Being Human (4)

Elizabeth Kachi, a front desk officer at Horizon Group of Companies Ltd was everything but cool, calm and collected. She was always everywhere asides from her duty post - the front desk. No doubt, she was a very jovial person, had a good sense of humour and you could count on her to figure out the bright side of every situation, no matter how tensed the office got.

Sometimes, Dolapo wondered how she got the job of the front desk officer; she was just all over the place. That attribute alone made Dolapo keep her distance from her, but hard as she tried, Lizzy forced herself to becoming friends with Dolapo. She pinged her everytime, to gossip about what the latest gist in the office was - even during working hours. Once in a while, she would come visiting Dolapo in her house; not by invitation, of course. Dolapo had tried to no avail to keep her distance but Lizzy wasn't the type to be put off by snobish attitudes. That was one good attribute she had.

Dolapo had gotten a bit close to Lizzy after she got invited to her birthday party. Dolapo had to admit that she was surprised to see that Lizzy's apartment was totally different from the owner of the apartment - clean, organized, beautifully decorated and well-furnished. She couldn't sync the two together - Lizzy, the carefree, chewing-gum lady as she often referred to her and this beautiful place.

Apart from the beautiful apartment, it was impossible for one not to notice Lizzy's boyfriend - tall, not so dark, handsome guy with lovely set of teeth, gushing all over his girlfriend.

Before long, Dolapo began calculating that it was probably the guy who threw the party on her behalf.

"Nah, Lizzy couldn't have organized this party all by herself", she thought to herself. And in no time, Lizzy confirmed her thoughts by jumping to where she was standing, laughing with a piece of chicken in her hand...

"I bet you're having fun. Nelson did all these oh, beautiful, yeah?" and was off again before Dolapo could respond to all she just said. She just laughed as her colleague jumped to the next guest to probably tell them the same thing she just told her.

Lizzy was such a happy child that Dolapo really thought she had no worries, with the way she lit up any room she got into. Sometimes, she envied her deep inside, wishing she could be as happy as Lizzy, especially when she gisted her about how perfect a man Nelson was and how they were already planning to settle down.

But seeing her in this state was far from what Dolapo could ever have imagined. This seemingly jovial, pleasant, happy child was in uncontrollable tears. It was awkward enough that Dolapo had switched on her phone after service to read pings from Lizzy, asking her to come over to her place urgently - on a Sunday. Dolapo didn't think it was anything serious. In fact, she thought there was either a surprise party going on in Lizzy's honour, courtesy her ever sweet boyfriend.

Since Dolapo was so pre-occupied with thoughts of being proposed to, she simply assumed Lizzy had eventually gotten her dream proposal and she wanted Dolapo to be there to share the moment with her.

It was a shock to find her colleague in a state far from what she could have imagined.
Her eyes were swollen, her body was hot, her hands were a little bruised, she was a just such a pathetic sight.

After listening to the whole story of how Nelson had beaten her blue black, once again, Dolapo was speechless...

"I don't get. What did you ever do to him to get this type of beating? This is just..."

"Actually... It's not the first time..." Lizzy cut in.

"What?! He beats you? … On a regular?..."  Dolapo exclaimed.

Lizzy just nodded and bursted into more tears...

A zillion things were going through Dolapo's mind. What kind of man beats his girlfriend for whatever reason? She felt like shaking her friend up, just in case she would regain her senses and move out of the apartment Dolapo later discovered wasn't hers. After listening to Lizzy's story of putting up with a man she wasn't married to and was already treating her this way, beating her at the slightest mistake, Dolapo could only heave a heavy sigh. This didn't make any sense to her.

She helped clean up the little bruise on her elbow with a towel dipped in dettol-ed water, went up to fix something for them to eat - she was famished herself, and then sat beside her to watch How Do I look?

As soon as she noticed Lizzy's mood change a bit, after laughing at some of the things on the program, Dolapo voiced out...

"So... what's your plan? Are you just going to stay here and continue with this kind of life..."

Lizzy just smiled at Dolapo and turned her gaze back to the TV...

"Honestly, I don't know... He loves me, you know?" she eventually said.

"I... know..."

What Dolapo actually wanted to say was "oh, shut up... he loves you and he does this to you... all the time? Wake up, girl" but she cautioned herself. She had learnt a long time ago to thread carefully when it came to sensitive matters like this.

"Just be praying for me oh, my sister..." Lizzy continued.

"I will, dear. I should take my leave now... I'd call you, okay?" Dolapo said as she stood up to take her leave. She just knew it would be a bad idea for Nelson to meet her consoling his girlfriend, and that might spring up another round of beating for calling a pity party...

"I can't thank you enough for responding to my call. I'm grateful. I'd see you at work tomorrow. Please don't tell anyone about this, okay? And keep praying for me."

Dolapo gave her a hug before shutting the door behind her...

"Wonders shall never cease" she sighed again as she walked out of the gate.

***

It had been 3months since Jay got to Abuja and his business was already booming. He had to work with Mrs. Martins, a close friend of his mum's who got him the contract he told Dolapo about. Actually, it was one of her own top contracts but she called up Jay to come over since he had been speaking with her on the issue of setting up his own business full-time; she felt he could use this experience to know whether or not Abuja was the place for him.

Mrs. Martins, a renown caterer had been in the business for almost as old as Jay was. Setting up a restuarant in Abuja was no child's play but this was one restuarant with a difference.

Jay had worked as an event planner almost all his life, even while in the university but he was particular about meals for every event. He took his time to research on new recipes and was always eager to try his hands on them.

One couldn't blame him, having grown up amidst 3 sisters and a caterer as his mum, his interest in the business definitely had strong roots. His mum however, had retired from the business - at least, that was what she said anytime Jay asked.

He had started up a "straight-up lunch order" service while he was in School but it wasn't so easy combining academics with his business and his dad wouldn't tolerate any distractions on his part.

"If you come back home with anything less than a second-class upper, you would have yourself to blame..." Those words resounded in Jay's ears anytime he went ahead to take orders and offers for event planning in school. He eventually put the business on hold when he got to his final year, and then picked it up again after NYSC.

Even though Jay was making enough money from planning events and catering for events, he felt he wasn't there yet. There were months when he didn't get any catering and event planning invitations.

His mum having seen the passion with which he talked about catering and having people eat meals different from the regular rice, linked him up with her close friend and guru in the business.

He had spoken with his mum's friend who invited him over to Abuja to see if he could start off his business. He had all his plans ready and had contacted some of his friends he knew could help him out.
It was a risky decision but he was ready to take the risk anyway. He wasn't ready to get a white-collar job; he was just all about having his own restaurant.

Jay's Cuisine Extraordinaire was just an advanced version of the straight-up lunch order that he was running back in school. This time, people could order for meals online, via codes given by the three popular network service providers, and on the popular social media platforms; and prompt deliveries were guaranteed.

Before long, news of Jay's Cuisine Extraordinaire was out on the streets.

Uche, the brain behind all the computer-related work had been a long time friend of Jay; helping with the designs of the website, graphics, posters and so on. He worked as a freelance graphics designer but was pretty good with everything IT. Ethan on the other hand, helped in recruiting the three contract staff Jay employed. Mrs. Martins was also kind enough to link him up with other caterers that would help with the cooking of the food while he supervised. And yes, business had kicked off full time.
It was work, work, and more work at the restaurant.

Jay was happy, this was just the beginning of greater things to come. He smiled at himself as he picked his phone…

Dolapo had pinged severally and he wasn’t even aware. He dialed her number immediately and they spoke for a while…

“Boss, you have to see this… We need to celebrate, man…” Uche rushed into Jay’s office with his laptop in his hand. They had just gotten another contract to cater for the wedding of a Minister's daughter..
“I just got off the phone with his personal assistant. We got the contract….”

Jay just went on laughing, clapping, he couldn’t express the joy he felt properly…

“Get us bottles of wine…” Jay said facing Sheila, one of his contract staff.

 And so the celebration began from there. It was evening already and they were wrapping up with the business of the day, anyway.

“Babe, you have to come to Abj soon, you need to see what’s going on here…” Jay pinged Dolapo while the guys went on popping and drinking…

“Okay… there’s gist, right? you sound really excited...” Dolapo replied.

“You bet, I am…” Jay went on to share the good news.

“Abuja had better get ready. Some babe is coming to town…” Dolapo replied with the dancing and rotfl emoticons.

***

Dolapo couldn’t sleep all night as she began packing stuffs for the trip. She wished she could move the days of the week to Friday already…

“Hey flo… ur babe is going to Abuja this weekend…” she pinged Folusho at about 11.56pm

“Really? Yaaayyy…” Folusho’s response came almost immediately.

“Babe, you should be sleeping…” Dolapo called Folusho back instead and gave her the whole gist.

“That’s great oh. That means we’d be seeing in Abj, ‘cause I’m also in Abj myself, I came for a workshop…” Folusho replied.

“You are? And you didn’t tell me… Na wa for you oh…”

 The Ladies went on and on to plan the entire Abuja trip before Dolapo eventually slept at about 2.30am

*faith Tunde-Yara

*being human

*photo credit: www.popsugar.com