Chapter-7 Dinner for Two
864 Words
At 6:55pm Adaeze stood in front of the mirror in her room and had a silent argument with herself.
She did not need to go down for dinner.
He had said *if you choose to join.* That was not a summons. That was an option. She could stay in her room and eat her mother's jollof rice and pretend this was just a very strange hotel situation.
She looked at herself in the mirror.
Navy blue dress. Simple. Her good earrings. Hair pulled back.
She had already gotten dressed.
She picked up her mother's container of jollof rice and went downstairs.
The dining room table was long enough to seat twelve people.
Emeka was sitting at one end of it.
He had changed from his work clothes into a dark shirt and trousers. A glass of red wine sat to his right. He was reading something on his phone when she walked in and he looked up without surprise like he had known she would come.
She refused to find that annoying.
Mrs Fashola had set two places. Not at opposite ends of the enormous table which would have been absurd. Two places at the same corner. Close enough for conversation. Far enough for dignity.
Adaeze sat down.
She placed her mother's container on the table.
Emeka looked at it.
"Jollof rice," she said. "My mother made it this morning. I am having some regardless of what else is served."
A pause.
"Mrs Fashola made pepper soup and fried plantain," he said.
"Then I am having both."
Something moved at the corner of his mouth.
Mrs Fashola appeared and served them both. She was a small round woman with an efficient manner and warm eyes that missed nothing. When she saw the container she smiled broadly.
"Is that mama's jollof? Bring bring let me warm it for you my dear."
She whisked it away before Adaeze could respond.
Adaeze looked at Emeka.
He looked back at her.
"How was your first day," he said. It came out more like a statement than a question. Like a man working through a checklist of things a person was supposed to say.
"Quiet," she said. "Your house is very quiet."
"Is that a complaint?"
"It is an observation. I grew up in a compound in Enugu where my mother sang in the kitchen and the neighbors had a generator that sounded like a small aircraft. Quiet takes adjustment."
He considered this. "I can have noise arranged."
She looked at him. "Was that a joke?"
"An offer."
"I will adjust," she said. "Thank you."
Mrs Fashola returned with the warmed jollof rice. Set it between them. Looked at Emeka with an expression that very clearly said *you should have some.*
"Mrs Fashola," Adaeze said. "Would you like to join us?"
The woman laughed warmly. "Ah no my dear. Go and enjoy. Call me if you need anything." She disappeared back to the kitchen.
Emeka was looking at her.
"What," Adaeze said.
"You invited the cook to dinner."
"She is a person. People eat dinner."
Something shifted in his expression. Small but real.
"Help yourself," Adaeze said and pushed the jollof rice toward him.
He looked at it for a moment. Then he took some.
She watched him eat it.
"Well," she said.
"It is good," he said simply.
"Tell her that yourself. She would appreciate it."
He looked at her across the corner of the table. The candlelight Mrs Fashola had insisted on lit the space between them warmly.
"You are not what I expected," he said.
"You keep saying that."
"Because it keeps being true."
She picked up her wine glass. "What did you expect?"
He thought about it with the seriousness of a man who did not give careless answers. "Someone more frightened," he said finally.
"I am frightened," she said. "I am just not performing it for your benefit."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Fair enough," he said.
They ate in silence for a while. Not uncomfortable silence. The kind of silence that had settled into something that could almost be called companionable.
Outside the night sounds of the garden drifted through the open window. Crickets. The soft movement of the flame tree. Lagos traffic far away like a distant ocean.
"The scar above your eye," Adaeze said.
He stilled almost imperceptibly.
"Where is it from," she said.
A long pause.
"My father," he said. One word. A door that was open exactly one centimeter and no further.
She did not push it.
"I am sorry," she said simply.
He nodded once. Picked up his wine.
At 8:30pm Emeka folded his napkin and stood.
"Goodnight Adaeze," he said.
"Goodnight Emeka."
He walked toward the door. Stopped without turning around.
"The jollof rice," he said. "It was genuinely good."
Then he was gone.
Adaeze sat alone at the corner of the long table and looked at the candles and the empty chair beside her and the container of her mother's jollof rice that was now half empty.
She picked up her phone and texted Chioma.
He ate my mother's jollof rice.
Chioma replied in four seconds: I AM SCREAMING
Adaeze smiled.
She finished her wine
- Writer
