'Ishtar marries Bob Lee,' a vermilion invitation card written in white decorations read.
Elites of high caliber, friends, family and all well wishers woke up to a sealed envelope delivered on their door steps and some found it in their home mail boxes.
Whoever opened the envelope was shocked by the unforeseen news it carried. Happily, they recieved the good news of how Bob Lee was going to wed Ishtar. Besides the lovely headline, inside the card was a well stitched photo of Ishtar together with her fiancée Bob Lee. The card looked so beautiful.
"Honey, you need to look at this. The pretty mommy's boy Bob Lee is wedding Ishtar! This is unbelievable truth," Akira, a stubborn old boy with whom Ishtar and Bob Lee attended the same secondary school talked out loud, excitedly informing his wife who was in the kitchen preparing dishes, about the abrupt news.
"Who is Ishtar?" The wife asked.
"The loner girl who used to enjoy her meals from the corner of the school dinning room, have you forgotten?" Akira reminded wifey.
"Oh, that.... I used to think they're sister and brother!" Akira's wife said as soon as she remembered.
"That's what everyone thought, not until Bob Lee himself disclosed to us that Ishtar was just a maid's daughter," Akira couldn't forget a single bit of that moment back then.
"Such an adorable couple, look at them...," Akira's wife complimented, looking at their photo.
"They're wonderful indeed," said Akira, "but I'm suprised Bob Lee is marrying Ishtar, a girl he used to undermine carelessly at school!"
"Maybe she was ugly then and beautiful now!" Akira's wife related, respectfully.
"Ishtar was a beauty."
"And me?" Jokingly, wifey played jealousy.
Wedding invitations kept circulating. Not only Akira and his wife but everyone else who opened the envelope in their hands and read the wedding card felt pleased and honored to be part of such a wealthy celemony.
As invitation cards circulated around town and beyond, here, one of the cards landed in Nadia Browne's hands.
"Knock knock," Nadia Browne knocked softly on the door.
At the apartment in the rich neighborhood on which she stayed, Nadia Browne had a best female friend, her age mate named Sonia with whom they were so attached.
As best of friends, the two usually linked up for many different favourable opportunities. They could buzz about many different topics including new movies and boys.
Now, Sonia had just got a job to work as a secretary with the top most company in town, and she had informed Nadia Browne to come over as her best friend to pop Champagne, to celebrate the little great success together.
It was a very big achievement for a young lady like Sonia who had been searching for a job for almost a year, facing only rejections.
"Hey bunny....!" Sonia addresses Nadia when she opens the door.
Before Sonia finishes the sentence, Nadia cheers her up by popping the champagne bottle and splashes it all on her, completely empty.
"Oops... gosh...," Sonia comes to a shocking suprise, she expresses.
Nadia laughs happily, making sure nothing remains in the bottle. She pours all the drink on Sonia upto the last drop.
Dripping wet, "... gosh, I thought we were going to drink a toast to the new classy job! Now we're left with nothing," Sonia says.
Suddenly, Nadia Browne hugged Sonia so passionately before she entered inside the apartment, like Sonia was going to varnish. Emotional tears of joy began to draw out of Sonia's eyes.
"I can't believe it turned out to be the best job, in the best company, beyond my expectation, gosh," Sonia told Nadia who was very happy for her too.
"Best things happen at the right time, I'm very happy you've made it," Nadia Browne said, holding an empty champagne bottle, "I wish I had another full bottle, I would have done exactly what I've just done with this one; pop it and pour it all on you."
They both laughed with too much excitement and entered inside Sonia's apartment to rejoice more over her good luck.
"So, tell me how you ended up hitting a jackpot: secretary to the CEO of the biggest company in town, if not in the whole country! Do you even have an idea about how ladies can practice witchcrafts just to attain that job and position you've got?" Over a glass of red wine, standing next to the wide glass window as they watched the sun go down, Nadia told Sonia.
"Here is how I got the job;" Excitedly Sonia torched Nadia into how her luck came about, "usually when it's the right time like you said, just this week, I applied through the company email, same way I've been doing for months with many other companies in town which have rejected me."
"In just seconds while I was still looking at my laptop screen, a reply popped up, calling me for a private meeting with the CEO himself and his secretary. This is when I started seeing walls within my apartment spinning. I couldn't believe it!" Sonia's face was full of cheer.
"Wonderful!" Nidia exclaimed in delight.
"But I came to know why I got lucky when I met them," Sonia said to Nadia who was too eager to know, "the CEO of the company is getting married tomorrow; and guess who this magnificent young billionaire is getting married to;
"Who?" Nadia Browne asked inquisitively."
"His secretary," in a small happy voice, Sonia informed her, "yes, and because she is pregnant, the beautiful young lady won't be working anymore. She will have to sit home like a princess and be well taken care of."
"What? That lady is so lucky!" Exclaimed Nadia with wonder.
"Indeed people are blessed." Sonia stretched the point.
"But you're the luckiest one who just hit a jackpot," Nadia happily opened her big eyes widely as she spoke, cheering her friend Sonia.
"And am invited to their wedding too," Sonia whispered excitedly to Nadia, and she got out the beautifully looking invitation card to prove her point.
Nadia couldn't wait to hold the card in her two hands and read for herself.
"Ishtar marries Bob Lee" Nadia Browne read the headline on the card, "this is designed so nicely, I need this very idea for my wedding card too when the right man comes," smiling happily, she admired the card and opened it to look inside.
In here was the couple photo stitched on the card in beautiful art designs which suddenly came to Nadia's shock, the groom to be was a dude she met a month ago, and had a one night stand.
Nadia flashes back on a sexual encounter which occurred between her and Bob Lee that typically involved no commitment or expectation of a continuing relationship. This occurred when both were seeking for physical intimacy. The two didn't have the desire for a long-term emotional or romantic connection.
However, Nadia came to realize that the following days after that night, Bob Lee lost his guards and fell in love with her, a situation Nadia wasn't ready for because she was in a relationship with another sweetheart.
Back to the present day, Nadia put up a show infront of her best friend, she began to cough. She coughed the second and third time in a row, pretending to have choked on saliva.
"Is everything okay?" Sonia asked, concerned for her safety.
"Oh yes, I am!" Nadia's eyes and voice tone dejected, "I think I have to go to my quarters and swallow some tablets."
Nadia wasn't at all aware that the young dude who actually tried his level best to keep her after a one night stand was a billionaire CEO. How did she have known when their romance didn't last beyond one week? And now that it had come to her attention, this was a big loss she couldn't get over from.
Sonia gazed worriedly at her best friend who had drastically lost her healthy mood amidst a blissful state of comfort by the hope that she can finally afford a life of luxury.
As she escorted Nadia to her apartment, "Don't you think Marlon should come around for your rescue?" Just for emergency, Sonia thought of Nadia Browne's sweetheart.
"Unless he needs to deal with my body, that jerk of a guy Marlon doesn't care about me at all _ I guess I've told you about him more often," Nadia Browne's hopes in the guy she loved with all her everything were already out of the window, lost.
"Are you trying to say that your romance with him is a closed chapter?"
"I feel like I need to cut ties with him inside out for good."
"I don't think that's a good idea, maybe he needs some space to rethink."
"Just a few weeks ago, I came to discover that he has a wife and children, and to make matters worse, they have been together for seven years."
"What?" It shocked Sonia, "you guys met two years ago!"
"When I talked about it, now he doesn't call me, when I call he doesn't pick, and the less times he picks, it's a ground of dispute and complaint. We quarrel for hours."
"Uh, I've come to think that maybe when you looked at the beautiful engaged couple of my new boss and his secretary on the card you lost yourself away in sad memories."
....
The statement hit Nadia Browne to the bone, making her speechless. She chose not to continue with the conversation at the moment.
The drama escalates.