GO TO HELL, CAPTAIN (Preview)

5: R&F FACE

ADAMAWA STATE, NIGERIA.

Layla breathed through her nose, tightening her hands in a fist because all she wants those fists to do is blow off the woman currently probing her face with different brushes and mixed colors. Some might think she got used to her face going through so much trouble but there is no way she could get used to someone else touching her, not even with brushes as barrier and shield or whatever.

A few months into modeling, she should be accustomed to such but there is no way you could ever get used to it. Some have fun though, just not her.

Oh, that's true. Fatima Musa Babagana managed to force her into working in R&F clothing brand with more emotional blackmail. The whole family started irking her about it. This call from another person and tomorrow from the other all requesting that she works for them. The last straw was when the older Babagana woman talked to her about the situation at hand. The real owner and founder of the R&F clothing brand, Zaitun Muhammad Shema.

She called her one evening to the company, the branch she's opened years ago in Nigeria. The first main branch is in Boudreaux, France where she first lived before coming back here to be with her daughter. They had sort of conflict between them so many years ago and she heard it was even before Zayd was born which means she wasn't born too then.

Layla accepted the invitation mainly because she's always liked the woman and can never turn down her summon but had it been any other person, she wouldn't have gone there for any reason but she felt compelled to go see this woman. She's seen her no more than thrice in all her visit to the estate. The woman loves her privacy and whenever she wants to see any of her grandchildren or her children, they go to her without hesitation.

That blessed Friday, Layla got dressed in her favorite high waisted distress free jeggings, garnet turtle neck shirt and matching stilettos. She added dark sable reefer overcoat and tied her crinkled cotton veil in Bosnian style then left her face natural. She took a cab to the company and true to their words, the place looks kind of dull unlike few years ago that it was the talk of the town. People from everywhere in Africa used to come there to shop their clothes or order them but things fell drastically when a competing company came along from nowhere.

Zaitun Muhammad Shema sat there all groomed up in her expensive work outfit of black well pressed slacks, alabaster dress shirt and large dolce and gabbana coat over it. She looks effortlessly pretty. Albeit her old age, she always looks professional in the office and every inch grandmother back at the estate. Her face is free of makeup currently except for lipstick, she's covered her head properly. Her sharp eyes followed Layla as she walked in but that didn't falter her steps, no one's eyes ever could anyway.

She sat down on the chair in front of her without being asked to, drop her tote bag on the opposite sit then smiled at the woman who returned a beautiful one. Layla is not about to ask what do the women in the Babagana family use to not look as old as their age. This woman clearly is older than sixty if not seventy but she looks fifty or fifty five tops, just why? Or is it because they have darker skin? It is said people with dark skin last more than the fair ones. This is what they mean then.

"I've been looking forward to meeting you. It's been how many years?" Zaitun leaned on her two hands, her head tilted as she scrutinize each pore on Layla's face.

Layla gave a cool friendly smile. "It's been ages, Ma'am. You are always away in France or hiding in your mansion."

Zaitun chortled, hit her aging fingers on the table then lean her back supine against the burnishing leather chair behind her. Her soft feminine features weathered with age and experience, glimpse of greying hair showing beneath her chiffon veil. The wrinkles all over her face dimming her beauty a bit but not the softness it has.