Chapter 41

When the new school year finally begins again, I am more excited about it than my children who can’t help but wonder about my high spirits. I’m glad to finally have a defined routine again; taking the girls to school, then going to work after dropping them off, grabbing the groceries once a week, hanging out with my girlfriends every other weekend and getting occasional visits from my siblings now and then.

It feels good to be able to fill up my days with loads of activities to take my mind off Dominic and whether he and Pamela eventually hit it off after that awful morning four and a half months ago. Gosh, how time flies!

“Knock, knock. Who’s in?” Says Joe, breaking into my thoughts.

I’m sitting in my office; it’s a slow business day and I am impatiently counting down to when I’ll have to go and pick up my daughters from school. That’s one of the new responsibilities that I’ve added to my plate since I broke up with Dominic. Mrs. B on the other hand is annoyed to be having less and less to do, but she’ll just have to manage for now and let me fill up my time as much as I can. My sanity needs it.

“Hey, Joe. What’s up?” I ask, forcing my facial muscle to rearrange themselves to form a believable smile.

“I asked if you have heard back from the Nike Art Gallery about that order for their Indigo collection. Weren’t they supposed to deliver them today?”

“Uh, yeah,” I reply, uncertainly. “I’ll call them to confirm now. Thanks.”

“Sure,” he says but doesn’t leave.

“Is there something else?” I ask him with a raised eyebrow.

He hesitates before speaking again. “Are you – are you ok?” He asks in a small voice, and I can tell that he is worried about my possible reaction to his question.

I sigh. “I will be fine, Joe,” I say honestly. “Thanks for asking.”

“Cool,” he says, and leaves me alone in my office.

No matter how much I keep myself busy, I can’t escape the crushing loneliness that envelopes me at moments like this when I am by myself with nothing to distract me. I hate how much I miss Dominic; I wish I can stop longing for him, especially at night when I’m alone in my bed and craving his embrace.

These days, I find myself sleeping in my children’s room, just so that I won’t sleep alone. It doesn’t help too that each time I go on the internet, I see news stories about him and what he’s up to in the business world. I cannot deny the pain I felt when I saw pictures of him going to a movie premiere and then a charity ball with Chineye Ozor, the exquisitely beautiful and reigning beauty queen who recently won the crown of the Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria pageant. She is absolutely his type, not me. Not me, the thirty-six-year-old divorced mum of two eight-year-old children. Dominic and I do not belong to the same social circles, we don’t belong to the same world, so it’s only natural that we go our separate ways eventually. But why am I still hung up on him after four months of breaking up with him? Why do I still feel so hurt?

I sigh and lean back in my chair, pondering my current situation. My mind flashes back to last week when I’d hung out with my girlfriends at Hauwa’s house during her husband’s birthday party. They’d asked me how I was feeling these days, and I had lied and said that I was doing great, but Jennifer had seen through my lie. She’d looked at me in the eyes and said, “I think you’re in love with the billionaire, Uzezi. You’ve fallen in love with Dominic without even realizing it.”

“Oh, please. Don’t be ridiculous,” I had promptly rejected her observation. “We only dated for a few months.”

“And that’s enough time to fall in love,” she had insisted. “Girl, look at you. You clearly miss him and not being with him is affecting you more than you’re willing to admit.”

“I agree with Jennifer,” Najite had said. “You and Dominic had something special while it lasted, so it’s normal for you to feel… upset after your relationship ended abruptly the way it did.”

“Ugh, you guys please stop!” I’d told them. “I’m not upset or sad or miserable. Yes, I was disappointed but that’s in the past now. I’ve moved on and I’m fine, trust me, ladies, I am fine.”

What a stupid lie! Of course, I’m not fine. I am far from fine and as much as I hate to admit it, I think Jennifer was right. I have foolishly let myself fall in love with Dominic. I thought I knew better; I thought our relationship was supposed to just be a fun, light-hearted relationship that wasn’t supposed to lead to anything serious. How then did I let my guard down and opened up my heart to Dominic the way I did? How did I get so careless?

I check my desktop clock and see that it’s time to go and pick up my daughters from school. A part of me is tempted to call Mrs. B and tell her to go and to pick them up instead, but I quickly dismiss the thought. Why sit here all day and brood, when I can occupy my time and mind with something as rewarding as the opportunity to bond with my children? I turn off my computer and grab my handbag to leave the office, but just then, someone knocks on my door.

“Yes?” I say impatiently and open the door. “What is it again, Joe?” I ask him when I see that he’s the one looking for me.

“Well, please permit me to say that working here has given me the rare opportunity to meet with famous people that I may have never gotten the chance to meet in my lifetime, and for that, I say thank you, Uzezi.”

I chuckle. “You have started with your dramatics again, Joe. What is it now?”

“Let’s just say, the grande dame of the Inyang family is here to see you,” he says and gives me a low bow as if I am some kind of monarch.

His response confuses me. “What do you mean? What grande dame are you talking about?”

“Uzezi, Dominic’s mother is here to see you,” he clarifies impatiently since I appear to be struggling with the simple task of understanding his announcement.

“What!” I exclaim in shock. “Why? What does she want?”

“That’s a rhetorical question, right?”

“Joe, I’m not kidding. What does she want? Why is she here?”

“How would I know?” he asks with a shrug. “She simply said she’s here to see you. How am I supposed to know why? You used to date her son, remember?”

“Yeah, and she put an end to the relationship, so what else does she want from me?”

“Look, the only way you’re going to know for sure is to go out there and meet her. This is your territory, Uzezi. What’s the worst she can do here? Besides, you are no longer with her son, so…”

I exhale shakily. I can’t deny that I am beginning to feel the onset of an anxiety attack. I can’t even imagine what Marilyn Inyang might want to discuss with me, but I can’t help but feel a sense of unease inside of me. What does she want?

“You know what, you’re right,” I say to Joe with my best ‘game on’ face.

“Of course, I am,” he agrees with an eye roll.

“This is my territory, and I will not be intimidated.”

“Well said,” he grins.

“You’re incorrigible, Joe,” I laugh. “Come on, let’s go.”

When I reach the main floor of the store, I see Marilyn standing there as straight as a pole with a bored expression on her face. When she sees me, her face softens a little but without a smile.

“You kept me waiting long enough,” she says to me flatly.

“I didn’t know I was expecting a guest,” I reply, making no attempt to extend any sort of pleasantries to her. If she’s going to start this meeting by being rude as usual, then I am going to let her know that two can play that game. This is after all my territory, as Joe had pointed out.

“I didn’t know I would be coming here either,” she says haughtily. “But I realized that coming here was the best I can do under the circumstances.”

My eyebrows shoot up in puzzlement. “Under the circumstances? What circumstances?”

Marilyn heaves a sigh. “Listen, dear. I want to talk to you, and I would like for us to sit down and discuss properly. Do you have an office where we can talk, or would you rather go on an early dinner with me instead? I’m sure my assistant can locate a decent restaurant around this area where we can have a nice dinner and talk without being interrupted.”

This woman’s audacity is unbelievable! How dare she just appear in my store and subtly order me to sit down and have a conversation with her, after that horrid luncheon in Uyo, where she practically threw me out of her house? She didn’t even think to apologize to me first for that morbid encounter, but somehow, she expects me to simply fall in line and do as she says. She is obviously a woman who is accustomed to getting her way at all times. Well, that nonsense ends here, right now.

“Unfortunately, that will not be possible,” I tell her and note with satisfaction how her aloof expression slightly falters at my words. “As you can see, I am on my way out and I have to leave her right now because my children are waiting for me to pick them up from school. Excuse me.”

I walk past her out of the store, not giving her a chance to say anything further. If she thinks she can humiliate me in her home and then come to my store and expect me to pander to her because she’s an ex-dignitary, then she has wrongly underestimated me. I will not be disrespected by her or her son, or anyone related to them any further if I can help it. That nonsense ended in Uyo just like my relationship with Dominic.

Outside, I see three official-looking vehicles parked in front of my shop with two bodyguards standing beside the first and second vehicles. I walk past them to where my car is parked in the designated parking lot of the shopping complex that houses my store. I hope people aren’t taking pictures or making videos of this spectacle because I cannot handle another round of attention-seeking posts on social media. That first awful taste of fame that I got months ago, was enough to last me a lifetime and I don’t want to travel down that road again. Enough is enough. Dominic and his family need to leave me alone and continue to live in their oblivious bubble of enormous wealth. What more do they want from me? After all, they already have their perfect future daughter-in-law, Pamela.

I wish they would just leave me alone and let me move on with my life in peace. I can’t stand their drama anymore. Enough is indeed enough.