failures. One thing about some of you women is that you just don’t think, you don’t invest in developing yourself. You think you just have to flutter your painted eyelids, roll your buttocks and men will be trapped, completely lost in your orbit. Well my dear woman, I’m immune to your charms, go push yourself on some other person, you expired chick." At that he slammed down the phone. Anita was shocked but within that shock was enlightenment. She felt like a captive whose shackles had been removed from both hands and feet, like someone suffocating who had just received a dose of fresh air.

Definitely, it was tough now, to feed, to school, but it would not be forever. This was just a season that would pass away. The woman in a strange way reminded her of her old schoolmate Rachel. The woman was Rachel. Years ago the woman was like Rachel -Young, pretty dancing from one man to another without even the slightest thought of self-development, of advancement, of investing in the future.

She was smiling at Lucien who was arranging his suit trying to regain his composure, but her thoughts were far from him. She would go back to her work as shop guard in Mr. Billgs, even though it was her work to-day. It need not be her work tomorrow.

She would work hard, earn money, and rewrite her SSCE. She would pass and gain admission to a higher institution. She would invest in her future. She had made up her mind, and there was no going back.

"Well sir," she started "I was just passing by and I remembered you said you worked here so I popped in to say hello and without waiting for his response, she got up from the sofa, and walked briskly out of the door.