Bitch

Episode 29

MONDAY.
TIME – 7:23PM.

At long last, the day ended for Zainab. It
hadn’t been as bad as she had thought it
would be, well, not totally.

She picked up her bag as she walked out of
her office, heading to the car park, tonnes of
“bye bye ma’am” followed her and she just
waved and smiled in response.

She got to the car park and saw her Brown
Murano neatly parked at the front of the
“DIRECTOR” signboard, exactly how she left it,
for some strange reasons, she smiled and
headed toward the car.

She used the car’s remote to unlock the car
as she approached it and by the time she got
close enough, the doors were already opened,
she casually walked in and as she inserted her
car keys into the ignition, her phone buzzed.
She had a call.

She looked at the screen and saw it was a
strange number. She tried to recall who she
gave her number to recently but no name rang
in her head so she picked the call out of
curiosity. She just hoped it wasn’t a TOP
employee calling to tell her something that
might require her to go back into the office.
She kept quiet and waited for the caller to
speak first. It was her custom not to speak
first when a strange caller calls, she used the
advantage to quickly analyse the voice to
know if it was familiar and to know how
exactly to reply.

The caller didn’t speak for a while neither, he
too had the same custom as Zainab, so it
literally, it was a game of wits, who ever spoke
first would be the looser.

At first, Zainab wasn’t really bothered, after all it was her airtime that was wasting but after
thirty long seconds and no sound Zainab
considered dumping her custom and speaking
first.

She was about to say hello, when she was cut
short at “hel” but the caller who quickly said:
“Hello, please is this Zainab?”
She shrugged in victory. “Yes, this is her. Who
am I speaking to?”
“Oh! Great. This is Henry.” The caller replied
excitedly, he sounded like he was very familiar
with Zainab.

Zainab looked confused, she could recall a
certain Henry from her alma mater at Canada
and she knew there was no way this was him.
“Henry? From where?” She asked.
“So you have forgotten me so soon?” Henry
asked in a low tone, “well its normal sha, that
how beautiful ladies treat guys like me.”
Zainab wanted to ask how exactly that
response answered her question but she kept
her cool and decided to play along. “Anhan!”
She exclaimed. “Its not like that na, I’ve just
had a lot in my head of recent and seem to
forget a lot of things.”

“Yea yea. Do you recall that guy that gave you
a ride home the day your car got stolen at the
club?”
Zainab flashed back and immediately recalled
the whole incident, and how she indirectly
gave him her number in exchange for a ride
home. She smiled, he was pretty a fun guy.
She recalled that much.

“Oh! Its you? Am so sorry, but you never
called even though I gave you my number
about a month ago, what did you expect?”
Zainab finally replied.
“Hey! I didn’t call because not because I
didn’t want to call. Its just like work has been
tedious of recent, and I barely have time for
myself.”

“Yea… Right.” Zainab replied, waiting for the
reason why he called.
He got the message, “anyway, I’m on leave
now and I recalled I have the contact of the
most beautiful lady from this part of the world
but haven’t really taken advantage of the
privilege.”

“Un-hun.” Zainab replied indifferently, he
attitude towards flattery hadn’t changed.
“Well, I was wondering if you could do me the
honour of going out with me this weekend?”
Zainab leaned back on her seat, “I’m not sure if I’ll be free during the weekend.” She replied,
she had no plans and if it was a long term
friend she would have jumped on the offer, but
this was a different case.
“I expected you to say that, so I made my own
plans to make sure you change your mind.”
“What are you talking about?” Zainab asked,
her interest was piqued.

“Well, if you say no, I’ll have to hire
kidnappers to abduct you from your house on
saturday and make you go out with me by
force.” Henry sounded like he truly meant it.
“Are you indirectly threatening me?” Zainab
asked grinning.

“I never said that. Let’s just say you must go
out with me this weekend by fire by force,”
Henry replied and a laughter followed.

Zainab smiled, she knew he was kidding about
the ‘kidnapping’ threat but she like his
approach.

“Okay, you know what?” She asked.
“What?”
“I’ll think about it and see if I’ll be able to
clear my schedule for you. No promises made
though.”

Henry smiled, “I’ll call you on friday to give
you the details.”

“Okay.” Zainab replied.$
“Alright, talk to you later.” Henry replied and
hung up.

He sat down on the couch in his sitting room
and closed his eyes.

“Step one accomplished.” He murmured
inaudibly.

---

Jummy was lost in her own thoughts, she was
trying to get a suitable reason why John hung
up and no matter how deep she thought, no
reason seemed suitable or reasonable enough.

She was going for a business trip and she told
him, so he hung up? What does that even
mean? She wondered.

She decided to call again and get some
answers directly from him.
He picked on the third ring.
“Hello,” she said.

“Yea, hi.” John replied coldly, Jummy knew
the normal John would never reply that way.
“John, what’s wrong? The trip is just two
weeks, not like I’m going to spend the rest of
my life there.” Jummy complained, mumbling
words together.

John sighed, he realised he had really over
reacted, “I’m sorry babes, I’m just having a bad day and adding the fact that I won’t see
you in a long while just made my day worse.”
“Oh! I’m so sorry.” Jummy had an idea, “okay,
you know what?”
“What?” John asked excitedly.
“The trip is in next tomorrow so I’m going to
take a one day leave tomorrow all in the name
of preparation for the journey but I’ll spend
the whole day with you.”

John literally started jumping, “you would do
that for me? No work, no interruption? Just
you and I?”
“Yes! I mean it. Anything for you. But…” She
was cut short by the ringing of the office
phone. It was probably a business call.

“But what?” John asked.
“Bit duty calls, I’ll call you later on.”
John accepted and let her hung up.
Jummy picked the office phone, “hello.”
“Yea, hello. There has been a switch in plans
Jummy.” The caller said immediately.

Jummy immediately recognised the voice and
it was Stephen’s, why he called the office
phone instead of her cell phone was a
question she had no answer to.
“Change of plans? What do you mean?”
“The trip? We have to leave first thing
tomorrow morning.”

Jummy opened her mouth to let out a scream
in shock but no sound came out. “Why? What
happened.”

“I’m currently emailing you all the details. Bye,
I need to get prepared.” Stephen replied and
hung up.

Jummy just sighed out of frustration and la!d
her head on the desk.

John won’t take this sudden change of plan
lightly, she thought.

---

It took quite a long time due to the bottle
neck traffic she encountered on her way home,
but after spending two hours on the road,
Zainab finally cruised into her compound.

The house was actually Richard’s and Zainab
had expected him to come for it immediately
he got out of prison but to her greatest
surprise, he never came. So she kept on living
in it and stashed a huge sum that was enough
to rent a nice house in the bank just in case
he came suddenly.

“Madam, I dey welcome come ko.” The hausa gate man waved and greeted her in his
horrible mixture of Hausa, english and pidgin.
It sounded like a question to Zainab but she
didn’t understand what he meant so she did
what any one in her shoes would do, she just
smiled at him and walked into the house.
She dropped her hand bag, undressed and
went straight to the shower to freshen up and
once she was done, she went to the kitchen to
fix something to eat.

After opening the fridge and cupboards several
times, she emptied the contents of a spaghetti
pack into a pot of water and placed it on the
fire she lit.

Then it was time to wait.

She went to the sitting room and switched on
the Television set. As soon as it came on, the
video of a popular Ghanian song was playing,
it was one of her favourite song and she had
no idea the video had been shot.

Unlike the current average day video where
half Unclad girls rolled their butts all over the
screen, this was uniquely different and had
enough relevance to the song, she silently
applauded the director and waited for the
name of the director or studio to show on the
screen.

Maybe I could contact him for a private lesson
on directing, since she now had a similar job,
she thought.

Finally, the video came to an end, and just
before the a new song was put on play, the
words: “A Richard Anderson Concept”
appeared on the screen in a blue Comic Sans
Ms font.

Zainab smiled, some people just don’t give up,
she still wondered why he had to steal the two
million from her when he could have just
asked and she would have gladly given him
without much hesitations. Men and their ego,
she thought.

She knew the hope she had had before of
calling him was like the possibility of Osita
Iheme, popularly known as “Paw Paw” in the
movie “Aki na Paw Paw”, marrying Mitchelle
Obama. Yes, that impossible.

---

After rounding up at work, Jummy finally
decided to call John, she knew telling him the
new development won’t be nice and fair to
him, so she invited him over to her house,
which he gladly accepted even though it was
already getting late.

By 8:30PM, which was exactly an hour later,
Jummy got home and quickly freshened up,
she la!d on her bed and for the first time in a
long while, she recalled her family – her
parents in particular.

Her mum had been a pain in the butt, always
reminding her of how old she was and the fact
that Jummy hadn’t married yet, let alone
bring grand kids home.

Jummy didn’t understand what the big deal
was in bearing kids and wasn’t just ready so
she killed all means of communication with
her mum by dumping the SIM her mother had
the number to and getting a new one, she
knew it was wrong and unfair, but she was
tired of the endless phone calls from her
mother. Even when she ignored the call, her
mum would call till her battery died.

The truth of the matter was even though
Jummy acted all “area mama” on the outside,
she was a sU-Cker for love and loved kids too,
but wasn’t going to have a baby outside
wedlock all because of her mother so she
patiently waited for the right guy who would
come into her life and sweep her off her feet.

In her own opinion, that guy was John.

She was sure he was the one she had been
waiting for all this years and decided there
was nothing wrong in making him the father of
her baby. She silently decided to give him
something she never had hoping to make him
and her mum happy at the same time, it
seemed like an all win situation.

She picked up her phone and dialled her mum
number which she knew by heart.

Her mum picked on the first ring.

“Hello.”
“Hello, mammi?” Jummy asked.
Her mum immediately recognised the voice,
“Jumoke? Na you be this?”
“Yes mum, na me. How body dey do you na?”
Jummy asked in pidgin, trying to quickly raise
a topic before her mum starts to lament on
how she disappeared.

“I still dey breath sha, even after that ‘winch’
wey dey live for opposite my house don try kill
me two times,” her mum replied coldly. She
had had no contact whatsoever with any
“witch” but well, old age can make people act strangely.

Jummy was used to such response, she knew
her mum pretty well, “no worry ma, baba God
dey your side.” Jummy played along, she
recalled trying to explain to her mother that
the fact she woke up later than usual or
missed her steps and fell doesn’t mean a
witch was trying to kill her, and she recalled
how it all ended, Jummy wasn’t ready for a
round two.

“Yes oh my daughter, you dey correct, I just
pray say the same God wey dey my side go
allow me see my grand pikin before I go join
my mama,” her mum said, indirectly raising
the topic Jummy once dreaded.
“Don’t worry ma, he would. I’m going to bring my husband to the house very soon,” Jummy said with confidence, suddenly switching to English.

she had no doubt John was eventually going to marry her.

“Ehn? Isi gini?” (What did you say?) Her mum
asked in Igbo, how her mum understood and
spoke Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa and Efik still
surprised Jummy.

“I said I’m getting married soon and you
would have the grand child soon.” Jummy
repeated herself, a knock on her door startled
her, she knew it was John. “Mum, I go call
you back later, I put food for fire.” Jummy
lied.

She hung up before her mum could reply and
went to open the door, she was right, it was
John.

He wore a slim fitted black polo and black
pencil jeans, he looked quite different in the
new look, John was always on corporate
shirts, never on polo.

It was a welcomed look as his broad chest
protruded through the polo, Jummy felt she
was in for a long night.
She let him in and before joining him on the
couch, she grabbed a bottle of brandy and two
glass cups from the kitchen, they need to get
high a little bit.

Jummy dropped the drink and went to the bed
room to change.

She wore a see through night gown with just
her p@anties under and looked at herself in the
mirror.

She approved the look, no guy in his right
senses would be able to resist this, she
thought.

Little did she know she was in for a shocker.