Hamburger Joint

  "Ah! Juliet, how are you today? Are you the ones hammering on the counter this mad? I rushed out to confront the mad fella doing this only to find out it's you. Why the haste now? what can we do for you?"

That was coming from a school acquaintance that keeps a store not far from her printing shop. During her school days, Juliet set is two classes ahead of Amara that is condescendingly asking her three in one question these days like many do and to think that Juliet at times helps her in doing her homeworks those past years makes the mockery in her voice more painful but Juliet have learnt how to deaden her emotions to such mockeries.

She ignored her and her well known antics as she ordered her lunch, a torpedo of a hamburger with chicken peri peri as they call it while ignoring Amara face or answering her mocking questions and made her way back to their office.

It's not a new thing in this part of the world where people value marriage more than life itself. If you are a woman and getting out of what some call marriageable age-zone, and still single to receive all manners of insults couched in all manners of colors and whatever anyone deemed clever remarks insinuating they are up there and you down there. They, blessed and you, cursed.

She had not even cleared well out of Amara's sight when she heard a crackling thundering laughter behind her that if she wasn't somehow expecting it out of experiences a nasty mocking comment on how it was frustration at work in her life, how she seems to be in a hurry for everything now, whenever their antics gets out of hand and she reacts a bit, she would have halted in her track by such a mighty crackling coming from her. She didn't even miss a step as she faced her office direction, leaving them to their folly.

She have promised herself never to bury herself in reminiscing on missed opportunities like many used to refer to it. The story going round is that her beauty which she think many believed to have gotten the better of her and she was rejecting all the suitors that come for her hand in marriage when she was younger and now, in her late '40s, many see her as old cargo no man wants to pay for and pack in his house for any amount. She eyed the wall clock as she entered her office and it said 12:45 pm. She placed the Hamburger on her table, eyed it and sat staring into the void. 

The truth in all the stories about reasons she was beautiful and still single at that age and despite her education and church activities she buried herself in, no one is interested in her as the story goes. 

     "You could not believe it when we were teenagers. This girl that just walked out here was like a mermaid. I recall seven suitors coming for her hands in marriage within a week and she turned all down. Now, no one wants her and she believes that what cursed her is in my shop. Please tell her to behave herself once inside here. Let her and her church groups figure out where to find her problems. They are not here?" Amara, talking to her third daughter after Juliet turned her back and they believed her out of earshot when their laughter subsided.

Juliet is tired of hearing different versions of that same line wherever she encounters some of her old acquaintances that is worrying why her state is not disturbing her or getting to her. Her portion on that line had been smirking and focusing on what she has before her and mind some passing through what she can't tell in their lives and sees her as a source of hope for them. For sure, there is an element of truth in their recitations but none ever came near the truth on why she is still single at 48. 

She had entered into a secret covenant with God one afternoon after school on her way back to their house when she was in third year in secondary school. That was around her 14th year on planet earth. The attention from all kinds of males was overflowing. She was surprised by the kinds of people that were trooping into their houses asking for her hands in marriage and buying her parents all kinds of gifts to persuade her. and she had walked into an empty church one wednesday afternoon and kneeled down there and lay treaties, traits and characteristics of who she will follow blindly no matter his shortcoming once Heaven will fulfill their own part by bringing such person her way as far as she fulfills her own part of the agreement. 

Before she swantered out of the church that afternoon, she laid the how, the where and the what of knowing whoever is the right he. Afterwards, she had received a kind of peace that descended on her she took to be heaven signing their part of the agreement. She smiled at that realization and went home that day more mature than her age and the troops did not cease coming and she did not stop observing, and watching out for signs she had with heaven. None had those signs, none was the right HE. 

14 to 48 and she is still sure by the kind of peace that had been her portion despite all manners of mockery from the known and unknown that heaven still recalls their agreements and sure they are still playing their part. It had not been easy on her part holding on to the hope that she did not talk to herself or wall that wednesday afternoon, she was sure and still sure that she was heard.

When your mates marry around their early twenties and most of them, some of their daughters have married off too, some even inviting you to such marriages, you can't stop wondering as a human being. The spirit is for sure strong but the fresh is weak. The thing is that she has figured a way of pushing such thoughts away from her and focusing on the present not dwelling in the past. Being in the present 24 hours each day does the work of remaining true to yourself and the covenant. Science and all they say about woman body can always go and fuck themselves. She knew and convinced each day more and more that fate is resourceful and never dormant and once you add good work and truthfulness to it daily, it will strike like thunder or tsunami when you least expect it. 

Two weeks later, she left her office once again to Amara joint like she does alone most of the afternoon for her lunch. The woman seems to know how to mold those hamburgers. That many come there each day for what she goes there for is a testimony to her know-how. She never has leftovers and freshness is the reason that joint thrives. 

She had as usual walked in and what they always do in that back room or office is what she can't tell. There was only one man of about 45 or 46 years munching absentmindedly to his burger and turning what she believes to be an invoice with absolute attention. She eyed him and hammer again in anger on the counter, raising her voice a little without anyone appearing. She was wondering why the man kept drawing her attention. Yet, he never for once looked her way despite the noise she was making. Whatever he was calculating there at that corner had his attention full time. Then he heard a voice that jolted her that she nearly fell into the chair nearby.

"Lady, are you okay?" He enquired with only a glance her way.

"Of course, why would I not be okay or why do you think I am not okay?" She was staring at the man willing her to talk more for her to be more than sure. Not as if she is now doubting God and the covenant but being double sure won't hurt anyone, would it?

The man got up and she cast her eyes to her right wrist and there was the second sign of a rubber band, exactly on the wrong hand she had asked heaven for it to be. People generally wear things like watches on the left, so she had asked heaven for it to be in an odd hand and the voice to be booming like a mighty speaker accompanied by a smile and three of them were there. Now, it remains one sign to complete. 'Never married before'

"The owner had asked me to attend to anyone that showed up while she went to answer a call from her boy's school that suddenly called, telling her to come because her boy was throwing tantrums here and there" he said smiling to her or is she seeing things. "So, since you are here and my ever first customer in life to be served, and as i have promised myself that  i will not only attend to the first person that entered here, but i was pay for it too and celebrate it with whoever to commemorate this my epic first" as he talk, he was gently pushing her towards a chair near her receipt turning table and fishing out a pad with that smile still there, pen poised, mockingly bowed and asked her to fire her orders and she did not waste time to do that. She looked through the window and the weather was turning cloudy. Maybe she was seeing things. 

#Reedsyoctober