Simisola Owolabi stared at her chubby face in the toilet mirror and pinched herself to be sure she didn't hallucinate the event that happened a few minutes back.
How was I there and back? She wondered.
The cold from within, sweat on her body, nose-raising feeling of soap, and her shaky breathes made her know she wasn't dreaming. What happened to her was absolutely real.
From the corner of her eyes, she sighted a tiny fair hand trying to grab her shoulders. Hurriedly, she pulled out of reach and turned to face her date, Maxwell Omoleye, a slim, fair guy with an oblong head full of white hair that made people dubbed him Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian writer. Him buying into the idea and retaining the hairstyle nauseated her because it transformed him into a scarecrow, especially with his black glasses fashioned with thick industrial rims.
'What happened there?' Max's voice quivered. The fear in his eyes as he stared at her that moment assured her of her own sanity.
His mountain flower body spray graced her nostrils and sparked a ravenous desire to release herself into his arms, which was her initial plan, careful about nothing, especially her virginity.
Simi shook her head frantically. 'You don't understand.
'Help me understand!' Max adjusted his glasses.
Simi wheezed and looked around, waiting for word. She couldn't explain what happened. Fortunately, two ladies cackled as they pushed their way into the toilet.
Seeing them, the ladies stopped. A derisive grunt came from the darker of the ladies. Simi wished for her body, which despite being donned in the smallest adult t-shirt Simi had ever seen, still looked smaller in it.
Max turned from one side to another, confused.
Simi seized the opportunity, fled the scene, squeezed her fat body past the ladies into the restaurant's main part, grabbed her green Louise Vuitton's handbag, and made for the door. Max was hot on her tail. She could feel him breathing down her neck.
Knowing that he valued temper control, she concentrated on getting out of exquisite Tori's Kitchen, the classiest restaurant in Fortune City.
Max paid handsomely to get them a reservation, and now she was ruining the perfect Valentine day he had set for them. Now, all she needed was to be tucked away in her bed, buried under the enormous flowery blanket, listening to Adele, drowning in her wonder. There, she would pinpoint the root of this problem. Max, nineteen, was three years older than she but always looked like a child. Yet, his parents' wealth always gave him the affluence he deserved.
Max longed for her shoulders again. 'Simisola'.
'Leave me be!' Simi cried as she brushed his hands off.
At that point, the tears she had been holding back suddenly cracked out.
'Bro!' Someone called from afar.
Simi knew what was about to happen: another opportunity.
'Talk to me… I know what I saw!' Max said, pulled her hands and spun hers, making her stare into his ruddy face
'You saw nothing. Simi steadied herself.
Max drew nearer. 'You weren't in that toilet. I called for you. Opened each cubicle. And there was no place you could have gone.
'I'm hungry…' Simi looked away and murmured. 'And I can't do this now.
Max turned towards the restaurant. 'Food. See, food! Seat is… Help me understand what happened.
Truly, the aroma of different foods jostled for preference in her cravings. Her sudden desire to eat was unwarranted since she and Max feasted a while back.
'Not now', Simi pleaded.
'You entered that toilet. And disappeared. Where did you go?' Max's voice amplified.
Her heart sank. Quickly, her eyes dashed sporadically from one part of the room to the other. Indeed, that statement caught people's attention, and she could swear that she saw someone bringing out their phone to record.
Snatching her hand, Simi hurried away and was lucky to meet a bikeman waiting just outside. God sent, she thought.
'Bro! You didn't pay….' Someone called again.
The bike rider, mid-twenty, had a bald that shone under the blazing sun like a stainless product, even as he brandished a big smile, unperturbed by the smug on Simi's face.
'Go!' She said and mounted the bike.
'Where?' The bike man said. He had an American accent.
'Just get going…' Simi refused to look back.
'Ma?'
'Go! Get… Go…'
Max was torn between following her and answering the waiter bugging him for payment. Simi sighed.
'I will call you!' Max yelled after her.
That wasn't her concern. Right now, she needed clarification.
Before the whole fiasco began, Simi pleaded with Max for a few seconds in the toilet to apply a little make-up on her face before they left for the movie that would start soon. He told her she was beautiful, but she could never trust the words of a man trying to woo her. Since she persisted, he saw her off to the toilet door to ensure she kept to her time.
There, Simi entered the toilet, powdered her face, and adjusted her jeans, blouse, neck chain, and hair. Then, she closed her eyes, wishing she was alone with Ekele, a boy she once loved, watching him sleep peacefully. Ekele always made her happy.
Immediately, the loud music became a distant moan, the toilet stench changed to the coarse smell of drugs and injections, and a rickety fan swirled above. Simi opened her eyes.
There, a young Ekele laid on the bed, with a water drip hanging by his side.
'No way!' She muttered as she stared into the sleepy face of the young boy on the bed. She remembered that day. Not that she was near him, but she knew the circumstance that brought him to that state since that was the same cloth Ekele wore the day he convulsed and was rushed to the hospital.
Simi glanced at everywhere in the room.
She remained transfixed for a long while, hoping that moment would be forever, that it wouldn't be just a figment of her imagination. Taking her time, she looked him over.
I'm daydreaming, Simi thought.
After a while, she shook her head and closed her eyes, wishing she was out of that place. When she opened her eyes, she met herself in the toilet, at the same spot she first thought of Ekele, staring at herself in the mirror. Everything about her was still real. Even the birthmark with the shape of a dumbbell remained tattooed on the bridges of her nose.
Simi inhaled sharply as the bikeman steadied itself again. He looked competent.
If she could snap her fingers and let everything stop, she would. But for now, she would stay off-grid till she comprehended what was happening. Without any warning, her bikeman picked up his pace.
'Okada man!' Simi yelled.
'Sorry, young lady!' The bike man shouted and muttered some incoherent words.
Quickly, she leaned forward. 'Don't kill me… And where are we going? I told you to go Ireti Ayo Avenue'.
'Sorry, lady. We're being followed', the rider shouted again. This time, his foreign accent pricked her curiosity.
Simi twisted to look backwards. True to the biker's words, two black Toyota Camry tailed them. Despite the bleak view of the cars' occupants, Simi couldn't hold back the cold that sprinted down her spine.
'I don't know them o…' She said.