Toyosi

Emeka had not shown up at the restaurant; she had waited there for over two hours. She had called his mobile phone, she had asked his driver Shomolu to call his mobile phone. Nothing.
"Shomolu where your oga dey?" she had asked the driver, but he did not know. Stupid, useless man.
He had not called her back, it had been over a week and he still had not called. There was no excuse he could give that would be good enough, nothing he could say, except, maybe he died or something. But she was sure he was not dead, she would have heard about it somehow.
She sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes every time her phone rang and it was not Emeka calling; which was every time. She had a lot of work to do, she was getting more customers than she could handle. The last thing she needed was to be thinking about one useless married man.

But he was not useless, this was Emeka for god's sake!

Why the hell was he avoiding her? He stood her up-he was the one that asked her to lunch that day, he even sent his driver to pick her up-why would he suddenly just...you know what? She would not be bothered, she would focus on her work, go over the patterns for the bridesmaids dresses she was supposed to be designing. It needed a lot of revamping, she was pretty excited about it actually, very impressed that the bride wanted a 'native' theme for her 'white' wedding. That was how the woman had put it; she was a charming woman, but a little affected in the way she had constantly pat her hair with her left hand making sure her oversized engagement ring caught and reflected the light and said with a strong English accent: "I want the brides maid dresses to be made from native fabric, Woodin or some other african print fabric. I want my wedding to have a 'native' theme...". She would add beaded lace trimmings and a satin sash, make each of the dresses just a little bit different from one another. The bride-to-be had requested twenty-five dresses, so there would be twenty-five bridesmaids then. That would be one big wedding; Toyosi was not interested in having a big wedding. She wanted a very small to just over small church service and an even smaller reception; a nice dinner, live music. Just her mother and maybe five or six friends; her husbands family...her husband... God, what the hell was she doing? Where the hell was Emeka and why had he not called her?

She suddenly felt a quick burst of anger and she threw the box of pins she had been holding against the linoleum floor. The stupid plastic container did not give a loud enough crash to satisfy her annoyance as it fell against the floor, it only made her angrier. But she felt something else, she was not sure if it was shame or maybe... jealousy. If he was ignoring her, then things were probably going well with his wife. She felt as if she had not claim to the man, no right to be angry or jealous or anything at all, but...ugh!

She was not going to call again, he had ignored enough of her calls, refused to return enough of her messages; even the stupid driver was ignoring her. Enough. She was going to wait for him to come to her, he would, he always did.