Option taken – three. Yes, against all my Lagos sharp sense, I decided to take a risk on Yomi and tell him the truth, and scenario three played out. Lesson learnt – if you want it long term with someone, come out clean, no hidden anything. He looked me in the eye after I had told him and said “Oyin, if you had lied, I would have known and I would have ended it here and now.” And I knew he meant it.
Sunday was my day with my girls (proudly so). I could regale you with all the tales of our day at the beach, but the only part you are gonna read is the fact that the oooohs and aaaahs that I got as I told them about Yomi and I could fill a book. Toke knew of Yomi (who Toke no sabi), and she told me I had hit it big if I hooked him. Glo was also very happy for me and I felt refreshed and ready for the week. Okay, lemme give you guys a bit of juicy gist from Gloria. Remember Alvin who was supposed to send the iPad that I was supposed to win in the episode about Mr. X (RME) with the H factor? Well, Gloria thought they were headed somewhere. He’s based in Jand and used to call her a lot initially. Recently, he has reduced his calling and he’s been complaining about all sorts and giving excuses for not calling. She called him while I was away in Dubai, and the conversation went something like this
Gloria: Hello darling
Female Voice: May I know who is speaking? (English accent)
Gloria: That’s my line. Why are you answering my boyfriend’s phone
Female Voice: Because I’m his wife and the mother of his two kids?
Gloria: (Quiet)
Female Voice: Alvin… come and get the phone
Alvin: Who is this?
Gloria: Who was that?
Alvin: My wife.
Gloria: Alvin, you are married…
Alvin: I can explain. It’s for my papers. It’s one oyinbo woman.
Gloria slammed the phone
All these foolish men that will come here and be deceiving us. That’s why me I don’t do distance. Too much room for lies and deceit abeg. The talk is in the eyes, oju loro wa.
Monday and I got to work and raced to my desk. I avoided going anywhere I thought I would meet Ossy. That’s the issue with office anything. I had not even dated and broken up with him and it was this awkward. I couldn’t imagine how it would be if we had actually dated. Gladly, I knew it was a bad idea and didn’t date him.
Apart from that, the day was a blast. Everyone commented on how well I looked and how good the rest must have been. I chose not to call Yomi to see if our first work day apart would be a no talk during the day kinda work day. My booboo sugarbunny snucklesnuggle (did u roll your eyes?) called me thrice during the day and we talked (I used my handsfree o, all you LASTMA people reading this) all through my drive home.
And so my week went something like this – great days at work, two dinners with boo, and #my lips are sealed about these parts#. Suffice to say that I had ice cream eaten off me and so on and so forth.
On Saturday morning, I decided to check on Gloria and squeeze breakfast out of her lazy ass. I thought I was through with shockers in this my life, but I got a huge one as I rounded the bend into her street. There was my yellow pawpaw friend, leaning over a car I was very familiar with and kissing the occupant squarely on the lips. The car drove past mine as I tried to park properly, and it was gone before I got out of my car.
“Gloria, what was that you were doing with Ossy?”
Gloria gave me a look that said en en and then fired “Question! What did it seem like I was doing?”
“But Glo, it’s Ossy now. You cannot be seriously seeing him now. It’s just wrong on different levels.”
“Why? Tell me one reason why? It’s not like you are dating him or like you ever did. Now that you’ve found you a good man, na only you wan marry? Me I didn’t see anything bad in Ossy, and so I called him up. We hooked up, and he shared his own heartbreak and I shared mine. And one thing led to another. What exactly is wrong about dating a very single man who seems ready to settle down and is seriously talking marriage at my 36years old?”
“Glo, seriously talking marriage after how long now? He was seriously thinking marriage with me just a few weeks ago. It smells fishy o”
“So it smells fishy because it’s not you abi? Please spare me abeg”.
I just stood speechless because I knew she was in the right with everything she was saying, but a certain but kept playing at the back of my mind. It just didn’t sit right. In that split second, I had to caution myself. Was I expecting Ossy to keep waiting for me ni? And shouldn’t I have been happy for him when I expected him to be happy for me when he met Yomi? And it wasn’t really worth quarreling with Gloria over. Really not.
“Oya sorry dear, na just shock catch me”, I said, smiling at Gloria. I could see she was visibly relieved that I wasn’t going to make issues out of this situation.
“Since man sleep for your house, I hope you sha cooked for him because me na food I come chop for your house.”
“Yes now, I had to show him I’m wife material now”
“En, and I know it’s not just in the cooking you showed him, oya gist me every every abeg.”
She threw her head back and laughed. It was good to see my friend laugh. “You know that thing Toke said about Bini men…”
I winked and laughed too “Dem no dey carry last at all at all”
She winked too and led me into the house for the “fullness of the gist therein”, lol.
A month later, Gloria and Ossy were married and I was the chief bride’s maid.
In my heart, as I stood behind her and my friends said I do to each other, I looked back at my own man in the aisle. It was going so well with Yomi, I couldn’t help but be happy for Glo and Ossy. Somewhere in my heart, a small voice told me this would be my last bride’s maid assignment. I said a silent amen.
And as if in answer to my prayer, at the wedding reception, rather than throw her bouquet, Glo walked up to me and handed it over to me. I was still trying to understand what all that was about when Yomi walked up to me, dropped on one knee and proposed. I nearly fainted in delight. No words came to my mouth. I could only nod my answer, so vigorously my head almost dropped off.
I thought my search was over at long last.
I couldn’t be more wrong.
Its three now months that I’ve been dating Yomi, two months since he proposed so dramatically and all my dreams about marriage were about to come true. I’m now on one tabloid or the other, from City People to Encomium to Saturday Punch. I’m on Linda Ikeji’s blog and Bellanaija. And when they put pictures of me up, I’m not referred to as Tiwa Savage and “guest” in the pictures I appear. Now they know my name. A picture containing Toke and I was tagged as Oyin Clegg and Friend. Toke was mad en, but my profile was hyped plenty (just kidding o). And for all those who were wondering about Yomi’s prowess in bed, let me just tell you that in spite of my (vast) experience, I was surprised that I always seemed to have one thing or the other to learn each time we were in bed.
When Yomi’s people came for the formal introduction, my mother did it like it was the actual engagement. Aso Ebi, souvenirs, photobook and co. She pulled all the stops, and she had every reason to. When they said she should pray, mumsy nearly embarrassed me with all the song and prayer drama. That my mama, she can be a drama queen. Not one to delay, and as money was not a constraint and we both are not kids, we set wedding date for a month later, about a week after his birthday. We intended to start the wedding celebrations with his birthday party and end it with a one of a kind reception bash. As my mama put it, aiye a gbo, orun a mo (translated – the world will hear and the heavens will know).
My greatest fear had been whether Yomi’s family would accept me. Would they like me? I was doing very well on my own, but all these pedigree families always want their sons to marry from their world, especially when he was an only son. And sisters can be so totally mean to whichever girl comes into the life of their only brother.
All my fears were unfounded. They all seemed glad and relieved that Yomi was finally about to settle down, and that he was not going to marry any of his Jamaican, Puerto Rican, French or Italian babes. I felt lucky and blessed. I reminisced on the many disappointments on my journey here. The many reasons I hadn’t gotten married – one I had loved that couldn’t perform in bed. One that thought his wife was meant to be the indentured servant of his lordship. One that wanted me to marry only dreams and talk of great futures. And plenty other orisirisi.
I shall not bore you with the plenty activities that went into the weeks preceding the wedding week. Suffice to say I almost became a bridezilla, armed with my copy of Funke Buknor-Obruthe’s book. By the day of Yomi’s birthday party, I was exhausted, and had been ordered by Yomi to hands off the wedding preparations or there’d be no me left for him to marry.
The birthday party was a blast. We held it at Yomi’s house on Gerard Road in Ikoyi. The house was one of those colonial houses that had a vast compound, a driveway with trees that touched way up in the middle, shielding the sun away and a huge pool. When you live in those kinds of houses in Ikoyi, you had to be old Lagos money, very old money. And this would be my new home soon. I was already trying my hands on marshalling the staff that oversaw the property, no mean feat. By evening when the party began, I was already tired from all the organizing.
See, rich people know how to party. Rich people’s kids are on another level of knowing how to party, maybe because they are not the ones that made the money they spend on the parties. It was at this party that I first met Yomi’s best man. While Yomi was all stability and fun, Adamu was excitement and daredevil adrenaline personified. He wasn’t your typical northerner, his accent was not there at all, and he had those fine Fulani features that money and breeding accentuated further. Where Yomi was dark chocolate, he was yummy butter. And like all of Yomi’s friends I had met, he was into everything that spun money and was mega rich. I quickly steered him towards Toke and all my match making juices began to flow.
Once the party was in full swing, and I had shaken my bumbum to the admiration of Yomi and company and to the contentment of my heart, I decided to retire and sleep. I was too tired after all the work that had gone into putting it together. And I guessed that at some point, he would want to party alone with his boys without having his soon to be wife looking over his shoulder. It was already like 12midnight and the early effects of alcohol had begun to make people more excited. I did a quick check on Toke and she was already doing a good job with Adamu on her own. My good work for the night was done. I wasn’t doing badly as the soon to be chief hostess of the Kester-Jacobs family.
I woke up around 4am and checked my side to see if Yomi had joined me in bed. His side of the bed was empty, but the noise of the party had stopped so I knew the party was over. I checked my bb and saw a couple of messages. The only ones I bothered to read before I got up were Toke’s messages. Adamu had dropped her off at home at about 2am and things were looking promising with him. I tumbled out of bed and began to pick things up all over the house, sort of sleep walking through the house, hoping to see Yomi sleeping on some couch or bed in one of the many rooms. I couldn’t find him after about twenty minutes of wondering around the big house. I’m not one to panic but I have a sixth sense, and this morning, it was telling me to find my man.
The house was a mess. I strayed into the kitchen. The plump cook, Clara was already up, cleaning after the party. “Madam, good morning o”, she greeted. “Clara, how are you. Have you seen your oga?”
“Oga follow Oga Adamu commot”, she answered.
Relieved that he had not run off with some random girl, I went back into the main house. That also meant Toke didn’t do badly, Adamu left her so he could have some boy catching up time with Yomi. I made a mental note to let Toke know this.
I wandered around the house for a bit. And if it hadn’t been so quiet that early in the morning (and I hadn’t been so idle) I wouldn’t have heard it. But faint as it was, I heard sounds coming from the direction of Yomi’s home office. I picked up pace as I moved towards the office.
As I got closer to the office, the sounds got louder, even though they were still somewhat muffled. My heartbeat quickened as I approached the door and the blood began to pound in my ears. My imagination ran a marathon in the short distance I covered to reach it.
I opened the door, slightly at first, and the muffled sounds became clear. Yomi’s voice. And another. I angrily threw the door open, imagining the evil things I would do to the girl I was about to catch my man with.
I got the shocker of my life. Yomi was making love to Adamu on the office table.
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