MERCEDES AND BABIES

“So will you help me? Please!” She sounded like she was about to kneel down in plea.
I held my iphone on my ear with a grip that is between holding and letting go. I stared into the empty space as if waiting for a handwriting on the wall to appear. I was definitely dry of words. I had an indecipherable feeling in between my head and tummy. Had it not been for the swamp like leather single couch in my soon to be missus’ house, I’d have fainted and hit my head on the cabinet or something. Or perhaps I’d have laughed while kicking the air only to miscalculate and kick the glass coffee table. It was a mixed reaction, remember?
She was still waiting at the other end of the line. We had talked for seventeen minutes, sixteen of which she used to pour out her heart to her ex-lover. She was so timely when she called because my intended was to arrive in an hours time. Who would want to receive a distress call from an ex when having diner with his main?
She called and commenced a lip service that perhaps she has been using on sponsors heaven knows she dumped me for. You know ladies nowadays – as if two years had made me forget how she texted some bad words the last time we talked. I hated whatsapp for not having word sensors from that day. What a parting shot it was like a bullet launched from the barrel of a shot gun. If you watch your movies well, you’d know that people seldom survive after being shot with that kind of a gun.
I was numb. I kept on thinking on how it is possible to help such a person. We had been so good together, through dry spells and money rain, new soles and no shoes, heels and flats, mulika mwizis and tablets… Then one day, she made me sing like Bruno Mars. Suns and moons later, I saw her all over instagram, giving men a run for their money and loins perhaps. Oh yes she settled. She settled for a mjango I thought she deserved. Besides, all that time I was with her, I kept on pinching myself. I cannot tell how I jumped off the friend zone.
I heard the door open. She was here already, yet I looked so sulky.
“Hi dear. Sorry I’m late.” I looked at my watch. It was 6.45pm. When she is early she says she is late. When she comes late she says she has not taken long.
Grumbling. “Yee.”
It was supposed to be a blissful night but I have never mastered the act of pretence. You bet she noticed immediately.
She took off her velvet wedges and let them fly to wherever they’d land.
Walking over to me, “Tell me what’s wrong?”
For a moment through the way that sounded, I thought she’d slap me for being moody. She hates it when I’m moody. Though at times I like the way she turns sweet when I’m moody. She dares to do anything to drive off the moods. “Should I take off my clothes to cheer you up?” I say, “What are you waiting for?” She walks away, “If you’re moody, how can you be in the ‘moods’?” I forgot to say that approach never works by the way. She is a wise one.
She sits on my laps and pecks my forehead.
“Who is she?” She always knows where the itch is. Now she gets to scratch. I didn’t want to tell her about the phone call because I was not sure what to expect.
My hands were tied, “Well,” I cleared my throat. “She called me before you came in.”
I raised my head after saying that in order to study the unfolding reaction on her face. I noticed she still smelt fresh. Her perfume was still dominant on her clothes. I wonder whether she ever sweats. I guess that is why I call her angel. (See what I did there?) The look on her face showed she knew who I was talking about. In fact, she hates her for all the reasons I know and others I don’t. Call it girl stuff.
“What did she want?” The metal in her voice was increasing.
“Aahm, I know what she wants, but I don’t know her intentions. She needs my help.”
“Let me guess, her rich boyfriend dumped her.”
“I think you didn’t guess. You know.” She risked a smile. I bet she wanted to giggle, but she remembered at the knick of the impending laughter that she is to be the serious woman of a man haunted by his past here.
Sitting up,”Wait what? Her boyfriend? She didn’t tell me that!”
“Did she specify what sort of help she wanted?”
“She said she needs 100Gz. It’s the amount she owes the university she is in. She added ati her dad reached a dead end, he can’t be able to pay.”
Clicking, “That bitch!”
“So now she is a bitch?”
Doing a zig zag with her head, “Na kwani? She lied to you!”
“So I shouldn’t help her?”
“After all she has done to you? Do you even have that money?”
I pause for a while. I thought of the probable places I can get that amount if I was to look for it. I turn to look at the one seated on my laps. “Don’t even think about it!” She says as if she knew what I was thinking. Sincerely she is the only one who can entrust me with that kind of money. “I cannot give up my money to such a wreck.”
“Eiy babe you’ve made it personal. Mafeelings ni za nini. Story yake imeisha.”
“Do you know what hurts me most is that she did what she did to you…”
I quickly interrupted, “Of which you should be glad because I would not have ended up with you.” I smiled like an emoji.
She only looked at me and continued talking. Mjango that was a vibe and a half there. It was worth a moment. “… then she has the guts to come and ask you for help? For money? Money to clean up the mess she got herself into?”
That was on my face. I thought for a while. “Do you know something that I don’t know?”
She sighed, “Do you know she has a mercedes?”
Shrieking, “What!”
“Yee! A friend of mine knows her well. Her fake dude bought her that mercedes on loan with both of their names. Now he has gone incognito. Not to mention the apartments at Sifa Towers that he has left her in.”
She stood up from my laps as I nursed the effects of those facts which had I not heard, I’d have been fooled again – and of course the effects of a woman having sat on my laps for those minutes I did not count. What would I do without this woman?
So now it was clear to me as to why my conscience was having mixed reactions. It was worth some pity because that female mjango called my ex was in deep crap. Yet again it was funny because, well, she is my ex and she chose to leave for the grass that looked greener.
As she stretched her tight skirt, “Come I give you a hug.”
I stood up to be consoled by the real woman in my life. “Don’t worry. Nobody will ever lie to you while I’m here.”
That was a moment there. “Before I forget,” She said.
I released the hug to look at her. “She is also pregnant. Nowonder her dad doesn’t want to support her anymore.”
I clicked and giggled as I walked past her. “Now that’s some deep crap. Ah! Let’s go have our…”
“Aki wewe!” I heard her say with a weight of rebuke in her voice. We just had a good moment and now she was rebuking me? I turned to confirm.
She was looking at something at the couch. It was my phone. “Kwani were you recording?”
“No!” I said affirmatively then I froze for a while. I had just remembered that I did not hang up! I thought I did. How the phone slipped to the valleys of the couch, I don’t know. She picked it up and we both stared at the screen. It read 56.07 and as it turned to 56.08, the call was hanged up on the other end.
I slowly raised up my head and looked at her. Oh yes she looked back at me with a face that said, “So you were playing tricks on me eeh?”
She threw my phone back on the couch and headed for the stairs. “Wait, wait!” She resisted the efforts of my hand to make her stay abit longer to listen to the truth and apology.
“Babe I can explain…”