Being Human (9)

She wasn't really interested in what her friends were saying, she had only agreed to attend this function because of her other plans at Reiz Continental. Who had time for all these unnecessary chit-chats on a Saturday afternoon, she thought to herself.
Mrs. Deola Martins managed another fake smile as she chewed on a piece of samosa and sipped her punch. Moji Allen had lured her into attending a meeting of the big chefs in the city and even though it wasn’t the first time she was getting the invitation, she had decided to honour same this time, partly because she didn’t have a more important function to attend, and majorly because she had coincidentally booked a room at Reiz on this particular Saturday. She considered her favorite hobby to be trying out new places; hotels especially.
She smiled sheepishly at the pictures she had taken on her way to the hotel and then scrolled to her whatsapp. She saw a picture of a girl on Jay’s whatsapp profile picture and immediately closed the picture. She had to stop herself from looking at her wristwatch. The day seemed slow. She lifted her eyes from her mobile phone, crossed her legs and then decided to follow through the rest of the discussion. Most of the women at the table had become her friends for obvious reasons – same business and needed connections. The chairperson of the meeting wasn’t one of her favorite people but for the needed connections, she had become her friend.
Mrs. Martins whispered into Moji’s (her Abuja best friend) ears and then stood up to excuse herself. It was already quarter past 4pm, and to be honest, she was already bored.

Moji Allen stood up almost immediately to catch up with her friend.

“Ore, what’s the matter?” she found her at the ladies touching up her make-up.

“Nothing really. Is this what you women do at your meetings?... I’m so bored. So we all dress gorgeously just to have such boring discussions and munch on several delicacies? I would have stayed back in my house to cook all these…” Deola Martins said with disgust.

Moji laughed at her friend and collected her powder from her to also touch her face up.
“It’s not as bad as you’ve just described. It’s always fun and sometimes we have people bringing up contacts of potential clients; recruitments notices for those in need; sometimes we even have culinary lessons from other foreign chefs and then we get to gist, laugh about stuffs on the job; it’s just a kind of time-out from work, you know?…” she meticulously arranged the already arranged curls on her hair after she was done with powdering her face.

“Anyhow, I’m not going back to that place. Besides, I have other things I still need to do this evening. I’ll see you around, dear. Bami ki awon omo e o (my regards to your children)” Mrs. Martins said as they both walked out of the ladies while she took a different turn from the entrance to the room where the other ladies were. She didn’t even give her friend a chance to respond; she most likely knew what the other things she had to do meant but Mrs. Martins couldn’t care less.
She walked through the corridor where the conference halls were located and made a right turn to the reception of the hotel.

“Keys to room 404 please…”  she smiled at the young man at the desk who checked the system to confirm that payment for the said room had been made.


“Enjoy your stay ma” he said as he handed the keys over to Mrs. Martins.

She met a small black bag by the side of the table in the standard room she booked. Kingsley had carried out her orders to the letter.
She dropped her purse on the bed, looked at her still perfect headgear in the mirror one more time and her countenance changed. She was always a bit emotional whenever she had to take off her beautiful headgears. They were always so perfect she sometimes wished she could sleep with them on. She laughed out as she usually did after thinking of how silly how reactions to taking off her headgears could be.
Next, she undressed, wrapped herself in the towel that was provided and walked into the bathroom to freshen up.

***
The ladies were sure having a nice time at Jay’s restaurant but because Jay had explained that he needed to have a meeting with his crew, they were excited to be dropped off at Cedi plaza for shopping and sight-seeing. They waved Jay and Uche who had accompanied Jay to drop them off goodbye and walked into the plaza, as excited as ever.
Folusho was glad she stayed back, she was really having fun. The conference she came for had been hectic enough that she felt this fun moment was the compensation she needed. She sure had so much going through her mind having met Jay, been to his house, his restaurant and calculating the amount that might probably be in the ATM card he had just given her friend for them to shop. She had questions but she decided to play along, as long as Dolapo wouldn’t bring up any suspicion like she did earlier.

They were silent as they walked into the plaza. It was though they had the same thoughts going through their minds.

“We should talk” Folusho broke the silence.

“Yes, we should” Dolapo heaved a sigh and took her friend’s hands in hers while they both walked into the plaza.

“But not before another selfie” Folusho pulled her friend closer as she took a picture of them. Dolapo found herself laughing and posing for two other pictures.

They did a bit of window shopping starting with the boutiques, then a gadget store before finding a secluded yet comfortable place at Gene Bendi Restaurant to eat but most importantly talk about what was bothering them.

***
 Jay had handed over the wheels to Uche after dropping the girls at the mall. He intentionally brought Uche along, he needed his help with this situation. It was only Uche that understood his relationship with Mrs. Martins and so far, he had been mature about it. As Uche drove carefully back to the restaurant, Jay kept typing several messages on his phone. He looked worried, Uche could tell but he knew Jay couldn't back off now, not today.

"But guy, you no tell am say you get important visitor?" Uche interrupted his thoughts.

"I don tell am. I don't know mehn. I think I should go there now to sort things out with this woman. This last deal and I'd be fine..."

"You sure? Jay you're better than all these now. I don talk am and I go continue to talk am. Make we start afresh, we go make am...." Uche had never been comfortable ever since he found out about the relationship between Jay and his mentor but there was little or nothing he could do to help him out. As a matter of fact, the deals he got from working with Jay were lucrative. He just found it difficult to turn a blind eye to the whole situation.

"Drop me at Reiz. I'll find my way back to the office. You can start off the meeting, just relay the information in that mail to the guys. I'll call you but if I don't call by 6pm, please go pick up the ladies and cook up an excuse for me, okay?"

"Okay. Be safe o, biko." Uche said as he watched Jay step out of the car to cross to the other side of the road where Reiz Continental was situate.


*Faith Tunde-Yara
*Being Human
*Photo credit: www.gistmelove.com