Everything Good Will Come (8 page)

“You and your boyfriend, sha.”

I poked her shoulder. “He is not my boyfriend.”

She forced me to call him. I recited his number which we found in the telephone book and my heart thumped so hard it reached my temples. Sheri handed the receiver to me. “Hello?” came a high-pitched voice, and I promptly gave the phone back to Sheri.

“Em, yes, helleu,” she said, faking a poor English accent. “Is Damola in please?”

“What's she saying?” I whispered.

Sheri raised a finger to silence me. Unable to sustain her accent, she slammed the phone down.

“What happened?” I asked.

She clutched her belly.

“What did she say, Sheri?”

“He's not... in.”

I snorted. That was it? My jaw locked watching her kick. She threatened to make another phone call, just to hear the woman's voice again. I told her if she did, I'd rip the phone from its socket. I too was laughing, from her silliness. My stomach ached. I thought I would suffocate.

“Stop.”

“I can't.”

“You have to go home, Sheri.”

“Wh-why?”

“My mother hates you.”

“S-so?”

We slapped each other's cheeks to stop.

“Don't worry,” she said. “We won't phone your boyfriend again. You can communicate with him, unless his mind is otherwise occupied.”

She went home with mascara tears and said it was my fault. The following Sunday, she appeared at my bedroom window again. This time, Baba was burning leaves and the smell nauseated me. I leaned over to shut my window and Sheri's head popped up: “
Aburo
!”

I jumped at least a foot high. “What is wrong with you? Can't you use the door?”

“Oh, don't be so morose,” she said.

“Sheri,” I said. “I don't think you know the meaning of that word.”

She was dressed in a black skirt and strapless top. Sheri was no longer a yellow banana. She could easily win any of the beauty contests in my school, but her demeanor needed to be toned down. She was
gragra
. Girls who won were demure.

“You look nice,” I said.

She also had the latest fashions: Oliver Twist caps, wedge heels and flares. Her grandmother knew traders in Quayside by the Lagos Marina, who imported clothes and shoes from Europe.

She blinked through her mascara. “Are your parents in?”

“Out.”

“They're always out.”

“I prefer it.”

“Let's go then.”

“No. Where?”

“A picnic. At Ikoyi Park. Your boyfriend will be there.” I smiled. “What boyfriend, Sheri?”

“Your boyfriend, Damola. I found out he'll be there.” Tears filled my eyes. “You rotten little... ”

I resisted the urge to hug her. As she tried to explain her connection to him, I lost track. I wore a black T-shirt and white dungarees. In the mirror, I checked my hair, which was pulled into two puffs and fingered the Fulani choker around my neck. I picked a ring from my dressing table and slipped it on my toe.

“Boogie on Reggae Woman,” Stevie Wonder was singing. Sheri snapped her fingers and muddled up the lyrics between grunts and whines. I studied her leg movements. No one knew where this latest dance came from. America, a classmate had said, but where in that country, and how it crossed an ocean to reach ours, she couldn't explain. Six months later the dance would be as fashionable as our grandmothers. Then we would be learning another.

“Aren't you wearing makeup?” she asked.

“No,” I said, letting my bangles tumble down my arm.

“You can't come looking like that,” she said.

“Yes, I can.” “Morose.”

I was, she insisted. I wore no makeup, didn't go out, and I had no boyfriend. I tried to retaliate. “Just because I'm not juvenile like the rest of you, following the crowd and getting infatuated with... ”

“Oh hush, your grammar is too much,” she said.

On the road to the park we kept to the sandy sidewalk. I planned to stay at the picnic until six-thirty if the rain didn't unleash. My mother was at a vigil, and my father wouldn't be back until late, he said. The sun was mild and a light breeze cooled our faces. Along the way, I noticed that a few drivers slowed as they passed us and kept my face down in case the next car was my father's. Sheri shouted out insults in Yoruba meanwhile: “What are you looking at? Yes you. Nothing good will come to you, too. Come on, come on. I'm waiting for you.”

By the time we reached the park, my eyes were streaming with tears.

“That's enough,” she ordered.

I bit my lips and straightened up. We were beautiful, powerful, and having more fun than anyone else in Lagos. The sun was above us and the grass, under our feet.

The grass became sea sand and I heard music playing. Ikoyi Park was an alternative spot for picnics. Unlike the open, crowded beaches, most of it was shaded by trees which gave it a secluded air. There were palm trees and casuarinas. I saw a group gathered behind a row of cars. I was so busy looking ahead I tripped over a twig. My sandal slipped off. Sheri carried on. She approached two boys who were standing by a white Volkswagen Kombi van. One of them was Damola, the other wore a black cap. A portly boy walked over and they circled her. I hurried to catch up with them as my heart seemed to punch through my chest wall.

“We had to walk,” Sheri was saying.

“You walked?” Damola asked.

“Hello,” I said.

Damola gave a quick smile, as if he had not recognized me. The other boys turned their backs on me. My heartbeat was now in my ears.

Sheri wiggled. “How come no one is dancing?”

“Would you like to?” Damola asked.

I hugged myself as they walked off, to make use of my arms. The rest of my body trembled.

“How long have you been here?” I asked the portly boy.

The boys glanced at each other as if they hadn't understood.

“I mean, at the party,” I explained.

The portly boy reached for his breast pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes.

“Long enough,” he said.

I moved away. These boys didn't look like they answered to their parents anyway. The portly one had plaits in his hair and the boy with the cap wasn't even wearing a shirt under his dungarees. Damola, too, looked different out of school uniform. He had cut-off sleeves and his arms dangled out of them. He was smaller than I'd dreamed; a little duller, but I'd given him light, enough to blind myself. I pretended to be intrigued by the table where a picnic had been laid. The egg sandwich tasted sweet and salty. I liked the combination and gobbled it up. Then I poured myself a glass from the punch bowl. I spat it back into the cup. It was full of alcohol.

The music stopped and started again. Sheri continued to dance with Damola. Then with the boy in the cap, then with the portly boy. It was no wonder other girls didn't like her. She was not loyal. I was her only girl friend, she once wrote in a letter. Girls were nasty and they spread rumors about her, and pretended to be innocent. I watched her play wrestle with the portly boy after their dance. He grabbed her waist and the other two laughed as she struggled. If she preferred boys, she was free to. She would eventually learn. It was obvious, these days, that most of them preferred girls like Sheri. Whenever I noticed this, it bothered me. I was sure it would bother me even if I was on the receiving end of their admiration. Who were they to judge us by skin shades?

I walked toward the lagoon where the sand was moist and firm, and sat on a large tree root. Crabs dashed in and out of holes and mud-skippers flopped across the water. I searched for my home. The shore line curved for miles and from where I sat I could not see it.

“Hi,” someone said.

He stood on the bank. His trouser legs were rolled up to his ankles and he wore bookish black rim glasses.

“Hello,” I said.

“Why aren't you dancing?” he asked.

He was too short for me, and his voice wavered, as if he were on the verge of crying.

“I don't want to.”

“So why come to a party if you don't want to dance?”

I resisted the urge to frown. That was the standard retort girls expected from boys and he hadn't given me the chance to turn him down.

He smiled. “Your friend Sheri seems to be enjoying herself. She's hanging around some wild characters over there.”

That wasn't his business, I wanted to say.

He pushed his glasses back. “At least tell me your name.”

“Enitan.”

“I have a cousin called Enitan.”

He would have to leave soon. He hadn't told me his own name.

“Would you like to dance?” he asked.

“No, thanks.”

“Please,” he said, placing his hands together.

I swished my feet around the water. I could and then go home.

“All right,” I said.

I remembered that I sat on my sandals. Reaching underneath to pull them out, I noticed a red stain on my dungarees.

“What?” he asked.

“I'm sorry. I don't want to dance.”

“Why not?”

“I just don't.”

“But you said... ”

“Not anymore.”

He stood there. “That's the problem with you. All of you. You're not happy until someone treats you badly, then you complain.”

He walked away with a lopsided gait and I knew he'd had polio. I considered calling after him. Then I wondered why I had needed to be asked to dance in the first place. I checked the stain on my dungarees instead.

It was blood. I was dead. From then on I watched people arrive and leave. More were dancing and their movements had become lively. Some stopped by the bank to look at me. I tried to reason that they would eventually leave. The day could not last forever. For a while a strange combination of rain and sunset occurred, and it seemed as if I was viewing the world through a yellow-stained glass. I imagined celestial beings descending and frightened myself into thinking that was about to happen today. My feet became wrinkled and swollen. I checked my watch; it was almost six o'clock. The music was still playing, and the picnic table had been cleared. Only Sheri, Damola, and his two friends remained. They stood by a Peugeot, saying goodbye to a group who were about to leave. I was planning exactly what to say to Sheri, constructing the exact words and facial expression to use, when she approached me.

“Why are you sitting here on your own?” she asked.

“Go back to your friends,” I said.

She mimicked my expression and I noticed her eyes were red. She was barefooted and about to scramble up a tree, or fall face down on the bank; I wasn't sure which.

“Are you drunk?” I asked.

“What if I am?”

The air smelled sweet. I looked beyond her. The Peugeot had gone. Damola and his friends were huddled in a semi- circle by the Kombi van. Damola was in the middle, smoking what looked like an enormous cigarette. I'd never seen one before, never smelled the fumes, but I knew: it reddened your eyes, made you crazy. People who smoked it, their lives would amount to nothing.

“What are they doing?” I asked.

Sheri lifted her arms and her top plummeted.

“We have to go,” I said.

She danced away and waved over her shoulder. When she reached the boys, she snatched the hemp from Damola. She coughed as she inhaled. The boys laughed. I stamped my feet in the water. I would give them ten minutes. If they hadn't gone, I would risk the disgrace and walk away. I heard Sheri cry out, but didn't bother to look.

I got up when I no longer heard voices, walked toward the van. From the angle I approached it, I could see nothing behind the windscreen. As I came closer, I spotted the head of the boy with a cap bent over by the window. I edged toward the side door. Sheri was lying on the seat. Her knees were spread apart. The boy in the cap was pinning her arms down. The portly boy was on top of her. His hands were clamped over her mouth. Damola was leaning against the door, in a daze. It was a silent moment; a peaceful moment. A funny moment, too. I didn't know why, except my mouth stretched into the semblance of a laugh before my hands came up, then tears filled my eyes.

The boy in the cap saw me first. He let go of Sheri's arms and she pushed the portly boy. He fell backward out of the van. Sheri screamed. I covered my ears. She ran toward me, clutching her top to her chest. There was lipstick across her mouth, black patches around her eyes. The portly boy fumbled with his trousers.

Sheri slammed into me. I shook her shoulders.

“Sheri!”

She buried her face in my dungarees. Spit dribbled out of her mouth. She beat the sand with her fists. Her arms were covered in sand and so were mine. I tried to hold her still, but she pushed me away and threw her head back as the van started.

“N-nm,” she moaned.

I dressed her, saw the red bruises and scratches on her skin, her wrists, around her mouth, on her hips. She stunk of cigarettes, alcohol, sweat. There was blood on her pubic hairs, thick spit running down her legs. Semen. I used sand grains to clean her, pulled her panties up. We began to walk home. The palm trees shrunk to bamboo shoots, the headlights of oncoming cars were like fire-flies. Everything seemed that small. I wondered if the ground was firm enough to support us, or if our journey would last and never end.