Cupid's Risk, Episode 9
“Iphey…I‟m sorry but I had to…” He pushed her back into her apartment and closed the door. “I was shocked as much as you were, Iphey. I needed time to put myself together…”
James had managed to push her into one of the living room chairs at this time but remained standing. A tense silence ensued.
“Where have you been all this while?” Iphey asked in a low voice. Her hands hung between her knees.
“I've been here in Lagos…”
“My God! James, you live here? Ngoo waited…she pined for you all this time and you live here in Lagos?!”
Pictures of her nephew in his bed during the most recent stay in the hospital flashed before her eyes... her sister's depression, the fear in her mother's eyes, her own tears.
“Please, Iphey, you need to relax…hear me out at least…”
She sprang to her feet. “How dare you come here after all these years and tell me to relax?! Why are you even here? What am I hearing you out on? That you abandoned my sister and her child, YOUR SON!?” Iphey knew she was getting hysterical, but couldn't stop it. “How am I going to break this to Ngozi? How will I tell my sister that her long-lost husband is, in fact, alive? That he has lived in this same state all the while she was crying herself to sleep?” Several thoughts ran through her mind at once.
James came to stand before her. “See, I had to do what I did…I didn't want to but it was the best thing I could have done at the time.” Iphey was confused. She hadn't thought there was a happier couple than her sister and James at the time. She'd just gotten into university when they got married seven years ago. A year later, Obi had been born, and everyone had been overjoyed. He was three when, to everyone's shock, James had gone missing.
James went on...”Almost four years ago, something happened.”
Iphey's shook her head vigorously. “What is it, James? What happened?” She cried, perplexed.
James breathed out and turned around. “I lost my job.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“You see Iphey, two years after we got married, I lost my precious oil company job.”
“What does that have to do with it?” A shiver went over Iphey. The talk of job loss was a bit close to home with the recent spate of lay-offs in the banking sector.
“I never told your sister. I kept going out to work for nearly six months afterwards and never breathed a word of it to her. I looked for other jobs, gambled, took to drinking, chased other women. Nothing helped.” Iphey found the sofa and thought that this was only a bad dream. If she shut her eyes, it would go away.
James continued. “The few people who knew advised me to tell her, but I couldn't face the disappointment on her face. When Obi's asthma came up while she was still on maternity leave, we had agreed for her to remain at home. So there was no other source of income.”
He looked at her face. “I know what you're thinking…I wouldn't be first or last to lose my job, but I was so proud! Your sister didn't know; her behavior didn't change, but I became paranoid. I blamed her for my woes and our sickly son for my quickly dwindling savings. Then I blamed myself, but still I did not tell her.”
“Oh my God. Oh my God.” Iphey kept saying.
“I began to resent everyone. My family, you, and your mother; you all boasted so much about my status…”
She could see it was very painful for him, but she wouldn't let that go. “Leave us out of this.”
“OK.” He sat down. “The thing was, I was brought up to believe that a man should provide for his family. In those six months, that belief made me mad!” He was crying now, and the tears trickled down his cheeks.
“Are you saying…?” Iphey started.
James cut in. “I'm not saying I became actually mad, but I eventually did something insane.”
Iphey's phone began to ring.
14: Cupid's comedy...by Mr. FunnyHoneyMoney
The phone rang through without any answer. She was still not picking up his calls.
“There could be a hundred different reasons. I know she wouldn't just ignore my calls,” he told himself.
Chinedu ignored the part of him that said maybe she was angry with him and wanted nothing more to do with him. There must be something else. He had not talked to Iphey since the party incident. He had tried to call her, but never seemed to be able to hit the green button each time. However, today at work, after his conversation with Aisha, he had managed to press it, but the call didn't go through; the network was busy, or her phone was switched off.
One hour passed during which he kept staring at his phone on the table. He had been trying for some time with no luck, and now he sighed. That was all he did: call, no reply, sigh, scratch his head, sigh, stand up, pace the length of the room, sigh, sit down, and do it all over. He battled the temptation to get into his car and drive over there. Was she with someone else? According to Aisha, the man at the party was her bank manager, going overboard with unwelcome advances.
He called again. She didn't pick up as before, but this time, he managed to send off a text message. He felt like someone was playing a game with him as the guy who always got something wrong. He still couldn't explain to himself why he had been so angry when she had kissed him. Maybe she'd done it to annoy her manager, but he had really enjoyed the kiss. He could still feel it even days after. He even remembered the stray strand of hair that had brushed against his face when they kissed. God, he needed to talk to her. He knew, though, that this time there was no beating about the bush. They both spoke their minds or forgot it. It was all or nothing. Thirty minutes later, he was still sighing and pacing. He picked up the phone and decided to try again. As if on cue, the slideshow he had put as his phone's wallpaper changed to the only picture he had of her. Iphey sleeping, a smile on her lips. He sighed once more and began to dial.
He knew she was the one even before he got up from his chair. “She has come, God she has come.” He banged into a stool in his zest to get to the door in record time and cursed. He opened the door, and there she stood, looking so beautiful, prim and proper in her suited banking attire. She looked like she had just gotten ready to go to work instead of after a hectic day at the office.
Every cell in his body screamed for him to refuse, talk with her right there, close the door, and run back into the house. Instead, he said, “Sure, come on in.”He wasn't as happy as he thought he would be. That was because it wasn't Iphey shrugging off her jacket right from the door; it was Bisi. Straight away, he knew he would regret that decision; more and more, he felt like some unknown force was playing a game with him.
To be continued.
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