I gestured with a short bow as I continued to coo at the ring. Femi and Mum were the cutest couple; I could only hope to find the kind of love they did one day. ‘OK, so … engagement story, how did it happen?’
Femi grabbed Mum by the waist as they stared into each other’s eyes lovingly. They were so heartbreakingly cute. ‘Well,’began Mum, ‘we’d gone to one of our favourite restaurants in St Paul’s and we’d just finished dessert. So Femi goes to the bathroom, comes back and suddenly all the lights in the restaurant start dimming! So I was like, “Oh, someone hasn’t paid their light bill”.’
‘She had no idea!’ joined in Femi, beaming. ‘I didn’t actually go to the bathroom by the way, I was just setting up last-minute arrangements with the staff.’
‘Oh you!’ my mum squealed. ‘Lemme get back to the story – anyway – so he comes back and the lights have gone down and I’m like, what the heck. Then when he comes back to the table, he pretends to start coughing, I guess, and then he gets down on one knee next to me and that’s when the ring pops out!’
‘Your mum had no idea, she just stared at me for, like, forty-five seconds, you know. My knee was killing me being on the floor for that damn long!’ Femi joined in.
‘Pfft! A small price to pay for eternal happiness, I reckon,’ Mum scoffed, playfully tapping Femi on the arm. Ugh. Love is sweet.
After chatting a bit more with them both and finding out that Steven and Bianca were most probably due to arrive that afternoon, I sat at the kitchen table facing the window, playing with my phone.
After a moment, Femi came to join me.
‘I don’t know if your mum said, but we’ve set the date for the wedding quite soon. Thirtieth of May, in fact. At our age, we don’t have time to waste, to be honest.’
I raised my eyebrows in shock. Four months to plan a wedding. An African wedding? In fact, scratch that … a WEST African wedding? That was going to be one hell of a feat.
‘Whew! That’s cutting it a little fine, but I hear you on the time thing. I’m so happy for the both of you, you deserve each other so much!’ I responded, briefly glancing at the clock onthe wall. Don’t get me wrong, I was having a great time, but my date with Jericho would be happening in a mere three hours and I could already feel the subtle onslaught of moths attacking my insides. The nerves had already begun.
‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ Femi replied, rubbing his head. ‘It’s going to be a small wedding, nothing too fancy. Obviously we’d love it if you could bring a plus one? A nice partner maybe? I’m not going to pry into your dating life or anything, but I know your mum wonders sometimes …’ His voice trailed off, leaving an awkward silence hanging between us. Here we go: the annual ‘HAS CASSANDRA FOUND A BOYFRIEND YET?’ crusade Femi and my mum loved to do. Which had always been wild to me, considering I had a whole younger sibling with a baby on the way, but it’s me that they wanted to concern themselves with. It just made no sense whatsoever. Besides, they knew how I felt about that subject. Being forever single has always been somewhat of a wound for me, and being forced to be reminded of the fact was beginning to take its toll.
I responded with the generic response. ‘I’m working on it, guys, don’t worry! The dating scene in London is rubbish, but I’m trying.’
‘Mm well, try harder then,’ I overheard my mum call out from the corridor. ‘I won’t rest until everyone in this family is married off and happy. Well, nearly everyone. As for your father, he can choke.’
I spluttered as Femi looked towards Mum sternly across the hallway. He and Dad weren’t on the best of terms, but they were at least always cordial to each other, which was more than I could say for Mum. ‘Regina? Be nice now,’ he said in a stern, yet tender manner. I’m sure it must have grown bothersome for him always getting in between Mum and Dad, but hey ho. I had bigger things to worry about. My date with Jericho washappening soon and I needed to psych myself up for what was to come. After spending the next couple of hours pottering around the house, picking at breakfast and annoying my mum as much as possible, it was finally time to set off.
I gave myself a final once-over in the bathroom mirror, making sure my face hadn’t broken out into any oily patches. I sprayed myself with a floral perfume and went downstairs to bid goodbye to Femi and Mum.
‘So where are you going that is so important that you couldn’t spend the day with us then? You’re also going to miss your brother too!’ moaned Mum, sucking her teeth.
‘I’ll catch up with Steve later, Mum,’ I replied, putting my jacket on. ‘And actually, I’m trying to do what you want me to; I’m going on a date, innit?’ I turned around to see her beaming at me, eyes wide open with what looked like pride?
‘That’s my girl! Doing what needs to be done. Finally! We’ll have your uterus up and working overtime in no time!’
‘On that note, it’s time for me to leave,’ I said, shaking my head. The woman had no filter, clearly, but it was also something I absolutely loved her for. ‘I’ll call you later and fill you in on how it goes – Femi – congratulations to you both once again! I can’t wait to get into all the wedding planning and obviously I’m going to be maid of honour so we’ll need to run through a full itinerary at some point.’
As I made my way to hug them both goodbye, I heard my mum whisper to me, ‘Actually, Femi’s sister is going to be my maid of honour this time; she’s not that well and the wedding is one of the last things I think she wants to be a part of before the worst happens.’
‘Oh no!’ I gasped out loud. I’d only met Uwa – Femi’s sister – a small handful of times, but she was always very pleasant. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that – of course, that’s fine. Is she OK? How long does she have left?’
‘What? Oh no, nothing like that. She has gout. But you never know with these things, innit?’
I rolled my eyes and took my attention to my phone. Time to cram, apparently. But what exactly does one google here? ‘Client/escort etiquette’? ‘First-date manners for sex work 101’? In a moment of desperation, I tried ‘how to treat sex workers on a first date’, only to be bombarded with Reddit threads on how to respectfully meet female escorts. Not exactly my situation, but hey—at least the internet wasn’t a total cesspit. Small wins. I tried again: ‘etiquette when dating a male sex worker’. AMediumarticle written by a male sex worker came up. I clicked into it and read what they had to say:
Before the meeting:
Confirm the time and be punctual. Being late and/or ghosting is just as rude here as in any other professional service.(He didn’t have to worry about that – with the amount I was spending, I was for sure going to turn up.)
Hygiene is key! Shower, brush your teeth and clean up.(Again, obvious but I chucked a mint into my mouth just to be extra sure.)
During the encounter, respect his boundaries. Just because you’ve booked his time, it doesn’t mean you can do anything. Stick to the agreement.(Wait, what was our agreement?)
Treat him like a person; if something isn’t a part of the agreement, don’t push for extras.(Were we supposed to have an agreement beforehand? Was a contract needed? Maybe I should have asked for his non-negotiables before agreeing to the meetup.)
Don’t ask him anything personal unless he gives you the go-ahead.(That was pretty self-explanatory.)
