Tiwa The Therapist (Vol 1)

four: "...a fraud"

Four

"...a fraud"

"Why don't we talk about you instead. I mean, that's what you paid 'a lot of money' for right?" I arched my lower lip for a second and the upper one followed suit.

"Look who's being sarcastic, uh?" She tilted her head for a couple of second with a dry smile on her face that made me want to call security.

"I'm really not being sarcastic, Mrs Oh-gah-ji, we just have a lot to cover and I would prefer that we get on to it."

"What's the rush anyway?" She shrugged and sat up slowly. "I paid for the whole day for a reason,"

'My God! This is going to go on for 10 hours?'

"Of course you did," I smiled. 'I never seize to remind me', "but can we commence the session already?" I reached for my note pad and pencil before she could conjure another witty response.

"Let me guess, I'm too much for you and you can't wait to have me out of your office too right?" I paused as I heard her say those words.

"And why would you even think that?" I looked up slowly with a narrowed eyes.

"Oh please, I'm Boujee not stupid. I know how much this Nigerian society loathes confident and successful women, I mean, my husband has been generous enough to reinstate that fact into my life, so thank you." She gave another tilt of her head followed by a drier smile that had "CRAZY" written all over it.

I took a deep breath, cleared my throat and jotted something down.

"I don't loathe you Mrs Oh-gah-ji, and I like to think that you've just over thought yourself into believing that the world and your husband, nuture such fowl feeling towards you."

I watched her give a massive and a not-so-subtle roll of her eyes as she said the words, "When you're done with the professional bullshit and you decide to be real, let me know."

"I'm not trying to be--,"

"Oh puhlease! I'm a multiple awarded actress both locally and internationally; give me some credits at least. I know when someone is giving me bullshit emotions, I mean," she leaned in to do that not-so-whispery voice again, "I do that for a living you know? Giving bullshit emotions." I watched her groan and settle into her seat. "You're just another Lagos Fraud."

"Pardon me?"

"What I said, my love, is that you are a fruad! Do you even have a foreign certificate in psychotherapy or something?"

'Do you even have an Emmy or a freaking Oscar? But I guess you consider yourself great too uh?'

"I see you're of the medieval belief that foreign certification is premium certification right?"

"It's not medieval," she said the word medieval like a little girl trying to state her claim to a candy, "It's pure FACTS! I mean, here in Nigeria and everywhere except from America, we rate foreign certification than our lives, we arise when we see a Yale or Oxford graduate and we bat our eyes at Unilag or Convenant university ones. I want to believe that you know that much, uh?"

'Oh! She's good.'

"You have a point right there, but I'm no fraud irregardless, I like to think that I'm very much experienced in my field."

"Then why aren't you doing your job well?"

"I don't understand?"

"Why are you asking and behaving like a foreign therapist in an over-budgeted American movie when what you really should be doing is coming to my Nigerian roots and level.

'What the hell?!'