Only One Of Us Knows (On hold)

Three| Ukamaka's kitchen

Reyna

I pushed the glass door open and above it hung the sign, Ukamaka's kitchen. Afam locked his arm with mine and dragged me off to the side.

"Quick, put this on." He said while he helped me take off the purse I wore over my shoulder. Then hurriedly put on the African print customized apron over my neck and tied knotted the straps at the back. It was exactly like the one he had on.

He handed a notepad and pen to me. "Go ahead and take an order. I'll keep your purse in the locker." Before I could get a word out, he'd hurried away. The smile on my face was faint and brief, grateful for his help. My eyes met with Mrs. Williams who just walked out of the kitchen. Fast, I made my way to a customer of two at a table.

"Good afternoon, may I take your order?" I asked as politely as I could and watched while they took another look at the menu.

"We would like two plates of jollof rice and two portions each of asun, that's peppered goat meat, right." The man asked and I nodded. "Yes sir." He looked at the woman in front of him. "Do you want anything else?"

She shook her head at his question. "I'm fine. Maybe a bottle of water as well."

"Yes, two bottles of water." The man added and I wrote down their order as well as their table number before leaving to the next customer that just took their seat.

Ukamaka's kitchen was a restaurant specialised in the Igbo cuisine. It was run and owned by Mrs. Ukamaka Williams and her husband. She was the talent behind the dishes and her husband was the brain behind the business affairs. They had two children. Afam and his older sister who as of now was away in medical school. For the past two years, after high school, this has been my place of work. It was I, Afam and a young lady, Shola whom most of the time stayed at the desk as the receptionist.

"Today was a close call." Afam said when he walked into the small spaced locker room early in the night and met me taking out my purse and wore it over my shoulder.

"I know and I'm sorry." I said before shutting the locker and turned to walk away.

Afam stood in my path. "You're leaving?"

I nodded and took a step to the side in order to walk past him but he stood in my path again.

"Are you ever going to tell me what you've been up to this past week? You've been acting strange. I thought this year was the year for college admission."

I sighed and kept a hand on his shoulder. "You're a good friend. Good luck on your college applications." This time, I succeeded in walking past him.

"W-wait, you're not applying this year?" He asked as he followed me from behind and out of the room and into the open area which was now void of customers.

Mrs. Williams was seated on one of the chairs and took her time making the balance of the days' earnings. "Good night, Mrs. Williams."

She lifted her eyes to me. "Good night, Reyna. Say hello to your mum on my behalf."

It was hard to steady a smile after hearing the word 'mum' but I did my best to keep at it. "I will." Those were my words before I walked out of the restaurant to where my scooter was parked. I got on it and wore the helmet over my head then inserted the key.

Afam stretched his hand in front of me and that stopped the action I was about to take. His hand fell back to his side and he flipped open the face shield of my helmet.

"Why aren't you applying this year?"

I shrugged, not quite seeing the necessity to tell him the truth. "Because, I'm not ready. You're ready so I support you."