OFF THE HOOK EP:3 Plan B
Following Mom’s instructions, though skeptically, I returned to my room and let the makeup artist paint me.
“Have you changed your mind?” Chinelo asked me and I replied with a smile and a nod of my head.
“Are you ok?” It was Ebere's soft voice.
Our eyes met, and I felt the tears coming again, so I turned away quickly and just said, “Mhmm,.”
“I told you, it was just cold feet” I heard Chinelo say.
The DJ had changed the song that was playing before and was now playing Gollibe by Flavour. My bridal girls were lined up in front of me, all 8 of them in lime green dresses and black geles.
At the start of the song, they danced the choreographed steps as they made their way to the center of the stage, but before they could get there, their dance was interrupted by the loud murmuring of the crowd, and the DJ paused the song too.
I was the cause of the scene. Not because, as Aunty Ijeoma had said when she saw me in my full makeup and red traditional bridal regalia, “you look elegant”, but because, unlike my bridal girls, I had not moved from the spot I stood.
My knees were shaking, my heart took a race, and my eyes couldn’t hold all the eyes that looked at me, but this was the plan, and I had to see it through.
Chinelo and Ebere left the bridal train to where I was standing.
“What’s the problem,” Chinelo said harshly, and they both tried to drag me forward, but I shook them off.
“If you stand there long enough, he’ll come,” Mom had reassured me when I asked, “What if it doesn’t work?”
And she was right, because just after I had shaken my friends off, Dad excused himself from the high table and strutted down to me with his heavily pregnant belly, all fitted in his chieftaincy attire, a red cap, two white beads on both fat wrists, a white neck bead that bounced on and off his shiny black isi ago shirt with each stride.
When he got closer, in a soft voice only I am privileged to hear, he said, “Nne, ogini kwanu (Nne, what is the problem)?”
Easily, my eyes conjured tears again and I moved closer and held him by the elbow.
“Daddy” I cried.
“Eyah, odika Yadera achoro i hapu bé papa ya ozo (it seems Yadera doesn't want to leave her father's house again)” the MC joked.
But Dad looked into my eyes. He saw there was more to it than what the MC had said.
“Ogini?” He asked again, without much of the softness in his voice.
My lips trembled without words, and all I could do was shake my head as I let the tears flow down my makeup.
Dad considered me one last time, then took hold of my wrist and led me away from there back into the house. Mom followed too.
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Hey there, you’ve just read the third episode of OFF THE HOOK. If you liked it, I hope you did; please leave a comment, follow, and give it as many claps as you think it deserves. 🤗
