Must Read: Taking Chances

7 years ago

Must Read: Taking Chances

As soon as the car rode to a halt, the door flew open and out came Daisy hurrying towards the house in a mad haste, her hands
raising up her gown to allow easy mobility, while stream of hot tears rolled down her cheeks.
Soon, Jide was out of the car, running and calling after her.
Adamu who was about to retire into his little niche, shook his head at the drama that just played itself, then muttering to himself, he entered into his room.
The once promising night had finally ended on a sad note, compounding issues that had seemed resolved hours ago, Daisy’s suspicion had finally been proven right, Joyce, Jide’s secretary had gone ahead to spill
every beans left in the basket. And now, all Daisy wanted to do was
crawl to her room and start all her self-pity tantrums over again.
*****
The night had started out lovely, people had dotted and warmed up to Daisy easily, even Jide’s dad. The oldman had been so nice, apologizing for his son’s actions and for other things Daisy didn’t quite understand, yet she’d accepted the apologies nonetheless

Some of Jide’s employees had gone out of their way to make her
comfortable, asking her how she was? How she was coping with Nigeria? Why they hadn’t seen much of her after the wedding? If she could come around to the office one day? And so on and so forth.
Daisy on her part had been so charming and jovial all through the evening, enjoying the attention she was getting, and even dared to flirt with Ade who had somehow found his way to their table just to spite Jide, and indeed she had enjoyed the look of anger and jealousy on his face. But she had done so only when she was sure Jide’s father wasn’t in close range. She didn’t want her father in-law seeing her as a flirt or irresponsible daughter inlaw.
A change of environment had really done her good, she had felt good and had walked gracefully to the stage when she had been called upon to present an award to one of the recipient, she had been announced as Jide’s wife then and had felt very proud when the search light beamed on her. Even Jide hadn’t missed an opportunity to introduce her so. But that didn’t mean they were even, and she had put it clearly to him but Jide waved it off and told her to ‘enjoy the evening’ he had even hinted on some ‘after party’ when they returned home. Daisy had tingled with excitement and expectation inspite of herself.
And so for the rest of the evening, she had easily put up an appearance that they were the best of couples, that was offcourse, until she sighted Grace.

Everything had instantly turned bitter.
The juice she had opted for tasted sour to her as all the fight of days
past played afresh in her memory.
It wouldn’t have bothered her much because she had finally decided not to let Grace bother or spoil her evening, not until Joyce staggered lightly to their table where only she was occupying at that moment because others had gone for a group picture or something. Joyce had greeted her and complemented her looks, wondering why Jide was treating
her unfairly.
Before Daisy could push further on what she had meant, Joyce was waving sheepishly to Grace and urging her to come over to their table, but the other woman had declined after eyeing Daisy.
Immediately, Daisy felt an urge to know more, to skim out information from the secretary who was obviously drunk, judging with the way she swooned yet drank more wine.
‘do you know that lady?’ Daisy had asked.
‘who?’ Joyce had slurred.
‘Grace’ Daisy had said, hitting the nail directly.
‘yeah offcourse, i know her, who doesn’t?’ the other had replied with a foolish grin
‘i don’t really know, could you tell me please?’ Daisy had pushed
further.

‘she’s oga’s girlfriend na, the one he was dating before he married you. You know, i wonder where you appeared from, we all thought he would marry her, not you’
‘you all thought wrong then’ Daisy had shot back.
‘yes! We all did’ Joyce had replied and broke into a laugh.
‘hmm’ Daisy had said and shook her head, it was obvious alcohol wasn’t a good thing, the way it had rendered this lovely lady here was pathetic.
‘so, does Jide…you know, still see her?’ she had asked after the secretary had ended her hysteric laugh.
‘why Offcourse! I personally receive her calls and messages for Mr. Olukoya’ she had replied, then drew closer to whisper: ‘I even know my boss still sees her, and i wonder why. See! He has a lovely American wife like you at home, and yet he’s fooling around with her’ another hysterical laughter then: ‘but that’s what make them men, isnt it? They are hardly ever satisfied’ she completed and continued her fits of humourless mirth.