time where she is.
I hate house parties. People forget the etiquette they would apply if they visited your house on a normal day. They leave their paper plates on any and every surface; they spill drinks and walk away; they dip their hands in snack bowls, take some and put some back; they look for places to make out. I pick up a set of paper cups that someone has left on a footstool and put it in a garbage bag. I’m just about to fetch some surface cleaner when the doorbell rings: Tade.
He looks…he is wearing jeans and a white T-shirt that hugs his body, and a gray blazer. I can’t help but stare at him.
“You look nice,” he tells me. I suppose complimenting my appearance is supposed to be an olive branch. It shouldn’t affect me. I’ve stayed out of his way, I’ve kept my head down. I don’t want his casual compliment to touch me; but I feel a lightness inside me. I squeeze the muscles of my face to keep a smile from bursting through. “Look, Korede, I’m sor—”
“Hey.” The “hey” comes from behind me, and I turn around to see Ayoola. She is wearing a fitted maxi dress so close to the color and shade of her skin that in the dim lighting she looks almost naked, with gold earrings, gold heels and the bracelet Tade gave her to top it off. I can detect a smattering of light gold bronzer on her skin.
Tade walks past me and kisses her gently on the lips. Love or not, they are a very attractive couple; on the outside, at least. He hands her a gift and I slide closer so I can see what it is. It’s a small box, but too long and narrow to be a ring. Tade looks my way, and I make like a bee and act busy. I head back to the center of the party and start picking up paper plates again.
I see flashes of Tade and Ayoola throughout the night—laughing together by the punch bowl, kissing on the stairs, feeding each other cake on the dance floor, until I can take it no longer. I grab a shawl from a drawer and head out of the house. It’s still warm, but I wrap my arms around myself under the fabric. I need to talk to someone, anyone; someone besides Muhtar. I considered therapy once, but Hollywood has revealed that therapists have a duty to break confidence if the life of the patient or someone else is at stake. I have a feeling that if I were to talk about Ayoola, that confidence would be broken in five minutes. Isn’t there an option where no one dies and Ayoola doesn’t have to be incarcerated? Perhaps I could see a therapist and just leave the murders out of it. I could fill plenty of sessions just talking about Tade and Ayoola and how seeing them together turns me inside out.
“Do you like him?” she had asked me. No, Ayoola. I love him.
HEAD NURSE
As soon as I walk into the hospital, I head to Dr. Akigbe’s office, as per his email request. As usual, his email was abrupt, mysterious, designed to keep the receiver on their toes. I knock.
“Come in!” His voice is like a hammer against the door.
At the moment Dr. Akigbe, St. Peter’s oldest and most senior doctor, is staring at his computer screen, scrolling down with his mouse. He doesn’t say anything to me, so I sit down of my own accord and wait. He stops scrolling and raises his head.
“Do you know when this hospital was founded?”
“Nineteen seventy-one, sir.” I lean back in my seat and sigh. Is it really possible that he called me here to lecture me on the hospital’s history?
“Excellent, excellent. I wasn’t here then, of course. I’m not that old!” He laughs at his own joke. He is, of course, that old. He just happened to be working elsewhere at the time. I clear my throat, in hopes of deterring him from beginning a story I have heard a thousand times before. He stands up, revealing his full six-foot-three frame and stretches. I know what he is doing. He’s going to bring out the photo album. He will show me pictures of the hospital in its earliest days and of the three founders he can never stop talking about.
“Sir, I have to, Ta…Dr. Otumu wants me to assist with a PET scan.”
“Right, right.” He is