Alero jolted halfway out of her seat when her door was forcefully thrown open and her boss strode into her office, his face a mask of barely controlled fury.
“Sir?” she asked even as her brain made the quick connection that her weekend ‘outing’ with Banjo had something to do with it.
“Don’t you even ‘Sir’ me!” he said sharply, his voice the consistency of sharp nails being released from a nail gun.
“Si...what happened?” she asked.
“This!” Mr. Wanigo’s bark was a compressed yell.
Alero picked up the magazine that he dropped on her desk. She would not ever have imagined that her boss even knew that such glossies existed talk less of get a hold of a copy.
“Where did you get this Sir?” she asked in a surprised voice. There were almost two pages worth of pictures of Banjo and her hitting the spots on Saturday. She would have imagined that there were other more interesting things that they could have dedicated two pages to but no! There it was! A two page spread of her day out with Banjo.
“Where else Alero? From the vendors!” Mr. Wanigo answered as he took a seat on one of the chairs provided for visitors to the office.
“What’s going on? Is he leveraging on the contract to...”
“Sir!” Alero gasped out her dismay. “I should hope you expect better from me!” she said as she sat back down marveling at how good she and Banjo looked together in those glossy pictures.
“Then what is this about?” he asked his voice climbing a notch.
“Sir, your voice is carrying quite loudly down the hall.” Patricia’s quiet voice sounded from the door way. She looked quite resolute too as she held on to the door handle in preparation to shut the door.
Alero cast a surprised but grateful look at her. She might have expected that Mrs. Ajala to do something like that but not Patricia.
“Thank you Miss Adeniran.” Mr. Wanigo said his voice a lot less angry than it had been a mere second before. Patricia quietly shut the door with a small nod.
“Sir, like I said, Ba...Mr. Adeniran and I know each other through some mutual friends. We met on Saturday to review the drafts that had just come in and there after we hung out together. I’m amazed that it would generate this sort of attention!”
Mr. Wanigo sighed. “You know that this project was fiercely competed for.” He said in more placating tones. “Already, there are murmurs that it had been unfairly awarded.” He cast a glance to her closed door to indicate just what he meant. “It would just be a bit more difficult to control the talk if it turned out that there was any other relationship you know, between the supervising architect and a member of top management at Adeniran Holdings.”
Alero bit her lips in embarrassment. It had not even occurred to her that dating Banjo could be a problem when she had agreed to go on Saturday. ‘What had she agreed to?’
Alero huffed out a breath of air. “I’ll try to be more circumspect about my relationship with any member of that family. Although with all due respect sir, we are eminently qualified to take on this job.” she argued.
“You and I know that. They don’t.”
Alero nodded her head in conciliatorily. “Crystal sir. I will try not to let this happen again.”
“Good, good!” Mr. Wanigo said as he stood up. “I knew I could count on your sense of professionalism.” He beamed widely as he walked out of her office.
Alero collapsed back on her seat and put her hand to her head to rub at the dull ache that had begun there. Mr. Wanigo had left the magazine on her desk so Alero picked it up and began to browse through the story such as it was. It was one of those magazines that believed in ‘a picture being more than a thousand words’ and if that were so, these pictures were worth a million at least.
She looked closely at one picture and then the next. So intent was she in her perusal that she did not hear her door open and Patricia quietly slip in.
“I think you both make a striking couple.” she said, her voice almost a whisper.
Alero’s gaze swung up to hers in surprise. She carefully closed the magazine and looked up again at Patricia. She contemplated making light of the speculation that the story had stirred but decided against it. If Banjo’s relationship with his only sibling was even remotely as close as hers with her sisters’ was, then Patricia already knew that something was going on between her and Banjo that defied all logic.
“There may be a conflict of interest.” Alero said calmly.
Patricia shrugged. “It’ll only be for while the contract last.”
“True.” Alero agreed. She drew a long deep breath and exhaled. “Let’s get back to work. We can’t do anything about what journalists, and I use that word very lightly, decide to write in their columns.” She shifted her chair closer to her computer and peered into the screen.
Patricia correctly took the hint that Alero did not want to talk anymore about it and returned quietly to her desk.
Alero’s phone chimed a message notification and she picked it up.
Good morning Beautiful. I hope there are no storms on your horizon?
Alero felt a smile widen her lips as she sent off a quick reply.
Nothing that hasn’t been handled.
As she flipped from one page to the next on her computer, her phone chimed again.
Attagirl!
Alero’s smile, which she realized hadn’t completely left her face, widen even more.
Alero dug out the phone from her handbag and threw the bag down to her bed. The phone had begun ringing almost as soon as she parked her car in the driveway and had continued ringing intermittently as she had rushed into the house to relieve her distressed bladder.
Bladder relieved, she had come out of the bathroom to hear the phone ringing again.
She checked the display screen and smiled at the caller name displayed.
“Hey Stranger! Long time no hear!” she teased.
“Hey Stranger yourself! So...this is how you’ll forget your dear friend when you become a big woman ehn?” Maggie scolded in her inimitable way.
“Mags, Mags!!! Any runway gist? Let you girl live vicariously nah!” Alero chuckled.
“Oookayy!!!! You’re teasing me aren’t you? You, who are dating the hottest bachelor in town, are looking for who she can live vicariously through abi?”
“Hey!!!! You sef have heard about the magazine pictures?” Alero asked in surprise.
“Welcome to the global village.” Maggie responded sarcastically. “But you sef! You mean you and Banjo started doing coded things and you couldn’t let me, your darling Megito, know?! Is this good?” Her voice assumed theatrical proportions.
“Megs it’s not like that o!” Ally said as she flopped down on her bed. “I don’t know how it happened o! I can’t explain it without blushing all over.”
“Hah! That is serious!” Maggie responded. The line was silent for a while. “So, it’s serious then?”
“It feels serious. I can’t understand why it feels so serious. It’s just been this one extreme date.”
“You know what I think?” Maggie asked. She did not wait for Alero to respond but bumbled on. “I think you’ve liked him for much longer than you have acknowledged.”
“Why do you say that?”
Maggie sighed loudly over the line. “I’ve been sorting through stuff in my head lately you know and I remembered some things.”
“Like?” Alero dragged out the word.
“You do know Olly has always liked you?” Maggie asked rhetorically. “Well Banjo blew him off that Saturday to come spend time with you.”
“Oh! I didn’t know that. He could have come along. Why didn’t he?”
“Because Banjo wouldn’t have let him anyway. He has his sights on you and it seems he is making his move.”
“Why do I get the feeling you are upset about the date?” Alero asked warily.
Maggie sighed again. “Maybe beca
use I just might be...a little... unbalanced about it.”
“Why? I thought you guys liked him. I mean, apart from the family friend thing, I thought you all really liked each other.”
“That’s it right there!” Maggie exclaimed.
“What?” Alero asked bewildered.
“You remember that first time we went to the Adenirans with you? That party when Banjo graduated from college?”
“Yes.” Alero answered carefully.
“What happened between you and Banjo?”
Alero rolled her eyes. It would be just like Maggie to have picked up on Alero’s hurt and then respect her decision to not talk about it till now.
“And don’t tell me nothing happened. I knew something was off that day but...you just pulled away. I was scared you know, especially when you didn’t turn up for a visit for a whole month.”
For the first time, Alero realized that her withdrawal to lick her wounds in private may have hurt Maggie a lot more than she had ever let on too.
“Aww Mags!” she sighed.
“What happened? Is this a rebound thing?” Maggie pressed.
“A rebound thing?” Alero asked, again bewildered.
“Like maybe he must have done something to hurt you and...I don’t know! What’s going on? One moment you couldn’t care less if Banjo existed and the next I see a whole spread of you two loved up on a date!”
Alero remained silent as she tried to sort out her words.
“Ally?”
“I’m here. I don’t know how to explain it dear.” She shifted to a more comfortable position on her bed. “I think...okay, I know I was attracted to him that first time, but he snubbed me and that put me off. Do you believe that you can fall in love at first sight? Or should I rather say ‘first meet’? ”
“You think you might have been that attracted to him but was put off by his snobbish behavior?” Maggie asked incredulously.
“You see! I said it was confusing!”
Maggie was quiet for awhile. “Perhaps then, you should date him till you sort that all out.” she said and then she chuckled, “It had to be quite the impression he made! You never looked at any other since! It’s like Sleeping Beauty put to sleep by the prick of the prince’s snobbery! It’s like....”
“Maggie? It’s not even funny.” Alero deadpanned while Maggie burst into gales of laughter.
“Oh Ally! You never could take a joke!”
“I’m not even laughing.” A small smile cracked through her lips.
“I guess Olly is going to have to stew or move on right?”
“Maggie!!! Olly is like a big brother to me! It’ll feel like incest!” Alero shuddered at the thought.
“How is he? He’s been scarce lately.” Alero asked and Maggie launched into the story of all Oliver had been doing lately.
The sharp ping of the tennis ball on the board sounded as the two players rallied the ball over the net ferociously. Then the ball was dropped by one of them and they both gasped in a release of suspense and the clatter of dropped bats hit the board on each side.
“You’re getting harder to beat! Why is that?” Banjo asked Patricia in mock chagrin.
“You are getting old big brother!” Patricia retorted smartly as she picked up the ball and placed it with her bat in a serve posture.
“I’m beat!” Banjo raised his hand in surrender and stepped away from the table. Patricia relaxed her stance with a puzzled frown on her face.
Banjo wiped his face with the towel that hung around his neck as he walked back into the house. Patricia dropped her bat and carefully put the ball in the pocket of her short shorts and followed him inside.
He was guzzling down water straight from a bottle when she walked in. She stood leaning against the door frame for a while watching him and debating her decision in her mind. Because she was quite a bit younger than he was, she suspected Banjo had never really understood in his heart and sometimes his head that she had been old enough to notice things for a long while now, long enough to notice that he had been pretty hung up on Maggie’s friend when they had all been much younger.
She had been astonished that day she had gone for her interview at Skyline and come face to face with her, Alero. She had also not been shocked, only surprised at how fast it had happened, when her brother had broke it off with Emily shortly after. She had always felt like Emily was a place holder for something else that Banjo was looking for. The day of her birthday party, after she had seen him with Alero, she had known without a shadow of a doubt that she had been what he had been waiting for.
“You want one?” he asked her, holding out a water bottle to her. Patricia pulled herself from her comfortable slump against the door frame and walked towards him. When she got to him, she plucked the bottle from his hand with the kind of cheeky grin that only a well-loved-and-I-know-it kid sister could give. He grinned back and turned to look into the fridge.
“There isn’t much in here but if you want to put together lunch of some sort, I’m sure I have enough that you could manage a meal.” he commented as he shut the door to the fridge.
“What about you? Won’t you eat too?” She asked as she moved past him to open the door he had just shut.
“Nah! I’m thinking of taking Ally out so I’ll probably eat then.” he said.
Patricia cocked an eyebrow but continued to look through the content of the fridge.
“I think my boss is trying to talk her out of dating you.” She mumbled into the fridge.
“What?!” Banjo asked in surprise.
Patricia pulled her head out of the fridge. “You guys are dating right?”
“Why would your boss be talking her out of dating me?”
“Conflict of professional interest and all that good stuff. You do know that we are handling a project for the company?” She asked wryly.
Banjo stood frozen as he contemplated how that could be used by Wanigo.
“Do you think she’s buying it?” he asked his sister. Patricia shrugged.
“Alero likes to be professional. I don’t know. She wouldn’t talk about something like that with me.”
Banjo felt the dread pulling at him but he tamped it down. Panicking was not an option.
“Maggie.” Patricia reasoned.
“Maggie?” Banjo inquired and then understood. “Yes, Maggie! She would talk with Maggie. They are still really close.”
Patricia shrugged her shoulders again as she arranged the makings of a really big sandwich on the counter. “It can’t hurt to try.” she quipped.
“Thanks for the heads up sis.” Banjo said and enveloped her in a hug.
“Ew!!! You’re sweaty!” Patricia complained.
“So are you!” Banjo said laughingly as he half jogged, half walked out of the kitchen.
“I need to go shower though.” he said over his shoulders. “I’m supposed to go pick Ally up in about an hour.”
Patricia rolled her eyes. Men in love were gross, grossly sweet. She smiled as she went to work preparing her lunch.