She smiles at me, and saunters in my direction. I hear a man mutter “Damn” under his breath.
“Ayoola, what are you doing here?” My voice is tight in my throat.
“It’s lunchtime!”
“And?”
She floats away not answering my question and heads toward the reception desk. Their eyes are fixed on her and she smiles her best smile. “You’re my sister’s friends?”
They open their mouths and shut them again.
“You’re Korede’s sister?” Yinka squeaks. I can see her trying to make the connection, measuring Ayoola’s looks against mine. The resemblance is there—we share the same mouth, the same eyes—but Ayoola looks like a Bratz doll and I resemble a voodoo figurine. Yinka, who is arguably the most attractive employee at St. Peter’s, with her cherub nose and wide lips, pales to the point of insignificance beside Ayoola. She knows it, too; she is twirling her expensive hair with her fingers and has pushed back her shoulders.
“What scent is that?” asks Bunmi. “It’s like…it’s really…”
Ayoola leans forward and whispers something into Bunmi’s ear, and then she straightens up. “It’s our little secret, okay?” She winks at Bunmi, and Bunmi’s usually impassive face lights up. I’ve had enough. I head toward the desk.
Just then, I hear Tade’s voice and my heart quickens. I grab Ayoola, dragging her toward the exit.
“Hey!”
“You have to go!”
“What? Why? Why are you being so—”
“What’s going…” Tade’s voice trails to nothing and the blood cools within my body. Ayoola frees herself from my grip, but it doesn’t matter; it’s too late anyway. His eyes settle on Ayoola and dilate. He adjusts his coat. “What’s going on?” he says again, his voice suddenly husky.
“I’m Korede’s sister,” she announces.
He looks from her to me, then back to her again. “I didn’t know you had a sister?” He is talking to me, but his eyes have not left hers.
Ayoola pouts. “I think she is ashamed of me.”
He smiles at her; it is a kind smile. “Of course not. Who could be? Sorry, I didn’t get your name.”
“Ayoola.” She puts out her hand, the way a queen would for her subjects.
He takes it and gives it a gentle squeeze. “I’m Tade.”
SCHOOL
I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I realized that Ayoola was beautiful and I was…not. But what I do know is that I was aware of my own inadequacies long before.
Secondary school can be cruel. The boys would write lists of those who had a figure eight—like a Coca-Cola bottle—and those who had a figure one—like a stick. They would draw pictures of girls and exaggerate their best or worst features and tack them on the school notice board for the world to see—at least until the teachers took the pictures down, tearing them from the pins, an act that left a little shred of paper stuck like a taunt.
When they drew me, it was with lips that could belong to a gorilla and eyes that seemed to push every other feature out of the way. I told myself boys were immature and dumb, so it didn’t matter that they didn’t want me; and it didn’t matter that some of them tried anyway because they assumed I’d be so grateful for the attention that I’d do whatever they wanted. I stayed away from all of them. I mocked girls for swooning over guys, judged them for kissing, and held them in contempt at every opportunity. I was above it all.
I was fooling no one.
Two years in, I was hardened and ready to protect my sister, who I was sure would receive the same treatment that I had. Maybe hers would be even worse. She would come to me each day weeping and I would wrap my arms around her and soothe her. It would be us against the world.
Rumor has it that she was asked out on her first day, by a boy in SS2. It was unprecedented. Boys in the senior classes didn’t notice juniors, and when they did, they rarely tried to make it official. She said no. But I received the message loud and clear.
STAIN
“I just thought we should spend lunchtime together.”
“No, you wanted to see where I work.”
“And what’s wrong with that, Korede?” my mother exclaims. “You’ve been working there for a year and your sister has never seen the place!” She is horrified by this, as she is by every injustice that she feels Ayoola suffers.
The house girl brings the stew out of the kitchen and sets it on the table. Ayoola leans forward and serves herself a bowlful. She has unwrapped the àmàlà and dipped it in the soup before my mother and I have finished serving ourselves.
We sit in our customary places at our rectangular table: my mother and I are seated on the left, Ayoola on the right. There used to be a chair at the head of the table, but I burnt it down to a crisp in a bonfire just outside our compound. We don’t talk about that. We don’t talk about him.
“Your aunty Taiwo called today,” Mum begins.
“Did she now?”
“Yes. She says she would like to hear from both of you more.” Mum pauses, waiting for some sort of response from one of us.
“Can you pass the okro, please?” I ask.
My mother passes the okro.
“So,” she pivots, seeing as her previous topic baited no one, “Ayoola said there is a cute doctor at your work.”
I drop the bowl of okro and it spills on the table—it is green and filmy, quickly seeping into the floral tablecloth.
“Korede!”
I dab at it with a cloth but I can barely hear her—my thoughts are eating my brain.
I can feel Ayoola’s eyes on me and I try to calm down. The house girl runs to clean the stain, but the water she uses makes the stain bigger than it was before.
HOME
I am staring at the painting that hangs above the piano nobody plays.
He commissioned it after he passed off a shipment of refurbished cars to a car dealership as brand-new—a painting of the house his dodgy deals had built. (Why have a painting of the house you live in, hanging inside said house?)
As a child I would go stand before it and wish myself inside. I imagined that our alternates were living within its watercolor walls. I dreamt that laughter and love lay beyond the green lawn, inside the white columns and the heavy oak door.
The painter even added a dog barking at a tree, as if he knew that we used to have one. She was soft and brown and she made the mistake of peeing in his office. We never saw her again. The painter could not have known this; and yet, there is a dog in the painting and sometimes I swear I could hear her bark.