This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2020 by Tola Rotimi Abraham
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-1-948226-56-1
Jacket design by Nicole Caputo
Book design by Wah-Ming Chang
Illustration by Nicole Caputo
Catapult titles are distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West
Phone: 866-400-5351
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019944287
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
For Afolarori, Oluwatomi, Akinloluwa, and Oluwaseye
Iya ni wura, Baba ni dingi.
YORUBA PROVERB
Mother is gold, Father is a mirror.
CONTENTS
How to be a Stupid Girl in Lagos
Something Happened on the Way to Love
The Beautiful People and the Beloved Country
HOW TO BE A STUPID GIRL IN LAGOS
BIBIKE
1996
THERE WERE MANY easy ways to be a stupid girl in Lagos. We were not stupid girls. We were bright with borrowed wisdom. We never paid full fare to drivers of yellow city cabs before we arrived at the final stop. We did not wear any kind of visible jewelry walking around busy streets like Balogun. When we went to Tejuosho market and a stranger shouted, “Hey. Fine girl. Stop, see your money for ground,” we never stopped to look.
When many of the ECOMOG soldiers were returning from peacekeeping in Liberia, flush with UN dollars, we were still protected prepubescent girls, yet we knew to avoid the one we called Uncle Timo, the one who gave all the little girls Mills & Boon paperbacks wrapped in old newspapers.
MY TWIN SISTER and I were almost stupid girls once, and this is how it begins, with Ariyike and me lost on our way home from school. I am holding on to her out of habit; she is pulling away, walking up to and talking to every stranger we meet, asking over and over, “Uncle, please, where can we get a bus to Fadeyi?”
We are walking home from secondary school. Today is the first time we have been allowed to come home by ourselves. Our younger brothers, Andrew and Peter, attend Holy Child Academy, the primary school that shares a fence with the military cemetery where all the agbalumo trees grow. They don’t need to be picked up. The church bus drops them off every day at half past four.
I am thinking of school and today’s government studies class and gerrymandering, how I like the way that word sounds, well calculated and important, like meandering, only with purpose. Everything is better with purpose.
I am also thinking of Father, who likes to say our government studies teacher is verbose:
“Mr. Agbo fancies himself a university lecturer, he is always going off tangent, completely missing the point.”
And of Mother, who likes to say: “We pay a lot of money for you girls to go to that school.” Or: “You girls should listen to Mr. Agbo. He is a brilliant man.”
We have walked for almost twenty minutes, and now we make our first stop, to buy roast plantains and groundnuts from the woman who is selling them under a 7 Up canopy. She is amused when we ask if she has any cold drinks for sale.
“Can you see any fridge here?” she asks. “Will I keep the drinks in my brassiere?” We are waiting for our plantains when Ariyike stops a stranger on a motorcycle. He is a tall man wearing combat shorts and a black T-shirt that says GOT MILK? in bold white print. They take a few steps together, her listening, him pointing. When she is done, she comes back under the canopy. I clench my right fist
