GOOD INTENTIONS

Chapter 6

Wednesday was another beautiful day at work, after which Frank went to church and wowed the congregation as usual, with his singing prowess. He was very glad when from the stage, he scanned the congregation and she wasn't there. Service ended and Chuka gathered his choir members together and reminded them of their rehearsals the next day, he also shared some other vital information with them from the pastorate and further encouraged the leaders to reach out to the first-timers they called during the week and have them come for rehearsals the next day. He ended the meeting with his usual line, "They are members of our choir but-" "they don't just know it yet" the entire choir chorused with so much gaiety as they all got up and headed for the door.

The rehearsal on Thursday started at exactly 6 pm, everyone was seated and excited for the days' rehearsal which started off with prayers and a short exhortation by the assistant music director. Frank was mandated by Chuka to handle the rehearsal for the day, so he decided to engage the whole choir with short vocal exercises to warm up their voices before the actual singing commenced. The rehearsal was very colourful, Frank was good at teaching the various parts and he had also scored the choir piece excellently. Just as the choir was about to take the song again for the final time, the door to the church opened and Kaffi walked in. The entire choir had their back to the door and they knew better than to get distracted during rehearsals, so they ignored her and continued singing, but Frank was transfixed, he didn't see this coming. Maintaining his composure on his now noodle-like legs, he continued conducting the choir as Kaffi took her seat at the back of the choir and somehow joined the song as though she had been there from the start, this further puzzled Frank. He kept looking in her direction as she sang with the choir but Kaffi clearly acted very indifferent towards him, she never even as much as looked in his direction throughout the duration of the song. At the end of the rehearsals, Chuka took over and had the whole choir cheer Frank for a job well done, then he asked all the first-timers to stand for recognition which they did. The lady who was in charge of receiving the first-timers took their details just before Chuka reminded them of the import of the Saturday morning's activity, and closed the meeting. Whilst outside, a few of the choir members, Frank included, stood just by the road chatting excitedly with each other, they all had different reasons for staying back, some were waiting for the first-timers they brought to the rehearsals who were still inside with Chuka, his assistant, and the first-timer lady, others just wanted to hang around and gist while Frank was still dazed from Kaffi's appearance even after he intentionally avoided calling to remind her of the rehearsal, and he was sure no one else did because everyone had particular names they were assigned to call, so he partly waited to see what exactly her play was.