I'm here, I'm here!

I even have a contributor credit to show for it.
As part of their "For Coloured Women" series, The Naked Convos website asked me to contribute a piece (remember my third/first person story confusion?) I did, and even though the final draft I sent in isn't the one that got published, and even though there were line edits I hadn't seen or approved :P, a few of the commenters seemed to have got it, and that's all a writer can hope for.
Many thanks to the guys at TNC for asking me to be part of it!!
Read the published version of my story here.

***
Don't ask me stupid questions.

So that’s how he said, “Will you be my girlfriend?”

Me. I looked at myself up and down. Were the toes of my shoes scuffed? Abi didn’t he see the LV all over my handbag?

I asked him, “Please, what do you see in my hand?” and he squeezed his face. What kind of question was I asking when he could clearly see that my left hand held a Blackberry Porsche and my right one held my iPad three? Was it a trick question? I wondered the same thing.

He had not finished asking, “What do you mean?” when I stomped off so hard I almost broke my red heels.

That’s how I was posing for a picture at the Adenuga wedding last year oh. I was trying to find a way to balance my Chanel clutch in such a way that it wouldn’t look out of place in the shot. Please, I know I could have just held it at my side, is that what we’re saying? Why would I make someone spend so much money on something that the viewers of Bella Naija wouldn’t get to see? Don’t ask me stupid questions.

That’s what I should have told that usher at Church. His mouth like girlfriend. In a month can he scrape together enough money to pay for my aso ebi? Maybe he thinks Brazilian hair grows on trees.

Ah, but aso ebi is expensive these days. We don’t talk about it outside oh, we chest it. “What? Just fifty k for the three yards? That’s not bad, oh.” Then when I get home I give Liz a call, “Sweetie, you know, I think I want to wear my Prada skirt oh. You know the one? Yea, that cost me about five hundred pounds. Yea, it was so reasonable, I don’t know why I didn’t buy two, in different colours. Anyway babe, so I’ll only need about a yard of that lace. Maybe we can share? Cheers babe, you’re the best. I’ll transfer the sixteen thousand to you on Monday.”

If she thinks I’ll pay twenty-five thousand for one nonsense material that the tailor will shred to bits, she has another thing coming.

So sha, I shangried the one yard to make a top with very thin straps, and I squeezed into my skirt. I couldn’t really bend over because my blouse was so short, you know. And on top of that, I was trying to take this picture. I’d just struck the perfect pose when this artificially yellow girl with foneh from the Single Ladies school of elocution used her elbow to trip me up.

Just like that, picture ruined. The stupid clutch kuku now fell down. See manoeuvring; keeping my back as straight as the stupid girl’s figure I bent my knees until my thighs were parallel to the floor, and used the tip of my nails to edge the straps closer.

“Sweetie, are you sweating?”

“No darling,” I cooed, “it’s called bronzer.” Ah, if there weren’t so many eligible young men in that place I would have stabbed her with my nail file. Then I stood up and sashayed off – to find the nearest mirror.

When that Sunday’s This Day Style came out, they called her ‘and friend.’

They ‘and friend’ed me once oh, it wasn’t funny at all.

Those days, the most expensive shoes I’d ever bought were from New Look, and that was after I had saved, then waited for sales, then sent my friend cash with an ‘estimate’ of what the exchange rate was. She couldn’t complain now, I’d just say, “Ah babe, the rate must have gone up! It’s always fluctuating. This economy is crazy. Anyway, how do you want me to send the remaining two thousand, one hundred and forty seven naira balance?” The shame never let her answer.

So now, that’s how I was rocking my shoes, feeling like a hot babe. It was my first society wedding; I didn’t know the dubs yet. I was with one girl like this I’d met at the bank before I was retained.

I used to watch her come in every Monday with her koi koi shoes, her nails flashing in my face as she handed me her deposit slip. Two hundred thousand Naira in cash, every week, into her personal account. Her salary wasn’t even that much. I started smiling at her, making jokes, telling her I would push her transactions for her if she came to the bank after closing hours, that kind of thing.

As a wuzzup babe, she caught my drift. One day she said, “let’s have lunch tomorrow. Meet me at one, sharp.” The way she jabbed her finger into the counter I wondered how the nail didn’t break. Or were there now expensive, unbreakable nails?

She didn’t say anything at first, just invited me to a few events with her. Then sometimes she would lend me clothes. I would be at hers – a serviced flat in VI, where she lived alone – and we’d be dressing up to go to a party.

“You look cute, dear, but hmmm…” I quickly learnt that hmmm was not a good thing.

That day, I was wearing the Dorothy Perkins dress that my cousin had sent to me after I graduated from uni two years before. It was my best dress, my ‘isale akpoti.’ My new friend eyed me with that ‘hmmm’ in her eyes, then she pulled the fabric at my neck to examine the tag.

“Ugh,” she said.

The thing is still paining me. God will not punish her too much sha, because at least she taught me a few things.

She pulled a dress out of her wardrobe, “It’s two seasons old, but it’ll have to do.” I looked at the neck; it said ‘Tiffany Amber.’

My first ‘and friend’ and I was in a designer dress. I could have done worse. Then now that they even know my name, one yeye boy from Church will look at me and ask me to be his girlfriend. Does he know who I am? Let him be there. Asking me stupid questions.

***

Please click here to read the entire series.