It was the summer of 2020 and as usual Brooklyn was hot as hell. According to Ada, her apartment was the center of the inferno. After a hectic day's job, she was back home, to her apartment, and was already on her usual relaxation routine. First, she soaks in her bath-tub for about twenty minutes as she listens to any song that would give the needed tease for her particular state of mind. ( Today it was "Bang - Bang" by Jessie. J, Nicki and Ariana Grandé — right now, she needed to feel empowered, both to let go the creepling ennui she has being holding back for weeks and to feel motivated for the general, monthly, mandatory staff meeting tomorrow). Afterwards, she neatly moisturizes and watches a nice TV show as she binges on her favourite peppery-potatoe crisps. Not soon after she had packed all her entertainment companions: chips, orange juice and a wide sheet of hard paper to fan out the fading heat, the door bell rang, it was Dike, her roommate. She hissed, dumped her snack on the couch and headed for the door.
"Thank you", Dike said sheepishly as he smiled, seeing he had disturbed her from an earlier convenience.
"Welcome", she responded cursorily.
They both walked up the stairs to their apartment on the second floor of the only five storey building on Sasema street and the biggest. As they entered the apartment, Dike headed for the fridge, for a cup of water and Ada aimed for the couch to curl up for maximum comfort.
Before all hell literally broke loose, because Dike was short on his end for cash to clear up his part of the bill for power supply, they talked, shouted and laughed about how their days went. They talked about new work-place gossips. Ada harped about the boss she wished she could strangle and Dike talked about the White guy he was surprised to like.
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At 2 am. the next morning, Ada woke up to run through her mails, sort some documents into the necessary catalogues and to make sure the ideas she planned to pitch for the meeting were poised and terse. The heat wave had mellowed and coupled with the cool bath she also had, in those cool moments of the morning, she could not be more grateful for the soft breeze that suddenly seemed to understand the furnace she had just been flushed out from. With a mildly warm coffee at hand she began sorting the mails; replied the necessary mails and made sure she had no online subscription to any service, to avoid unexpected deductions from her account. As she closed the G-mail application, she suddenly saw a message that caught her attention popping up from her Facebook messenger. It was from an old, familiar, but sadly surprisingly, unexpected friend. She clicked the lengthy message and was completely dumbfounded. It was from Bose, her secondary school friend. In two weeks she was going to be in the States and her arrangement was to stay with an uncle for two months, as he could only allow, then she had to find some other way to cater for shelter. (Bose was fine with the idea, anything was okay, this was America, the single most important theme of her life, after God and her virginity. She was ready to welcome inconveniences and lay up any complaint). Bose led Ada on her situation and kindly asked if Ada would help out if she happens not to have the sufficient financial backup for her own apartment when the two month lease expires. Ada knew that two months "hustling" would not be enough to get any okay apartment in New York, considering she would only be offered menial jobs with quick, shabby pays. This made her curious and nervous about the appropriated response to give. Bose was a friend who she remembered within the lines of a semi-village girl, whose uncle had to cater for after her Father's death. She remembered how blending into school seemed impossible for her even after three years of being in the same school, owing to her unbending fear of privilege. To Bose, the comfort and opportunities she suddenly had access to was a garment she considered lended — she believed she was an impostor, an alien, who could immediately be struck down if only people looked closer. Her movements on school grounds were rotated and soon became very predictable by anyone fairly observant. Bose finally got to be long lasting friends with Ada, not because they had much in common but because she was familiar: Bose reminded Ada of her mother: Mrs. Okoro.
Mrs Okoro was a local hometown girl in an almost minute village in Enugu State, Eastern Nigeria, once called Ngozi. She had all the flamboyance in demeanor and speech like other girls her age, she understood well how to be a woman in a man's world and life in small Agugwo village, to her, was boundless and perfect. Before the age of twenty, she had prepared well to be a wife. And when Nnamdi, a stout statured electronic retailer came knocking on her father's door, she was ready. She was married off at the age of 21 and three years later they had Ada, all these they had somewhat expected. But life took a different turn when Nnamdi had a nice business offer from L.G. electronics to head a new ware house at Apapa in Lagos. Ngozi hated Lagos, she thought it too busy, the people too fast and wondered why Nigerians saw it as the "land of opportunities", when it seemed they were so many traders competing for similar customers. Lagos made her feel nauseous and restless, but she knew she had to adjust to it because of the money the job will pay, which would help her daughter get a very good education — something she never had because I father did not believe in education for girls, to him, they bore no profit, since they were married off. They got an affordable apartment at Ikeja and within a couple of years Chris was born, just in time for Nnamdi's first major business upscale development since he moved to Lagos: the establishment of an L.G. division in Victoria Island. Ada's mother at the time was already well with the joneses; calling her son Chris was her idea from the start. She knew Nnamdi would never agree for a nice, plain English name like Christopher or Edwin, this she confirmed from Ada's birth. But luckily at the time of their son's birth, she was aware enough to realize Nnamdi, as a devout Catholic, would consider the idea of a Christian name. After much convincing, he caved in, and decided to give his son the most obvious Christian name: Christian — which she knew she could comfortably tailor down to Chris with her high pitched screams that never failed to make her unrecognizable.
Ada saw in Bose what she knew her mother could have been, had she been educated, and fancifully saw an opportunity to make that a reality. Their friendship kicked off at the beginning of senior secondary school, when there was a lot to talk about, but sadly nobody to truely talk to. Nigerian parents hardly talked "to" their children, to avoid unforseen awkwardness, they preferred talking "at" them to keep an image of parental strictness and maintain the necessary African, conservative balance. Ada's parents were no exception to this stereotype nor did Bose have the luxury of such deep parental devotion from her generous relatives. They quickly became fast friends knitted with the burden of Adolescence. Nothing was off limits for discussion and gossip brought them as close as sex would a newly married couple. Ada brought life to a part of Bose Bose never knew existed. She felt glad to help her find her way in their small world of snaky, middle-class children who compared everything and gifted to have someone, other than her mother, to share her sprouting woman experience — although it was more about the former than the latter. She knew she was more than the woman Bose could see. They had adolescence to ravel together but Ada knew Bose could never really understand the inwrought persona and aspiration her vibrant city childhood made of her. Ada liked soft purses and kinky pearls, with a touch on any fabric she could place it according to its quality and cost, she loved anything and everything that rose to an inarguable sense of feminine perfection. She loved boys that smelled of minty deodorants filtered in fresh sweat, while Bose, on the other hand, liked dusty, sweaty, hairy, black "men"; she hated anything on a man's skin she thought could come from a woman's dressing table. She liked them strong, black and naturally musky with a lingering vestige of hometown roots in their accent or character. They were close friends but widely different people, that Ada was sure of. After the final year of senior secondary school, they luckily got into different universities and their friendship died just as quickly as it was kindled, into unending social media interactions.
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Ada slept on her work and woke up by 7:00 am. the next morning, well against her schedule for 5:30 am..She sprung out of bed, didn't curl back her hair like she usually does ( the time for that was past and there was no electricity), hurriedly brushed her teeth, took her bath, wore her favorite sharp-mustard coloured robe-dress, squeezed into a white black-polka dot shoe and on her way out she grabbed a red scarf at the doorpost, intending to fix her hair and makeup in the cab.
Thankfully, the Uber cab she earlier booked online was pulling close to her drive way. She hopped in and headed for her office in Middle New York. The traffic from her Brooklyn apartment to her office in Manhattan was slow on most drives, the driver understanding she was in a haste boycotted as much as he could but it still did not afford her the luxury of arriving on time.
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" Good morning Felix", she quickly greeted the doorman, as she rushed into the famous Empire State building on Fifth Avenue.
" Morning Miss. Ada! ", he loudly responded.
She made an official sign in statement at the reception desk and headed for the elevator, in two minutes she was on her office floor, well dressed, with minimal makeup on. But to everyone she seemed a little too exotic.
" What's with the scarf? ", Grace asked, partly intimidated and partly intrigued.
" No time for the rollers today."
" I see, the meeting is about to start."
"Oh, let's go."
All fifty members of staff of Quintessence magazine slowly streamed into the twenty by fifty square feet board room and in ten minutes they were all settled in the densely air-conditioned space, minutes after, the CEO and the Editor-in-Chief strolled in, both dark in complexion and almost six feet tall.
"Morning", the CEO, Joe Vanderwood, and Editor-in-Chief, Kathryn, both greeted succinctly, in a way it could almost pass for a quick remark.
Echoes of "Morning" immediately spattered randomly, quickly and quietly across the room in response.