Ngozi and Adesua

A short love story By Pat Omanu to celebrate Valentine’s Day

Ngozi was irritated and annoyed. He hated society weddings: they were always crowded and noisy. People overdressed and looked ridiculous. He was at this wedding because Nkem was his cousin and the bride. It was just a pity she was marrying into a very flashy family.

He scrutinised the people in the hall. All the ladies looked alike. They had false eyelashes attached to eyelids coloured to match any rainbow; their eyebrows were shaved and then redrawn fuller and darker looking, painted, and unnatural; they had thick layers of a foundation many shades lighter than their natural skin colour, and their lips were outlined in some dark colour and filled with bright red lipstick. He found it all distasteful.

Adesua checked her phone. It was the eighth time she had done so during the ten-minute drive from her hotel to the wedding reception. She scrolled through Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, replied to WhatsApp and text messages, and looked at some YouTube clips. As she walked towards the entrance to the hall, her phone beeped; several photos of the wedding were popping up. She searched for a suitable backdrop for a selfie. Finding a couple, she posed beside them and took selfies from different angles. She started posting the photos as she walked into the hall. 

“Where are you? Eh, eh? I can’t hear you. Speak louder; the place is packed I don’t think you will find a seat by the time you get here o!”  

Ngozi looked up at the lady standing behind an empty chair next to him and yelling into her phone. Her false eyelashes were very thick and seemed to weigh down her eyelids. Her eyebrows were shaved and replaced with black strokes, the shape of tadpoles, and an excessive amount of eye shadow – indigo in the centre with gold on the edges. Her foundation was two shades lighter than her natural skin tone, which could be seen from the contrast of her neck, so her face seemed to belong to someone else. Her full lips had very bright red lipstick. The face was the sort that disgusted him, but what repulsed him more was the yelling into the phone.

He saw her reach to pull out the chair while still yelling. Realising she was going to sit there, he quickly pulled it back. 

“The chair is not free,” he said, looking at her coldly.

“I’ll get up when the owner comes,” she said. She stood glaring at him and waited for the chair to be released.

“The owner is already here,” he said, pointing towards the entrance at no one in particular.

Adesua was scanning the hall, looking for an empty seat and someone she knew. She had seen the chair next to Ngozi and was walking happily towards it but stopped when she saw the lady get there first. She did not know what had happened, but the lady had walked away, and the chair was still there.

“May I?” she asked, pointing to the chair. 

“Sure,” Ngozi answered, getting up and pulling out the chair. He looked at her as she sat down. The freshness of her face surprised and pleased him. There was some red sheen on her lips, and her lower eyelids were lined in black. That was all the makeup she wore. He rarely saw so little makeup on the ladies he met at functions. She smiled happily as if she had been looking for him and was pleased to have found him. He liked the face. 

“I’m Adesua.”

“Ngozi.”

“Oh, I know who you are.”
 
“You do? When did we meet?” 

“I follow Nkem on Instagram.”

“And?” he asked, puzzled.

“She’s very fond of you. She is forever posting photos of you winning this and doing that. Your appointment as the youngest CEO in banking had more than 800 likes” 

He frowned.

“Happy belated birthday.” He looked at her questioningly.

“She posted video clips of your thirtieth birthday party. You have some cool moves.” 

He hissed.  

“You don’t like Instagram?”

“Like? Social media is insidious. It’s beyond an apocalypse. It’s unfathomable evil.”

“Aww,” she laughed. “It’s not that bad. I like it. You get to stay connected with many people simultaneously. You know what’s going on. It’s cool.”

“Cool? Look around you. How cool is what you see? What social media breeds is narcissism. A ceremony is going on, but no one is paying attention to it. Everybody is trying to be photographed with this or the other high-flyer so they can post it somewhere and brag about it.” 

She surveyed the hall and saw many people taking selfies or posing for others to take photos of them with other people. She gave him a slight nod although she was about to bring out her phone to take photos, one of which was to be a selfie with him which she would have posted immediately, captioned ‘Yes, indeed it’s me and hiiimm!!’  Her phone buzzed, and she resisted the urge to answer it. He took a bowl of small chops from the centre of the table and placed it in front of her. “The puff-puff is very good,” he said and smiled. 

“Thank you.” She took a puff-puff and smiled back.  
  
“This table and the two on either side of it have that on them,’ he pointed to a large card stuck on a table stand that read ‘Family of the Bride,’ so those of us sitting here are related, but no one is speaking to the person next to them, everyone is bent over their phone. Because they want to ‘stay connected’ as you say and ‘know what’s going on’ as-you-say’.” 
 
She cleared her throat. “Well, I…”

“Now, the gentleman next to you,” he cut in, leaning towards her, “is my first cousin. When I sat down, his first words were to complain that his phone was out of data and did I know if Arsenal had equalised. I told him I didn’t have a smartphone. He looked at me, worried and sorry. He must have sorted out his lack of data because the next thing I heard coming from him was, “oh no, it’s two-nil.’’

Adesua glanced to her left and saw that the man had his phone on his lap and was watching a football match. 

“People do overdo things, I’ll grant you that, but a lot of good can be done out there. Some friends and I used Twitter to raise money for the school fees of five children in Little Saints orphanage.” 

He considered and, after some moments, shrugged his shoulders. “That’s good. How do you know Nkem, apart from following her all over the internet?”

“She was my school mother, and we’ve stayed in touch, and I might add social media helped.”

“It might have, but instead of writing nice long letters, you tell yourselves things in two hundred and eighty characters and thirty-second videos, which you share with the whole world. You know, I once spent some time with Nkem’s family, and every one of them is addicted to social media. In the evenings, the television would be on, but no one would be watching. Phones would be out. No one would look up. I had to share a bed with Dozie, her younger brother. He would get up several times to check how often some silly video he had posted had been shared and would sulk the next day if no one cared about it.”
  
“Oh, but it’s not always gloom and doom. Sometimes a post can go viral, and you feel pretty good, ecstatic even.”
 
“If you say so. I would rather find ecstasy making love to a virgin.”

Adesua cleared her throat and looked down. Ngozi smiled, leaned towards her, and took a puff-puff from her bowl of small chops. Her phone buzzed again; she was glad she wasn’t going to answer it, as that would have spoilt the intimacy she was beginning to feel. She liked his smile and thought he enjoyed talking to her. That warmed her. She glanced at him: he looked much nicer than the many photos she had seen on Nkem’s social media accounts.
 
“When will you be celebrating your thirtieth?” 

“Me?” she hesitated.
 
“Yes, you. Fair is fair. You know about mine.” 

She told him. “Twenty-Two and ‘virgin’ embarrasses you?” He smiled.
She said nothing but reached for a puff-puff. He reached as well and slowly ran a finger down her hand as it came away from the bowl. 

“Don’t finish my puff-puff,” she said, moving the bowl away from him.

He raised his hands in mock defeat. “Let’s get out of here. It’s stifling.”

As they walked away, Adesua smiled. She had promised to post a hundred photos on Instagram from what she had tagged the wedding of the century, but the only pictures she cared about as she felt the warmth of his hand in hers were that of his face and smile.