Six

BEFORE

Luc

The day I met Joseph, I immediately knew that we were soulmates. I felt it in my bones, I knew it in every cell of me. I had never felt the same way about another guy. My other romances were sporadic and brief. A few kisses here and there, meaningless text messages and unimpressive dates. Joseph was different, I just knew it. 

When he bought me a silver ring with my name, Lucinda, etched inside the band for our one month anniversary, I promise him that I'd never take it off and I kept my promise. 

Maybe it was his rare emerald eyes hooded by thick lashes or maybe it was the way his dimples sank when he smiled or laughed. Whatever it was, I was smitten from the moment I set my eyes on him and have been besotted ever since.

That day, Precious arrived my house with her bikini in her handbag, it was a Sunday and that meant we hang out at the swimming pool in any hotel we wish to until sunset.

I had already picked out my red bikini then Lily barged into my room. Precious glared at her, she was not really fond of my baby sister, she said Lily was too naive and her mouth curled into a snarl like being naive was a contagious disease.

"Puppet." I looked at Lily as she entered my room. Precious thinks it is a ridiculous nickname but I think she is just jealous because she has no siblings.

"Where are you going?" She looked at the bikini in my hand.

"We are going swimming," I said.

"I want to come!" She squealed with delight.

"The car is already filled up," Precious said. I knew her car was not, it's just the both of us.

"You can come along, you will have to squeeze though," I said ignoring Precious.

Lily grinned, Precious hissed. I pull out a nice black one piece and hand it to her. She hugged me and left. 

"Why do you want her to come?" Precious rolled her eyes. "The girl na small pikin."

Because unlike you, she won't leave me and go flirting with everything that has a penis between it's legs!

But I did not say that. I ignored her.

I sat in the front of the shiny new salon car her sugar daddy bought for her. I loved the way the car smelt of new leather seats and lavender air freshener. Lily sat at the back clutching our bag and staring outside the window, lost in her own world. I wanted to follow her into her mind and escape Precious' yapping.

"We christened it." Precious tapped on the steering wheel to the beat of the afrobeat singer on the radio. The dark sunglasses she was wearing reflected the road and her glass acrylic nails glistened, I wondered how she was comfortable wearing nails so long that she could poke me three inches away.

"Christened?" I fluffed my curly hair in the side mirror, checking if it looked too flat or too dull. I shook my hair from side to side when I caught Precious looking, she always told me how she envied my waist length hair.

"The day Chief gave it to me, we been do am for back." She threw  her head back and laughed. I laughed too whilst wondering what was so funny about having sex with a man old enough to be my grandfather in the backseat of the car he gifted her.

Sometimes I believed what my Mum said about Precious when I told her that Precious had a sugar daddy.

"At eighteen? That girl is possessed! I thought her father is a pastor? I don't blame her sha, it is the juju her father collected to start the church that is backfiring in that way."

She also told me not to associate with Precious again but if I don't who would take me out every Sunday to swim? Who would gift me crop tops and g-strings? Though Precious has tried to hook me up with some of her sugar daddy's friends, I keep declining, I can not be caught dead having sex for money.

Precious chose Transcorp hotel at Highway in Calabar. We sashayed into the changing rooms and emerged with our bikinis. Lily walked behind me, shuffling her feet and using our bag to cover her breasts. 

I pulled the bag away from her and gave it to Precious but not before giving Lily a glare.

"Commot  your hand from your chest, abeg. Why are you so shy?" Precious scolded Lily. "If I had full breasts and Mami wata ass like you and your sister I would be walking around Calabar naked."

This mades Lily laugh and Precious smiled at her which is a rare occurrence. 

"You are beautiful, na." Lily adds the last word in an attempt to speak pidgin despite our Dad's warnings against speaking pidgin. Dad would get so angry even if Mum spoke it.

"I know but I don't have the body." Precious leaned in and touched Lily's hair which was styled in Fulani braids.

I swam a few laps in the pool in the shallow side, racing against Lily and laughing so water entered our mouths and came out from our noses. Precious sat perched at the edge of the pool with our bags, staring at men and holding gazes with a few. I shook my head in pity, she had so many problems and had the wrong solutions.

It took a few more minutes and Lily's whining for me to get tired of swimming. Lily and I swam to the edge of the pool and sat down beside Precious.

"All eyes were on you guys," she whispers even though every other person around the pool is at least a metre away from us.

"Who?" I asked. Scanning the pool, I see at least twelve people.

"All the guys," Precious replies, "especially the one at the corner wearing the pink shirt. But he is a smallie." Precious did not think any guy is attractive if he is below thirty, and the guy in the pink shirt was obviously about our age.

Lily looked at the corner, "there are two of them. Twins, I mean."

"Let's go say hello!" I jumped up, fumbled in my bag, found the towel I brought and used it to dry my body.

"Abeg go alone. I do not go to men, men come to men." Precious removes her sunglasses from her bag and wears them.

"Suit yourself," I laughed. "Puppet, come be your sister's wing woman." 

Lily took the hand I held out to her and stood up. She let me dry her arms, thighs and face that had identical freckles as mine on her nose, cheeks and at the corner of her left eye. 

The day I meet my soulmate was also the day we meet the twins for the first time.

The guy wearing a pink shirt had marvelous hair that was shaved at the sides but stood in a mighty curly-coily mop of hair in the middle of his head. When he grinned showing pristine white teeth, his hazel eyes smiled too. 

"Hello. Noticed you staring," I said as I held myself to a seat opposite him and his brooding twin in a blue crew neck t-shirt. 

"Damn! I wasn't discreet enough," he said in feigned shock. His twin chuckles. 

I laughed. Lily tried to stifle her laugh but it bursted out, it was a loud belly laugh. The brooding twin stared at her through narrowed eyes with his think brows raised but Lily would be too modest to notice that.

"I'm Jacob, this is James," the twin in pink t-shirt introduced us. The first thing that came to mind was how beautiful he was.

"Nice names," I said trying to stare at him for too long.

"Better than Uche and Somto?" James asked with a tease. 

"Nope," I shake my head, playing along.

"You want me to offer you a seat, pretty?" Jacob asked Lily with a sly grin on his pink lips.

Lily took a seat beside me and looked everywhere but at us. I wanted to put my arms around her and hug her. She was so shy around guys especially good-looking ones and good-looking guys always liked her.

"I'm Lucinda but call me Luc. This is Lily, she was supposed to be a boy so our parents decided Karl would be a good name then out she came and my Dad got creative and came up with Lily!" 

Jacob laughed. The brooding twin—James— smiled and Lily blushed.

"Nice hair," she whispered beside me at one of the boys. I thought she was complimenting Jacob's hair but she was looking at James's shaggy hair that was long enough to braid. If our parents saw these boys, they would be so disappointed in us for talking to touts who grew their hair rather than cut it low like a typical responsible Nigerian boy.

"Thanks, you too," James whispered in reply. Their attraction was so thick and tangible I could feel it. 

Jacob asked if my hair was real, I nodded. He asked if I could sell it for him, I laughed in reply and told him that I would if only Lily would too because her hair was as long as mine but hidden in the Fulani braids so people thought she added attachments.

"Are you guys twins too?" Jacob asked looking from Lily to me.

"No." Lily, James and I chorused. I thought how cool it would be if we were twins and date these beautiful boys.

"You guys have the same everything," Jacob said.

"Not the gap tooth." I grinned so he could see the gap in between my front teeth. I knew he could also see my buckteeth below but I did not mind at all. I was confident like that.

I waved Precious over and the twins bought us bottles of vodka which we mixed with soda. Precious drinks hers without any soda. We talked about everything and nothing. Precious, Jacob and I did most of the talking. James and Lily listened, laughed and stole shy glances at themselves.

James held up a professional looking camera and looked pointedly at Lily. "Will you mind being my muse?"

Lily took a hurried sip of her vodka and soda mix and placed the frosted glass back on the table. "Muse?"

Precious chuckled and touched my feet with hers under the table and mouths, lover boy.

"He wants to take a pic of you, like an impromptu photoshoot," Jacob explains.

Lily visibly gulped, I could see her playing with her fingers under the table. If I were her, I would agree.

"James only takes pictures of us and our Mum, you should be honoured," Jacob laughed and nudged James in the ribs with his elbow.

James did not laugh, smile or gave any hint that he heard his twin. His eyes remained on Lily's face, not blinking.

"Do you mind if I help her out?" I reached over and touched James's arm.

James blinked, turned to look at me and shook his head imperceptibly.

He takes me dozens of photos at the edge of the pool, in the pool swimming, splashing water, lounged on the chairs and wearing Precious' sunglasses. I left Lily watching me, wishing she was in my place.

A family approached the pool; a petite woman in her forties wearing a swimsuit, her chubby look-alike daughter in a matching yellow swimsuit and a lanky son following them behind in a yellow swimming trunk.

At that moment when the son raised his eyes and meet mine, my stomach did a summersault.

Jacob finished off his vodka and soda and asked who would like to swim. Everyone said they wanted to.

In the pool, I could not take my eyes off the boy with the emerald eyes and flashing dimples everytime he laughed at what his mother and sister said.

Lily slowly loosened up and began to talk to the twins, Jacob carried her on his back and gave her a ride in the pool and Precious talked too loudly and laughed touching James's toned arms probably asking him to give her a photoshoot too.

I kept looking at him, and did not try to hide the fact that I was. He caught me on so many occasions when he was trying to catch the beach ball his sister threw or throw it at his Mum. Then when his Mum goes out of the pool and stands backing us, talking into her cellphone, he threw the beach ball over his sister's head right at me. I caught it, he grinned and swam over. 

My heart thumped painfully in my chest and I caught myself watching his Mum, hoping she would not turn around.

He said his name was Joseph, he was from Uyo and I mentally winced because my parents warned me against people from Uyo, my parents could be unnecessarily tribalistic.

I told him my name and pointed at my sister.

He told me that he loved my hair. Could I cut some for his mother? He made me say my phone number over and over so he could memorise it.

His Mum returned to the pool with her brows furrowed, he left me without saying goodbye. And his family left the pool.

"You too like smallies." Precious said when I told her what happened.

"Leave me jor," I said happy that my Dad was not around to hear me.

When we were leaving, I gave James my phone number so he could send me the photos and I sent him Lily's phone number even though he did not ask for it.