"You have a date with Mrs. Yasmin?"
"It's not a date." But he smiled knowing that she would refuse to go out with him if she heard his rebuffing.
"So it's not a date?" Efe probed.
"It's just a simple going out between a man and a woman."
"That shared a kiss."
"Are you going to tell me or not?"
"If it's a date—"
"It's not a date."
He glared at him. "If it's a date, which it is, then just go with the flow."
Edegbe nodded and waited. When nothing more was coming forth, he asked, "Just that?"
"Just that. She's not a poor woman that you would feel the need to flaunt your money, and you're not the type of man that would want to impress a woman, so just go with the flow. If you feel like touring around or watching a movie or eating out or taking her to a hotel, although you'll need to buy, at least, two packs of condom for the last part, because she looks like the kind of woman that would have a bug appetite in bed."
Speechless, he resolved to pidgin. "Na me find trouble."
…
The next day, by ten in the morning, after Edegbe convinced himself he had given Yasmin enough time to make up her mind, he drove to her house. He had never been at her place before, but he had patrolled the streets enough times to know that it stood at its outskirt. It was a mansion, and now that he knew she didn't have any children, coupled with the fact that her husband was dead, he wondered how she could live alone in a house so big.
When he pressed the button on the wall, he was greeted by an old man, one with the thickest Hausa accent he had ever heard. The man looked grumpy, and his red eyes told Edegbe he had disturbed his sleep.
"Is your madam home?" He asked politely.
"Me madam home, yes. What?"
At first he did not understand, so he asked again, pointing inside the compound. "Your madam, is she inside?"
"Me madam home, yes. What?"
He pieced the words. "Okay then, inform her she has a visitor."
"Me madam home, yes. What?"
Edegbe had expected so many things and an old man repeating a particular sentence was not one of them. He tried signing to the man, although he was not sure he knew the sign he was making. The man repeated the statement to every sign he made and after an unsuccessful communication, shut the door to his face.
Edegbe stood there, bewildered. He rang the bell again and this time when the old man opened up and burst into fervent Hausa, Edegbe knew that if he had a gun, he would have shot him.
"Just tell your madam somebody is here to see her," he tried again.
"He does not understand English." Yasmin wore one of those long flowing hijabs that stopped a little past her knee, and knotted, under her arm, a wrapper that reached her ankle.
"He doesn't?" Edegbe asked, relieved she was out. "But he keeps saying—"
"I taught him that. He does not even know what it means." She spoke in Hausa to the man and he retreated to his chambers.
"Then why assign him to the gate if he can't communicate in a proper language?"
"A proper language?" She asked. "His language is a proper language, it's the only proper language he knows."
"You know what I mean."
"Well, to pursue uninvited guests, like yourself. If I hadn't come out, he would have ignored you and you would have left feeling insulted. And next time, you wouldn't be insensible to visit without calling."
Edegbe gaped at her. "Jesus Christ the son of God, Yasmin! You barge into my compound without care."
"I did not say I would come," she told him.
"You said I should wait, I waited and now I'm here to pick you up."
"Pick me up," she repeated as though she liked the sound of it. "And if I may ask, where do you intend to take me to?"
He had thought about it throughout the night and he knew it would be foolish of him to show up in her house without a plan, yet he showed up in her house without a plan. "Somewhere nice," he managed to say.
"Somewhere nice is not a place." She waited while he lapsed into an unthought silence. "You don't know, do you?"
"I'll think of something on our way."
"On our way to where?" She raised an amused brow in question.
"Fine." He exhaled defeatedly. "You win."
"Good, because I have a place in mind."
"You do?"
"Yes, and it's a surprise."
Edegbe smiled. There was a girly childishness in the way she said it was a surprise. "I look forward to this side of you even more than this surprise."
She ignored that. "Let me get something from inside."
He waited by the passenger's side so that when she came out, minutes later, with a small poly bag and her hand bag, he opened the door. She eyed him, askance, but acquiesced. "Don't you ever feel hot in that clothe?" He asked, climbing into the car.
"I've been dressing like this since I was a child."
"It doesn't make it less suffocating, or the sun less scorching. I hate the northern sun."
"You hate everything about the north."
"Where to?" He asked as he ignited the car.
"Kagoro town, near Kafanchan."
As she talked, the typed the address into Google map and then announced. "That's like a three hours drive."
"Without traffic."
"Without traffic." He revved the engine but didn't move the car, he watched her.
"You're staring," she said.
"How can I not? You're beautiful."
"I would love to say same about you but you're not your friend."
His brows furrowed into a frown. "I'm an attractive man." He turned the steering and set the car into motion.
"I never said you weren't." But the corner of her lips rose up into a small smile.
Edegbe's one hand was on the steering while his other hand rubbed his rough chin and he kept repeating the statement, "I'm an attractive man," until Yasmin couldn't hold it longer and burst into an audible laughter.
"Don't laugh," Edegbe said, "I'm an attractive man, stop laughing!"
"Fine, you're an attractive man."
"It's true!" He argued, finding doubt in her words. He turned the rear view mirror so that he would look at his reflection. "See?" He moved his face sideways. "I'm an attractive man."
Yasmin's voice caught in her throat, her laughter hysterical. Edegbe watched her, an amused smile starting to form on his lips. He loved the look on her face when she laughed, and it pleased him that he was seeing it again. And maybe it was because he didn't see her laugh often, or that he just loved seeing her laugh, her laughter was very contagious.
"You should laugh more often, you look more free and easily accessible when you laugh."
"I don't want to look more free and easily accessible."
"You look more beautiful when you laugh."
"I know."
"Other women would pretend to be flattered and say 'thank you'."
"Do you say 'thank you' when somebody say you're a man? You know you are a man, you don't feel flattered by it."
He smiled. "A narcissist, I see. Have you had breakfast?" She nodded. "I have not." He rubbed his stomach.
"Why should you leave the house without eating? Are you a small boy to be excited by a date? You should buy something, maybe akara," she told him.
"No, I'm okay." But his stomach grumbled otherwise. Embarrassed, he honked the car and the blaring sound lasted until the grumbling stopped. He was glad that she didn't react and so when his stomach grumbled again, he honked the car again.
"Just buy akara,"
Without protest he found and parked in front of a woman who sat under an umbrella frying the bean balls in hot oil, the smoke from the fire rising up to cover her face. She coughed a few times and cleared the smoke off her face before asking how much he wanted to buy. He told her and she packaged the hot balls of akara in an old newspaper before giving it to him.
"Madam, can't you put this in a nylon?" The woman glared at him before acquiescing. "Imagine that," he told Yasmin when he climbed back into the car. "Would she have given me without a nylon if I came by foot? Or does she think I enjoy having my car stained with oil?"
"She gave you the nylon, did she not?"
Shaking his head, he replied, "We live in a country where you'd think having money guarantees a lot of privileges, but you would be annoyed by the discrimination that follows. Some people just hate you because you have money, as if you're the cause of their poverty."
"I don't see why a woman who fries akara should hate you."
"She does." He threw one ball into his mouth and offered another to her. She declined with a shake of head and he continued, "There's something that speaks hatred in the way she refused to give me a proper wrapper."
"She did not refuse to give you, she just did not think it necessary. See, can we stop arguing about this? I always have senseless arguments with you, you, a rich man who buys akara from under an umbrella stand."
He looked at her in disbelief. "Jesus Christ, Yasmin, you told me to buy akara from there."
"I just wanted to see, ever heard of a rich man buying akara from under an umbrella?"
"Efe has always told me to be wary of women, now I know why. And it seems our definition of being rich differs."
Yasmin rolled her eyes. "Yes, mine is somebody who walks into a dealership shop, points a red Lamborghini and pays cash, yours is someone who makes the cost of living a little cheaper."
"I don't see how I can ever like you." He blinked at her, one eyed.
"And I see different ways that I can."
Edegbe thought of something sweeter to say, then something reasonable, then something manly, then something, anything, to say. What came to his lips was, "Do you know that in Benin, we fry akara with red oil, then the covering becomes crusty and crunchy in a way."
"Oh."
He felt stupid. He should have told her he liked her boldness, or her scent, or the way she laughed. Or that he was curious about her, especially her hair. "Would you believe me if I told you I do not know what to say?"
"Just drive the car, Edegbe."
"Yasmin—"
"I like men with guts, the kind of guts you had when you kissed me in front of everybody. But I'll be a fool if I have to keep daring you to do or say something both you and I want you to do or say, so if you don't have anything to say, shut up and drive the car."
He blinked again. He was not used to receiving orders, instead he gave and watch people implement them. But he was not even upset, sneakily, the corner of his lips pulled up in a small smile, he did not know if it was before coming to the north or after, but he definitely loved bold women.