Delayed Diagnosis {Book 1 of the Rex Obasi Trilogy}

Chapter 2

Fumi was 29, just months older than me although that fact was hidden from her and as a matter of fact she believed me to be older. She had eyes like a cat which gave her face a dangerous yet sultry look and she was also armed with full lips which she always pouted when she was in her 'like me' mode. I always had the impression of her spending hours in front of the mirror practicing the look till she attained the devastating effect. She was average height and her body was actually very there! (Mischievous grin)

Apart from her mixed signals I had never come on to her and she had never seemed bothered by it. Not until about three weeks ago when things with Fome' went south that I felt her open up more and I was actually surprised with her caring attitude which although still rare seemed genuine. I never considered myself as a particularly private person but I found out the one thing I loathed was the attention from the office, being a topic of discussion was not a warm feeling. Hearing things like: 'his fiancé follow another man go' is the exact image of a man being kicked repeatedly when he is down. (And yes I tried to delay it but it had to come out sooner or later....another man)

Back to that night; my brain multi-tasked a lot, one section paying attention to Fumi, answering her questions and basically trying to keep up as she also seemed to be in a nervous rush, talking all through the cab ride to her place. The other part of my brain was thinking things through. Sule; was he in danger or was he a part of this operation? But he had tried to warn me or had he? My instinct told me that Sule was a friend. In the 18 plus months I had known him we had developed an easy friendship or pretty close to it and moreover I sensed he was in danger and that was the hard part to contemplate: the danger. The possibility that Sule might have been coerced by strange eyes was looking more plausible by the second. Now you may wonder who the hell is this strange eyes guy that Sule can't alert me if he was indeed coerced, at least two grown men should be able to take down one right? Wrong! Strange eyes was merely a henchman of the chief and when the chief meant business violence wasn't the immediate threat. Not to you anyway. You see, the Chief is all about games, control and manipulation. I knew this first hand and if Sule was coerced, it wasn't physically. Also the most nagging thing on my mind was the information my car held. I had recently (after coming into money suddenly) opened accounts for all my nieces and nephews and every single detail from their address to next of kin was in a folder in the glove compartment of my car. I let my eyes drift close as the weight overwhelmed me. It seemed I had put my hand in a pot of soup and it turned to acid.

Beside me Fumi droned on, obviously equating my demeanor to depression over Fome (like I was the first person to go through a break-up) I thought of my present safety. Despite my claims of the Chief being prone to mind games and power plays when it came down to it he was highly unstable, especially when money was a factor. I opened an eye lid and looked at Fumi. Whatever she meant when she had invited me over...be it impulse or not, I had no plans of going home that night.

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When Fome' said to me "I'd like you to meet somebody" I had no idea who this 'somebody' was and I didn't care, at that moment I was just happy she said yes.
Days went by and I had even forgotten she had mentioned anything. We had decided not to set a date and rush a wedding which I readily agreed to. It's funny but it's like you think of the question(marry me?) you think of events leading up to the moment, you think of the reply, even think of marriage and how married life would be like. But the moment she says "yes" the first thought that enters your head is "the wedding" which means money.

I lived in a 3 bedroom apartment but had furniture only in a room, the parlour and the kitchen since I moved from a previous self-contain two years ago. In fact that was a living arrangement I had been content with had it not been for my mother calling me all the time urging me to settle down. I would always say "but Mama I am settled na" at which she would respond with a stinging vibe that always got me thinking. "Which kind settled (sigh) living like a married bachelor and you say you're settled"
However, landlord palava would finally make me consider and yearn for a change of scene and so I moved into my new 3 bedroom apartment which my mother thought was perfect to start a family. Come to think of it, that was the exact moment the idea of settling down finally began to really occur to me.
Fome' was 26, three years younger than me. She had just turned eighteen when we started dating. It's funny that we dated for so long and I never met the Chief or heard her talk about him. Fome's mother had died just two years after I met her,(when she was 20) her dad had died when she was very little and her mother had raised her (being the only child) and worked several jobs to send her to schools "My mother always said I had to be educated. She had been cheated off things severally and vowed that I must not be illiterate" she had told me one day while in my arms. (Fome' used to like to talk after sex, she was a cuddler and would just lie, head resting on my shoulder staring at the ceiling and she'd talk about anything that happened that day. Other times if no particular gist was forthcoming or sweet enough, she'd plunge into a soliloquy about her childhood or infant life...with me trying not to doze and failing (don't judge me Fome was a tigress in bed) Her mother had been the one steady person in a tough life and I guess part of the reason our relationship grew and was able to be sustained was because I was literally the only one she could turn to after her mother's death and I was there for her to lean on. The death also had an impact on me because although we never met, I heard a lot about her and her commitment and love for her daughter...yes all bedroom stories.