Nacilele realized how true the timeless adage was—way too late—as she sat in a daze before her laptop. Pearl-shaped tears streamed down her face at the realization that she wasn’t the only woman in Lemba’s life.
Inexplicable pain wrung her heart. Nacilele, who had until now held hope of a reconciliation between the two of them, felt like her world had just crashed around her.
At first, she had tried to deny the facts before her, but the more she stared at the couple on the screen, the more ridiculous she felt. Then raw pain coursed through her.
“You are a liar, Lemba! You fooled me! You made a fool out of me!” she yelled as she swept everything off the desk in a fit of unbridled rage.
The noise attracted the secretary outside. She barged in, worried about her boss.
“Ma’am, is everything okay?”
“Get the hell out! Who asked you to come in here?”
The secretary looked at the mess on the floor, then shifted her gaze at her fuming boss.
“I will just clean the room up.”
Nacilele grabbed the picture frame—the only thing left on the table—and hurled it at the secretary. “Are you deaf? Didn’t you hear me when I said get out?”
Unfortunately for the secretary, she wasn’t able to dodge the flying missile in time. The wooden frame hit her on her head. The secretary let out an agonized yelp as she covered her bloody forehead with her hand.
“Get out!” Nacilele screamed, unaffected by the bloody gush on the other woman’s forehead.
As the secretary ran out, Nacilele turned around, grabbed the laptop off the floor, went back to her seat, and powered it on. Even though the screen was cracked, the picture was still visible.
Nacilele was a woman who was confident in her looks and sexy appeal, but as she stared at the younger woman’s picture through the cracked screen, she couldn’t help but feel inferior to her.
She glared at the paused picture with jealousy.
There was no doubt the other woman was very beautiful, with youth on her side. She felt a pang in her chest. Had he been cheating on her all this while? Was she the reason he stopped loving her and broke off the engagement? Had they planned to meet and celebrate on the night they would announce to both families about the breakup? So many questions, yet no one to answer her.
Unable to stare at the picture of the two of them anymore, she flung the laptop across the room and it hit against the wall. Her chest swelled and dropped as her breath came in short, rapid pants.
“Bastards! Lying swines! You will not do this to me. I will not let you make a fool of me!” she yelled, the look in her eyes turning crazed. “You won’t do this to me, Lemba!”
A few seconds later, she punched the internal office line. “My office now!”
Taking a calming breath, she righted her clothes, then grabbed her compact from her purse and retouched her makeup.
A little while later, Ted from the bar, the doorman, four young women, and another two young men, all dressed in the hotel’s black and white uniform, stood before her in her messy office. They all stared at her with varying degrees of shock and disbelief. Nacilele had just fired them all.
Their crime? Aiding and abetting Lemba and his mistress. But of course, they would never know. She wasn’t about to humiliate herself further by explaining her reasons. When the shock had worn off at the news of their sudden dismissal, they all tried to talk above each other as they pleaded with her to reconsider her decision.
“I want you out of my hotel in the next ten minutes. Your salaries will be credited to your accounts,” she told them coldly.
Nacilele stared at them, unaffected by their pleas. She scoffed at their attempt to have her tell them the reasons they were suddenly being dismissed. When they wouldn’t move out and continued to pester her, she called security. In an instant, the once quiet and uneventful executive floor was filled with wailing from the dismissed employees as security dragged them away.
Just as security dragged the last unwilling dismissed employee out, a tall and graceful woman in her late forties stepped out of the elevator. She was dressed in a beautiful blue chitenge dress with a matching gele. She frowned at the scene before her.
“What is going on here?” she demanded.
“Mrs. Akokwa,” the head security guard greeted her respectfully and quickly explained that the eight employees had just been dismissed and were not allowed to be on the hotel premises.
“Dismissed? For what? How come I didn’t know about this?”
She asked the security to stop manhandling them and told them all to wait in the conference room, after which she headed to Nacilele’s office. She flung the door open and frowned at the mess before her.
“Nacilele, what’s going on? Why did you suddenly let go of our employees?”
“And why can’t I? I am within my rights to.”
“Not without a just cause and without passing it through me,” pointed out the head of human resource, who also happened to be her father’s cousin.
“I have my reasons.”
“Which are?”
“None of your business,” Nacilele snapped, taking the elderly woman by surprise.
“Anything to do with the hotel personnel, is my business. This is not the market where you can fire anyone at will. This is a business, Nasi, run by rules and regulations. Honestly, with all the problems we are facing, we really don’t need the union hot on our tail. We can do without the bad publicity.”
“You think I care about all that?”
“You should. I don’t know how, but they already got wind of the pending massive retrenchments, and they are not happy campers.”
“They are fired, and that is final.”
“Unfortunately, the final decision is not only up to you.”
“Aunt!”
“Give me a good reason why you are doing this. Maybe if your reasons are justifiable, I might back you up.”
Heaving heavily, Nacilele looked away from the elderly woman as a large lump settled in her throat.
“Honestly, Nasi, what is wrong with you today?” Earlier, she had been at a party hosted in honor of the largest investor, Nsemiwe, when she got the distressed call from her secretary that Nacilele had assaulted Emelia, her secretary. Nacilele ought to have been at the party as well, but she hadn’t turned up and couldn’t bother herself with giving a proper excuse. “Is something bothering you? Do you need some time off? I think you should take some time off to cool down. I think you need some alone time to process everything that has been happening.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you are not, honey. Look at you. This is not you. You are acting crazy. Tell me, have you and Lemba talked…”
“Don’t mention that lying bastard’s name in front of me.”
Sibeso Akokwa raised her hands in surrender. “Okay. I guess it’s still a sensitive topic. Look, why don’t you take the day off? I will deal with things here.”
“Whatever,” Nacilele murmured, grabbed her bag, and stormed out.
Sibeso Akokwa sighed and walked out. As soon as she walked into the conference room, the just-dismissed workers stood up and looked at her anxiously.
Sighs of relief, soft sobs, and words of gratitude greeted her ears as soon as she assured them that their dismissals had been reversed. Sibeso gave them all a week off and offered them complimentary weekend trips at one of their lodges.
“How is she?” she later asked her secretary, who had earlier joined her in the conference room.
The secretary walked beside her towards their office. “She will live. She refused to come up, though. The young Miss scared her for life.”
“Yeah, her and me both. Did you manage to find out anything?”
“Yes. Earlier, Miss Nyambe asked for the CCTV footage from the night of her engagement.”
“Oh? What for?”
Sibeso never attended the party as she was still in South Africa finalizing details of the contract between her family and Nsemiwe. Pumulo and Nsemiwe were supposed to stay with her for another week as they had scheduled to have their honeymoon on the Nkosi Lettie, a Durban-based luxury cruise ship, but for some reason, Nsemiwe had suddenly changed her mind after the wedding and insisted she preferred to have the honeymoon back home.
Sibeso had faith in her secretary’s gossip skills and didn’t for a moment doubt what she had been able to piece together in such a short time.
“So it is like that?”
“I could be wrong. Do you want me to investigate it further?”
“No. It’s fine. I just didn’t peg Lemba to be a two-timer.”
“Do you want to see the footage? Unfortunately, Miss Nyambe had the IT department delete it all.”
Sibeso waved her hand dismissively. “Get back to work.”
“Okay, Mrs. Akokwa.”
“Have Emelia take the day off. Here, process these papers for her. Tell her she can take some time off and return when she is fine. Offer her the same incentives as the others.”
“Okay, ma’am.”
“And make sure this doesn’t grow out of proportion, mm?”
The secretary threw her a sheepish smile as she zipped her mouth.
Alone, Sibeso took out her tablet. She browsed through the news articles featuring the hotel. A satisfied smile crossed her face at the positive reviews.
She picked up her phone and made a call, but just like the many times in the past month, her call went unanswered.
Later, she followed her son and his new wife into his office.
Nsemiwe had her arm in the crook of Pumulo’s arm.
“You are back. I thought you would stay a little longer,” Sibeso said to them.
“I asked Pumulo if we could leave. My feet are killing me,” Nsemiwe replied.
“Is that so? Did you carry a spare pair of slippers?”
“Unfortunately, no. But I think if I just rest for a while, I will be fine.”
“You should do that and try to avoid high-heeled shoes from now on. It’s not recommended for pregnant women to be in heels,” Sibeso said. “We wouldn’t want anything happening to my grandchild now, would we?”
“No, of course not, Mom,” Nsemiwe replied sweetly as Pumulo shot his mother a look that she could not decode.
“I will have someone bring you a pair of slippers.”
“Thanks, Mom. You are so sweet. Your mom is so nice,” she said in a soft, coquettish voice to Pumulo.
“If nice was a person,” Pumulo commented dryly, his cold gaze pinned on his mother.
Sibeso smiled awkwardly.
“Mom, don’t mind him. He’s been like this for days. Mom, a month has already passed since our civil wedding. I was thinking it was about time we started planning for a church wedding.”
“Is that so? Well, we can talk about that once you guys have moved back home. In the meantime, I will talk to our Reverend and invite him home for dinner the day you move in.”
“Thanks, Mom. You are the best,” Nsemiwe squealed delightfully. “I can’t wait to walk down the aisle with all our friends and relatives. Pumulo, you should make sure all your friends are invited. Don’t leave anyone out,” she continued, looking up at him, her eyes filled with mockery and provocation.
Pumulo removed her arm from his and walked over to his desk.
“I have work to do. If there is nothing else, you can go ahead to the suite.”
“Oh, but I want to stay here with you,” pouted the pregnant Nsemiwe. “I don’t know why, but the baby and I just want to be by your side all day long.”
Pumulo threw her a cold glare, whereas she smiled sweetly at him.
“I will just go use the little girls’ room. Don’t go anywhere. Your wife and baby will be back soon,” Nsemiwe said, blowing him a kiss on her way out.
“Son,” Sibeso began hesitantly as soon as the door closed behind Nsemiwe. “How are the two of you?”
“How do you think?” he retorted, pulling on his tie.
“It can’t be that bad. I know there is no love between the two of you, but love can be cultivated with time, right?”
“And the point of this conversation is?”
Sadness shadowed the elderly woman’s face. She wasn’t happy with herself for what she had done, but she believed she had done the right thing. “I know you must hate me, but what’s done is done. If you give yourselves a chance, if you really try hard, you two could be a happy family.”
Pumulo scoffed, pulled back his chair, sat, and switched on the computer.
The moment the computer turned on, Teliwe’s face, which he had saved as the wallpaper, stared at him. He looked at the young woman’s smiling face longingly. For a moment, he permitted himself a tiny smile as he reached out to touch the screen.
Though Sibeso wasn’t privy to what had her son smiling like that, she had a vague idea. She cleared her throat, edged closer to the table, and took a peek. “Have you had a chance to talk to her?”
He switched off the computer and reached for a file instead. “You should leave.”
“You should talk to her before she finds out from a third party.”
“Too late. Your lively daughter-in-law already beat you to it.”
“What? How? How did Teliwe take it? Is she okay?”
“How the hell do you think?”
“Oh god. Poor Teliwe. Maybe I should go and talk to her…”
“You stay away from her. Haven’t you done enough already?”
“Son, it wasn’t my intention to hurt either of you. What happened hurts me more than it hurts both of you, but I had no choice. Someday, Teliwe will understand. Someday, when you are a parent, you will understand.”
“Is that what you have been telling yourself to ease your guilt?”
“Pu…”
“Shut the door on your way out,” he said dismissively and turned his attention to the file before him.
Dejected and with no way to defend herself, Sibeso turned and walked away. Nsemiwe, who had been eavesdropping at the door, scurried away before she could open it.
🕸🕸🕸
An hour later, Nacilele sat in her car, parked across the garden. The woman wore the same clothes as the night of the failed engagement party. She was instructing over ten men who carried large clay pots and potted plants to the white van outside the garden.
Determined to confront the other woman and get answers from her, Nacilele reached for the handle of the door.
They had ruined her dreams. The image of the woman leaving Lemba’s room burned in her mind. She put her foot out, then changed her mind. She watched the other woman for a while, then left.
She needed Easi for this situation.
🕸🕸🕸
As Nacilele’s car pulled out, Chonta drove through and parked her car just as the van with the men left. She crossed the road and hurried to the girl.
She found her standing in the middle of the garden sweeping the debris with hunched shoulders. Chonta went to her and touched her on her shoulders. She turned, her face wet with tears. Chonta held the girl in a hug and let her cry out her pain.
🕸🕸🕸
With her arms folded over her chest, Chonta stood by the window in the Zimba residence, a modestly decorated room despite all their wealth. She watched Teli as she instructed the men on what to do.
Edna walked over to her with a glass of juice. “What is with you? Why do you keep sighing and fretting about all day long?”
“I’m worried about her.” Edna followed her gaze to the girl in her garden. Chonta continued, “I just want to wring that Pumulo’s neck. He had no right to do this to her.”
Whenever she recalled how the young man had come to her a few years back to beg for permission to court the girl, her blood boiled.
She had wanted to object, but they were in love and he had promised to love and cherish her.
“Edmond told me what happened at the mall. Will she be okay?”
Chonta wondered too. “She has been through worse,” she said simply.
“Only time is the best healer for such pain. She has you and now me. She will be fine.”
The two stood by the window and watched as she pushed the wheelbarrow with the compost.
🕸🕸🕸
The last person Lemba expected to find in his office when he came back from the factory was Nacilele. He was taken aback as he headed to his desk and placed the helmet on the table. “Nasi. This is a surprise.”
“I had come to see your sister. She ran out for an emergency,” she lied.
“I see.”
“How have you been? It’s been weeks since we last saw each other.”
Lemba grabbed a bottle of mineral water from the fridge. “Good. Can’t complain. You?”
“Well, life as a single lady is challenging is all I’m going to say,” she said with a chuckle. “What’s with you men? No sooner was the breakup announced, there were already a mile-long line of suitors.”
If she was single and available, she would have been thrilled, but she wasn’t searching. She wanted to tell him as much but held back.
“That’s great. You should date. There are so many great guys around.”
The devastating words hit her like a ton of bricks. It took all her might not to cry as she felt her heart break. She loved him. She had never stopped loving him. “What about you? Seeing anyone yet?”
Lemba laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “There is someone. Nothing concrete yet.”
“We should go on a double date sometime,” she said when all she wanted to do was call him out on his lies.
“Yeah?”
“So what is she like?”
“Sweet and innocent,” he said as he recalled his brief interaction with Teli. “I will introduce her to you one day.”
They chatted for a while, then she left. In the elevator, Nacilele let out her frustration by hitting the walls of the elevator with her hand.
“Nothing concrete? Lying bastard. I will get even with you two!”
🕸🕸🕸
Easineya walked into the house as Edna walked out with a tray of snacks. Edna found Teli at the back hunched over her laptop on the heap of sand.
“Mrs. Zimba.”
“I brought you and your men some snacks. You should take a break.” She thanked her and called one of the men, who came over to take the tray. “So what’s that got your attention?”
Teli picked up the laptop and showed her some amazing landscape ideas she had found on the net. Edna went back in after a while.
She found Easineya at the kitchen window watching Teli and helping herself to some scones she had just baked.
“Who is she?”
“That’s our landscaper. Teliwe. You should meet her. She is a nice girl.”
“That’s the landscaper? Isn’t she like, what, fifteen?”
“And very good at her job too. Did you know she is the brains behind the KK play park?”
“Her? Well, my respect to her.” As her mother went to the pantry and got some ingredients out—dry vegetables and pounded groundnuts—Easineya added, “Are you cooking visashi again? Didn’t we have visashi the other day?”
Edna chuckled. “You and your cravings. As a doctor, you should know better. You shouldn’t be so picky with food. How is Nancy? Why won’t she visit? Just because she broke up with Lemba doesn’t mean we can’t still be on good terms.”
“I don’t know. I will drag her here,” she said, thinking of the stupidity of the two that always kept her awake. She didn’t appreciate the sleepless nights. One was a coward and the other an idiot. She didn’t know what to do with either. “My brother is an idiot.”
“Now, child. You know the family rule. We do not interfere in the lives of family members.”
“But, Mom.”
“Now, honey. Lemba is old enough. He knows what he is doing,” she admonished her.
“Even when it’s for their own good?”
“Even then.”
Easineya huffed and walked out. She didn’t need the stress, she told herself. But she swore one way or another, she would see her friend happy.
🕸🕸🕸
Later that afternoon, Nacilele ran into Lemba in the lobby as he headed to the hotel’s restaurant.
“Lemba. What are the odds? We meet again, twice in one day.”
“Hey,” he walked to her and gave her a peck on the cheek.
“Business or pleasure?”
“Family,” he said. “I’m meeting Mum for lunch. You should join us if you are free.”
She declined, citing work, and left. Lemba walked into the hotel’s restaurant. His mother sat at a table that had a view of the breathtaking garden. She looked up from the menu when he got to her table.
“Son, you are here,” she said as she accepted his kiss on the cheek. They placed their orders. Edna wanted to know how work was going and if he was doing alright.
Lemba chuckled as he dug into his food. “Dad told you, didn’t he?”
“We don’t keep secrets,” she said, smiling. It was what he loved about his parents and hoped to have a relationship like theirs with his future wife. “So, are you sure about her?”
“She makes me nervous. I never felt that with Nasi.”
“Son, you are an adult and not a teenager, so I have to take comfort in thinking that you are not going to mistake the emotions of love with that of sex.”
Lemba chuckled. “No, Mom.”
“Okay. Good then. Any luck in finding her?”
“Thanks, Mom. And no to your question.”
“Well, I do hope you get to find her so I can have my son back.”
“Mom, I never left.”
She raised a well-penciled eyebrow at him. Maybe he had been out of it lately, he mused to himself and promised to spend more time with the family.
🕸🕸🕸
Teli got back to the garden sometime after six, just as the sun was setting. She noticed that there was a vehicle parked in the parking lot as she got out of the van. The men offloaded the equipment from the back. Arnold came out, the garden’s branded apron over his shoulder.
“Arnold, why do we still have customers at this hour?”
Arnold looked over his shoulder at the other chalet that was her house. “I’m sorry. But he wouldn’t leave.”
“Do we have a problem with a customer?” she asked, heading towards the office.
“Teli—he is in your house.”
She stopped mid-stride. He didn’t need to tell her who ‘he’ was. She headed to her house and opened the door. Pumulo stood near the table with pictures. Pictures of the two of them. Memories she had framed, foolishly thinking she had a future with him. He held one picture and stared at it longingly.
“What the hell, Pumulo?”
He turned to face her. For a moment, she thought she saw him wipe a tear away, but of course he wouldn’t, she assured herself. She went to him and took the picture. She remembered it. It had been taken on her seventeenth birthday when he had proposed love to her. The day he had declared his everlasting love for her. She gathered the remaining pictures, headed to the bin, and threw them all in.
“I came to explain,” he finally said as he watched the love of his life dump their memories in the bin.
“Ha! The nerve,” she murmured and went to open the door for him.
“Nothing Nsemiwe said is true. I never cheated on you. You have to believe me.”
“So what happened? They kidnapped you and forced you to take marital vows? And how the hell do you explain the baby?”
“I needed to marry her to save the company. I’m sorry.”
Teliwe looked at him in amazement as words failed her. She chuckled, wondering how he thought the explanation was any less painful.
“Are you done? Can you now leave?”
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” he said. He walked over to her. He reached for her hand, then stopped himself. She kept her gaze away from him. “I just want you to know, I never meant to hurt you. I’m truly sorry for everything.”
Pumulo stood by the door, wanting to say more, but left instead. Teliwe banged the door after him, leaned against it, fighting back tears.
🕸🕸🕸
Easineya found her brother working on the laptop in his room with the pencil in his mouth.
“Easi.”
“Hey. Do you have a minute?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“What’s your day like tomorrow evening?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“I set you up for a blind date,” she told him.
He closed his laptop and looked up at her. “Easi, my love life is just fine.”
“Who said it isn’t? Come on, humour me. It’s just a date. I am not asking you to marry the girl.”
“I don’t know.”
“She is great, sexy, and rich too. Did I tell you she qualified from ZIALI with the highest score in five years?”
“Fine. You don’t need to sell her bio to me. I will go. Just one date.”
“One date,” she reaffirmed. It was all she needed to know if he was still in love with her friend or if he had moved on—which she doubted.
He chuckled as he watched her leave. However, when he tried to get back to work, all he could think of was the beautiful stranger he had spent the night with. He put his work aside and searched across the social networks for his Teli and came up short.
🕸🕸🕸
The next day was a Friday. When Edna walked into her son’s room, she found him fast asleep on the sofa. She looked at the laptop screen on the side table. There were various images of Teli, and apparently none that belonged to her son. She sighed and woke him up.
“Oh, Mom. What are you doing here?”
“Waking you up, obviously. You might be late for work. Your father tells me you have an important meeting later.”
“I do. What is that?” he asked, stretching himself.
The sound of drilling carried to them as his mother opened the windows. She pulled back the curtains and tied them.
“Oh, that. That’s our landscaper.”
She looked out and waved to Teliwe, who had straightened up to wipe her brow. The beautiful teen waved back.
INKED IMAGINATION
