Embraced (#2 Natives series) #ProjectNigeria

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

           A Few Minutes After Fajr prayer the next day, Fatiha got a message from Hussaini asking if she could meet up with him by 2pm. She had agreed. Better to get this over with and out of the way, she'd decided.

So, there she was, seated across from her elegantly attired sister who had no idea what it was she was doing in the newly refurbished restaurant in town or what it was she was about to do in place of her sister.

Madinah who was three years younger than Fatiha, petite with a long face and upturned eyes was dressed to the nines in a beige high waist pleated skirt and a brown form fitting long sleeve top with a mock neck. Her black jersey scarf was fashioned into a small but modest hijab style that she'd made sure covered her small bust area.

As a makeup expert and a professional makeup artist, Madinah had knocked on Fatiha's door all chirpy with her wide glossy terracotta lips and perfectly made-up face, and had asked to make her sister up but had been gently turned down.

Fatiha checked the time on the too-tight leather wristwatch strapped to her good wrist for the third time. Auntie Halimah had gifted it to her among other things when she'd graduated from secondary school years back.

Fatiha glanced behind her sister as she searched for her mother's choice of a prospective spouse. He was five minutes late. Ya Allah. She breathed through her nose. Why couldn't people just stick to time? She hated African time, but she had never hated it more in her life than she did today. She shifted uncomfortably in her small plastic chair.

"Didn't you say this was a me-you day? What are we waiting for? Why aren't we ordering yet?" Madinah agonized in her southern drawl, her eyes flying up from the screen of her phone to question her sister. Her dark eye makeup granted her eyes the illusion of a brewing storm, one Fatiha hoped she wouldn't witness until the day was over.

Madinah, unlike Zarah and Nafeesah had what was known as a nasty temper. One she'd gotten from their mother.

Fatiha who only had on a plain lipgloss and was dressed in a white and purple A-line tulip gown blinked back at her sister. "Erm, I just..." She began just as out of the corner of her eyes she sighted Hussaini.

Fatiha watched as the average height and trim built thirty year old sauntered the short flight of steps that led up to the restaurant. His coffee colored skin matching perfectly with the white embroidered kaftan he had on reminded Fatiha of whipped cream on a perfectly baked chocolate cake.

There was a humble grace with which he carried himself that made Fatiha breathe in ease. For a second she had feared it might have been Hassan coming to prank her whilst pretending to be his brother, but it was Hussaini. She guessed it was a good thing Hassan's arrogant gait was very distinguishable.

As realization slowly dawned upon her, Fatiha sprang to her feet, muttering something about using the toilet to a puzzled Madinah as she went.

"Well, I'm ordering!" Her sister called after her.

Without sparing her sister any sort of response, Fatiha scurried down to the restroom where she spent an anxious thirty minutes, while pretending to have diarrhea.

At around 2:45pm someone came into the restroom. Fatiha heard the door of the other stall creak open and close as the person went in. She could hear the person through the thinness of the wall both stalls shared pissing, then the sound of the latrine flushing filled the room and all the while click-clack sounds accompanied the unknown lady's movement.

The stall's door once again opened and banged shut as the lady exited, she turned on a tap and then after sighing called out in a drawl, "You don't intend on staying there for the rest of the day, do you, Fatiha?"