EKILE

“Ekile, we have to buy fuel remember it’s your turn to fill up the car tank.”

“My turn fa? I filled it up very recently now.”

“Very recently which was the last two weeks Monday. And then you used it to travel, because ‘God knows with this covid-19, I can’t enter any mode of transportation that’s public, even if it’s first-class and no matter how strict their adherence to the guidelines are.’”

“Your travel pretty much used up all the fuel and then you promised to buy the next one as compensation for my having to carpool with Lanre and his friends. Do you know how uncomfortable my car rides to work have been these past two weeks?”

“It’s okay o, I’ve heard you. Besides, I don’t think the car rides could have been THAT bad. Lanre is a pretty nice guy.”

“Oh, he is. But his friends aren’t and you know how he is now. His niceness is to a fault, I know how to defend myself, but when your friends make it a point to always make fun of & say vulgar things about the ONLY female in the car, you gats join mouth small now.

But my guy acts like he’s not even there sef. Makes me think he might not be as nice as we think he is.”

“Tor, oya na me I don’t know. I haven’t hung around him for long.”

“Ehh, I know. Me that I have I’m telling you that I don’t think he’s nice, he’s just quiet. Sha be focusing before you’d miss the turn o, we have to leave for work really early and I don’t want us to be late because we forgot to buy fuel.”

“Ahn Ahn now I’ve heard you, and I’m concentrating. Is it not you that’s been talking non-stop since?”

“You’d soon hit somebody now.”

“Keep quiet,” I say as I try to manoeuvre the car so I can park properly and face the fuel tank opening towards the machine.

“Aunty Ekile, good evening o. I haven’t seen you or your friend in a while, hope everything’s fine.” The attendant says as I park and try to get out.

“Buy groundnut from that woman o.”

“I’m buying fuel, come out and buy groundnut if you want it.”

“Yes, I travelled by car that’s why you haven’t seen either of us. Hope you’re good too.” I say replying to the attendant who’s laughing at our banter.

I’m a regular here as this is practically the only fueling station we buy from since we started living here two years ago. It’s the only one because it’s in front of our estate and very convenient and I always fill up the tank before it gets past the warning sign. Call me paranoid and slightly OCD, but the thought of being stranded in the middle of nowhere with no petrol and nowhere in sight to get one is so constant it irks me.

So the tank is never past the warning sign and the spare gallon in the car trunk is always full, just in case.

My housemate, Farida thought it was unnecessary and used to mock me for it, until the day she forgot to fill it up when it was her turn and the tank was past the warning sign. I wasn’t around and apparently, she’d been postponing it. She got stranded on a company assignment to this place she was still very unfamiliar with and then she called me.

After the jabs, I reminded her of the spare tank. Since then she never speaks ill of my preparedness.

Now, she reminds me.

I pay the attendant and buy the groundnut because:

1) I’m a good friend.

2) The woman’s groundnut is really really good.

I go to open the driver’s door when I see it, or at least I think I see it. Femi’s car; with the plate number and everything, which is weird and if I wasn’t who I was, then I’d say I was probably seeing things.

But I can’t be, because the first thing I notice about a car is usually the paint job and the plate numbers. No matter how flashy or deprecated it is.

As a kid, I was obsessed with them. My dad had this car shop he ran alongside his other businesses. It was more like a hobby he was making money off of and you could tell he really loved it because he spent a lot of time there and was really good at what he did.

The paint jobs were what drew me there in the first place because it was fascinating how a really horrible looking car could come in, get worked on and leave looking like Lewis Hamilton’s first choice.

And then plate numbers started to fascinate me because it was how my dad taught me to learn the slogans of all the 36 states including the capital. I’d gotten beaten enough at school they had to find an alternative and so one day he just went, if you can find the slogans of three different states per day for the next two weeks, you’d get a reward. And everybody knew my dad didn’t joke with his words.

He didn’t joke with the rewards either.

He also taught me that the state on a car’s number plate signified where a car was registered. So somehow, to my inquisitive mind, knowing the state on the plate sort of made me feel like I knew a little about whoever owned the car.

I didn’t pass the challenge, you'd be surprised how hard it is to find all 36 states through a car under two weeks, but it became a sort of obsession with me. I do it unconsciously now.

So yes, that car was definitely Femi’s. The only question is; how come?

Or maybe I’m really seeing things.

“Ekile, are you going to stand there forever? Please come in, I can smell the groundnut from here and I’m salivating already.”

“Oh, sorry.” I get in the car and turn on the ignition. I see the car through the rearview mirror again.

“Fari, shebi you know Femi’s car? Check that car behind us if that’s it.”

“There’s no car behind us for miles madam. Are you sure you’re okay? Abi I should go buy chains and then we can start taking you back to your village?” she says while laughing- more like cackling at her own joke.

I don’t find it funny.

*******************

She brings the topic up again when we’re home.

“Eki, are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been weird since after buying petrol. Did she spray you something and I didn’t see it?” The idiot laughs again. Normally, I’d laugh along but not today.

“Heiii, this one she’s not laughing. What happened? Is it our bossman that’s the problem? You’re missing him already eh? That’s why you’re busy seeing his car in places that it’s not.” And then she starts to wiggle her eyebrows at me, very stupid girl this one. It’s so funny because Farida has unmoveable eyebrows so her attempt is just stagnant eyebrows on a forehead that looks like its convulsing. I laugh, or at least I think I do.

Bossman.

That’s what she calls him because he used to head our branch here before he got transferred.

We were very close, definitely not dating, but way past the “just friends” level. He got transferred and then any hope or feelings were basically shoved aside, because:

1) I don’t like or do long-distance relationships.

2) I didn’t know if we were still serious about anything.

She’s asking about him because the journey I made which was for a company training was at the state he was transferred to. Somehow she let herself think whatever it was that she thought and then kept on hammering on it.

As if.

We both knew we wouldn’t even have the time due to work and the training and then any spare time we did have would be to just chill and catch up, nothing too deep or serious.

“Ekile, are you even listening?”

“What? Oh, it’s nothing.”

“What’s nothing? Are you okay? You’ve been weird since you came back. In fact, what happened during your trip biko?” she says the word and it sounds like “bike-o”.

“Did you hit your head or something? Because you’ve been acting strange since you came back. You just came in Friday night, slept in on Saturday, went to church Sunday and now today Monday we just went to work.

“I didn’t want to hound you because aside from being busy I know how exhausting these things can be. But yours is now over the top. Are you okay? What are you not telling me? Tell me what happened there Ekile.”

“Nothing o, nothing,” I reply.

“It’s ‘not’ nothing madam.” And now I think she’s noticed I’m avoiding her eyes because she’s making it a point to look into mine.

Somehow I flip.

“I just said it’s nothing.” The ice in my tone stuns me too. My hands get all jittery and they can’t hold the dish I was trying to clean up. I set it down before it falls.

I just wish she’d stop, but Farida doesn’t know how to until she gets what she wants. Usually, it’s admirable, but today is not the day.

“Well, that’s a dead giveaway.” She says when she’s recovered from the shock.

“Spill, Now!”

It’s the way she says the command that just does me in and also maybe the fact that I know that if she has to, she’d enter into my mouth and force it out of me.

“Femi’s dead Fari. Your Uncle Bossman is dead and somehow I’m responsible for it. I don’t even think his family knows yet.”

“Oh. My. God, Ekile.”