The Music Deal (Episode 16: Final)
Read Episode 15 HERE
Around
nine-thirty when I got to her house, I saw a beautiful young lady, Rachel,
standing at the balcony. I had met her on one of my visits to Blessing. She
wore a short, an armless vest and held a phone in her hand. It was obvious she
was yet to take her bath but she still looked beautiful nonetheless. I don’t
know why I always meet beautiful girls, it was almost a curse.
“Blessing
was not a student of U. I. to my knowledge,” she said after a few minutes of
our discussion. “She came here few weeks ago, maybe about a month.”
“What
did she tell you she came to do?”
“Well,”
she said, “we don’t talk that much but she once told me she was a member of a
music group, that they came for a series of performances in Ibadan. When I saw
you, I thought you were a member of the music group.”
“So
who owns the room she stayed?” I said without confirming or denying her
accusations.
“According
to what I heard,” she said, “the son of the landlord owns the room. But in the
two years I’ve spent here, I’ve seen almost ten occupants of that room but
never the son of the landlord himself. And they always come with the key so who
are we to stop them?”
“How
often did you talk with Blessing?”
“Not
much,” she said as if she was happy to pour her heart to. “Most times, she’s
out going to meet her music group and is always on the piano which is kind of
weird.”
I
put my hands on my head and walked towards the other side of the balcony. I
began walking back towards her but saw a bench by the wall and my legs became
suddenly weak, too weak to walk. I sat on the bench and despite the cool breeze
blowing in anticipation for rain, sweat broke out of my face.
“Is
there any problem?” Rachel said.
“No
no no,” I said as my palms clapped my face and I stood up again. “Ah ah yes yes.
Actually there is. She’s a thief. She stole my money.”
“How
much?”
“Fifty
thousand,” I lied, ashamed to tell her the true figure. She opened her mouth in
surprise, but quickly covered it with her hands as a housefly flew past. I
tried calling the three phone numbers again. Switched off. All three.
Everything
started becoming so clear to me. She had not lent me twenty thousand naira but
conned me of hundred thousand. And I thought a miracle was happening when I
reminded my father on Sunday about my second semester tuition fees and he sent
me forty-one thousand naira for my tuition and initial packet money on Monday.
I
borrowed twenty thousand from my brother, Festus who paid in on Tuesday and my
elder sister, Victoria who paid on Wednesday to bring my bank account to a
hundred and one thousand naira. I had seen it as God’s way of telling me that
music is my way, never as devil’s way of accruing debts on my weak neck. Eighty
thousand naira in debts. Shower of shame fall on me. Fall on my stupid head.
I
had been too stupid to get ensnared in her wiles. She was a far better
psychologist than me, exploiting my weaknesses to the maximum. I wanted to be
like 2face but I was too foolish. Now I had to resume school the next week and
pay tuition fees, and survive. How am I going to tell people? Some problems are
difficult, or worse, shameful to share.
“Bro
Festus,” I said as he picked my call.
“Yes,”
his tense voice betrayed an expectation of bad news for I had discarded his
nickname for his real name.
“I
need to borrow forty thousand more.”
THE END
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