HE SAID NO
EPISODE 13
After staying for a while at Honorable Durojaiye’s birthday party, he was celebrating his 60th birthday and the party which put up by his children had lots of dignitaries in attendance, Amifel decided to take a stroll outside the large event center, although the party was quite interesting for an old school party, the sound of the speakers was starting to make her head to bang.
Oluyole Event center was one of the largest indoor halls in the state and Amifel alongside her awesome team did an awesome job with the hall decoration and overall planning of the event.
“Another successful event is done and dusted,” she said, smiling to herself as the invited and non-invited guests trooped in and out of the premises. She was first thinking about leaving the party midway because she had a meeting to catch up with but on second thought she decided to stay till the end. She had already received half payment and was expecting the rest after the event.
“Hello, I love your dress,” a young female guest smiled as she walked out of the premise,
“Thank you,” she smiled back before taking a quick glance at her dress, Classic stitches must have really done a good job, she had been receiving compliments all day and she was not tired, trust Mrs. Robert, she hyped her up so well and only allowed her to leave home after she promised to send a picture of her outfit to George.
She was elegantly dressed in a shimmering long black gown, the off-shoulder gown was sewn to complement her beautifully shaped body, and she felt confident. She had learnt her lesson the hard way.
She once attended an event where she dressed casually because she felt that it was just a birthday party until the guests started coming in and someone mistook her for the maid. She chuckled as she remembered the way she stood transfixed to a spot after one of the guests spoke to her rashly,
“Hey, come and clean up this place,” at first, she didn’t know that she was the one the man was referring to, and so she ignored him until he moved close to where she was and gave her a harsh slap at the back, and tugged at her sleeves and dragged her roughly to his seat before facing her, for a cute young man, he looked mad and his unkempt dreads made him look even madder.
“Are you deaf? Clean up this place!” he barked, Amifel looked at him, she felt like a gong hit her on the head, she could not believe her eyes. Embarrassed? That would be an understatement. All eyes fell on them, she wanted to talk but all of a sudden, she could not find her voice, don’t even bother to ask why she didn’t walk away, her legs felt heavier than a grinding stone. It reminded her of the statue in a folktale she read when she was much younger, where poor tortoise hid in the bush to sing songs that made a bean-cake seller drop her tray of bean-cakes to dance away, this kept happening every day, even the people that followed her on a rescue mission found themselves dancing away and nobody could tell who was responsible until a one-legged man made a statue and smeared it all around with a gummy substance.
The next day, the young lady was out as usual to sell her bean-cakes and Tortoise did as his manner had become, the young girl danced away alongside other people that had come to witness the scene, only the statue was left. Tortoise, who didn’t know that it was a statue angrily slapped the statue repeatedly until his whole body was tightly glued to the statue and he was honorably caught. That was how Amifel felt as she helplessly watched as the drama unfolded, the man kept ranting and was even mad at her for not talking nor moving, and for a while, nobody came to her rescue. Thankfully, a poorly dressed girl ran towards them with a mop stick,
“Excuse me, sir, I will clean it right away,” the girl said, as she quickly set to work without waiting for directions.
“Oh, I thought…” Amifel did not let him finish before she shamefully left the scene at a speed of light, even a maid does not deserve to be treated with so much disgust, they are human too and they deserve to be respected. Her clients apologized to her profusely afterward and even paid her extra, as for the man, he might have apologized if she had waited but she was not looking forward to seeing him again. Since then, she promised herself to always look her best for events including burial ceremonies.
She was thinking of going back inside the hall, when she remembered that she had not spoken to George since their last date, he sent her a text to her that day, to say that he had gotten home and it had been 3 days, she had not bothered to call him either. She cared less, after all, she was looking for a way to excuse herself, but on second thought, she decided to give him a call.
“That is really unlike George, I hope he’s fine,” she thought to herself as she dialed his number, he didn’t pick up the first time and she called again, hoping he would not pick up but he did,
“Hello,” he said coldly,
“Hey George, how are you? hope you’re good?” she asked,
“Yeah, I’m good, you?” George didn’t sound eager to talk to her and so, she tried to prolong the conversation to save the awkward situation.
“Good too, I haven’t heard from you for a while, hope everything is fine?”
“Yeah, I have been busy,” he said, sounding so emotionless,
“Oh, okay. I just wanted to check up on you, I mean it’s unlike you not to even call to…”
“I call when I want to speak to you, you can take a cue from that,” he cut in,
“Oh, really? So, should I take that to mean that you don’t want to speak to me?” she asked,
“I didn’t say that, I only said you can call if you want to speak to me, I don’t have to do the calling all the time,”
“Oh, it’s fine, I get. Have a good day,” she angrily cut the call before he could say another word, as she waited a bit for his call back. Typical George would always call back, especially if they hadn’t said their proper goodbyes, or if he knew that she was angry.
After waiting for almost 15 minutes, it was obvious that George had no intentions of calling back. She went back into the hall a while later, and she was thankful that they were almost wrapping up the event or she couldn’t have coped in such a happy atmosphere with her bottled-up anger.
Was George was being petty or what?
To be continued…
Written by Sodamade Olamide Tolulope.
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