LS: The Beginning (22 page)

“Is this a bad time?” she asked.

“No, are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m just checking up on you,” her velvet voice said.

“That’s nice of you. I’m good, and you?”

“I'm bored; will you stop by the house tonight?”

“Yeah, no worries,” I said.

“All right, thanks. Have fun. Bye.”

“Bye.” I ended the call.

Her voice sounded so lonely. If I was with any other girl, I would
have probably left her to see Lisa, but Sharon wasn’t any other girl. She was my close friend.

As the minute hand struck twelve, the giant clock on the stage made a loud sound, a higher pitch to my ears due to my
hearing ability. I winced in pain.

“You okay?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yeah,” I said.

Just then, an average old looking man went over to the stage to make an
announcement.
Is it someone’s birthday or someone’s engagement party?
I thought. I waited in suspense to hear what he had to say rather than reading his
mind.

“What time is it, folks?” he asked.

I remembered the ad pasted
on the wall of the restaurant's building. It read:
Open
Mic
Night
Tonight
.

Sharon joined the small congregation as they screamed, “Open mic
night!”

I'd heard of these events while in Nigeria, but never attended one. It had
to do with acoustic singing or miming. With the thought of that, I asked
Sharon
,
“Would you like us to go now?”

“No, not yet, this is why we’re here.”

“Oh, okay. It’s cool then.”

One thing about bars at night is that the ages of people strictly adhere
to the law of 18+, so various people of various ages attend. Sharon and I
looked so young among the middle-aged men and women who were present.

The first person to take to the stage was a man who looked in his mid30s. He sang a song I hadn’t heard before, but Sharon and
most of the audience followed him mimicking the words of the
song.

Sharon stood up from her seat. “Got to go to the
ladies’,” she said.

“Cool, don’t be too long,” I pleaded.

Sharon smiled and left the table.

The host climbed on the stage to present the next singer. He kept looking
at me and thinking:
this is a lucky young man
.

“Our next performer, ladies and gentlemen: Sharon.”

The audience voluntary donated applause for the unknown singer. To
my very surprise, Sharon appeared from backstage, holding a guitar in her
hand. She was about to sing.

“The title of my song is called
O
nly
Fooling
Myself
,
by Kate
Voegele,
and it’s
dedicated to a very special friend of mine,” she said, looking down at the
instrument she was about to play.

As I heard Sharon’s singing voice for the first time, my eyes widened in
amazement. I could hardly feel my legs and arms as my body turned ice cold. She had the voice of a diva; such a voice is singular in one so
nerdy. Her eyes searched round the room to find
mine and when they did, they remained staring at me while she played the guitar – also
like a diva. If I hadn’t heard the song before I would have thought she was
the composer. She literally sang as if she was performing for a judge – me.

After her remarkable performance, I could only grasp the chorus of the
song:
One
day
I’ll
turn
around;
I’ll
see
your
hand
reach
out.
I’m
only
fooling myself.
Yeah
,
yeah
,
yeah.
But
maybe
when
you
smile,
it
means
you’d
stay
a
while. Maybe
you’d
save
me
now.
I’m
only
fooling
myself. Yeah
,
yeah
,
yeah.
It was a pleasant song, or at least Sharon made it sound pleasant.

Sharon returned to our table after the thunderous applause from the
audience. Before she could speak, I said, “You have an amazing voice.”

“Why, thank you. I’m glad you liked it.”

“I loved it.” I smiled, pointing at the guitar hung round her body. “Aren’t you going to return the guitar?”

She chuckled. “It’s mine. I left it here last week.”

“So you play here often?”

“Nah, just once in a while,” she sincerely answered.

“That’s fantastic,” I commented.

Sharon’s face grew red as she sat back in her seat.

We stayed for a while after her performance.
During the ride to her house, we were both quiet. The only sound was the music playing. Fatigue had consumed Sharon’s strength as she curled
her body on the seat, staring at me.

I dropped her off at her house while having a battle with my conscience about liking her. It was one of those moments when you’d want a bit more out of your friendship with your close friend.

Driving back home, I stopped at Lisa's house to say hi. The second my eyes met Lisa's golden eyes, my conscience surrendered and acknowledged Lisa was the one.

Chapter Twelve

The Necklace

The first semester of year two had come to an end, and I noted so many things about college students
which I hadn’t observed in my former school: they never competed for
the highest mark in a subject. Most people aimed for a pass. Lisa, Sharon
and I had aced our finals, whereas in Julie’s case I remained ignorant. For
unknown reasons her obsession over me had diminished, which gave me a sense
of relief. The feeling of relief was temporary the moment she began visiting
my house on the pretense of visiting my cousin. Stacey was an average
student, but still, obtaining a pass seemed like a slap to her face.

It was very impractical to see Sharon once the holiday kicked off. I’d always used going to college as an excuse to hang out with her. Now we were on vacation, I spent most of my time with Lisa. I had
to stop giving excuses to Stacey every morning about my whereabouts. I said, “Going to Lisa’s, call me if you need anything,” every time I left the
house.

Calvin and his parents had traveled to Paris on vacation, leaving poor
Lisa at home, though this didn’t seem to affect her. She seemed pleased to have the house all to herself.

We took advantage of this solitude. Lisa taught me
how to play badminton, and I taught her the basics of basketball. Things became difficult when she decided to teach me
karate. I gave up after two lessons because I wasn’t the violent type, or
maybe because I couldn’t hurt her. Also, we practiced on our various abilities: speed, hearing, jumping, ice/water and fire control. Strangely, we underwent all these activities without physically getting
attracted to each other – or, at the very least, not divulging it to each other.

Shafts of light sieved through the frost on the windows, alerting me it was morning. I often spent my nights at Lisa’s house, but the
night before I had to do some private work with Stacey. As usual, I melted the ice
on the window and tidied my room. These days, I hardly made breakfast
for Stacey since I left early for Lisa’s place. So to surprise her,
I prepared breakfast and took it to her room, knowing she would be
utterly pleased with it.

Stacey lay on her bed, her eyes inspecting the ceiling. It had been a
while since Stacey and I had shared a healthy discussion. I missed that.

“Good morning,” I called. She changed her posture upon hearing me.

“Hey, you didn’t have to do this,” she said, watching me place the tray on the stool closest to her bed.

“It’s nothing,” I replied. “How was your night?”

“Good, yours?” she asked.

“As usual, sleepless,” I replied.

Not having to sleep or eat didn’t bother me anymore. I felt better knowing I wasn’t taking this mysterious journey
alone.
Lisa was with me.

“So what are your plans for the holidays?” I asked curiously.

“Nothing much; just hanging out with friends and family… Talking
about family, my mom said I should inform you there’s a family dinner today.”

With a mild grimace, I rhetorically asked, “And it’s now you’re telling
me. What if I had plans for the day?”

“Well, do you?” she asked.

The fact was I always had each day
planned to be with Lisa.

“As a matter of fact, I do, but I’ll be here for dinner. What time is it?”

Stacey glanced at the pink bunny clock on the wall. "Dinner’s at seven."

“Okay. I’ll be there." I said.

“That’s settled,” she replied. “I'm ready to eat now, please can you hand me the tray?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

I reached for the tray and placed it on her bed.

“Thanks for your help yesterday. I'm grateful.”

“You would have done the same thing for me,” I said.

She began eating, and I left her to it, I didn't want to distract her while she ate. I sat on my office chair playing with my MacBook, when suddenly a warm current flowed through my veins and I
quivered. My eyes moved round the entire room.
It can't be
, I thought. I was meant to
go over to her house – not the opposite.