THE FIRST MOVE

Lara was getting bored. It wasn’t such a great idea after all, coming to the movies alone. She had made the decision not to come with her brother Dayo because she wanted to make new friends.

But now sitting in a corner alone, nursing her smoothie while waiting for her movie which was almost an hour away she wished she had come with Dayo. It was getting sad watching people come and go in pairs and groups, she was beginning to think she was looking desperate.

Her phone beeped, a message on whatsapp. It was Genny , the only girlfriend she had in town. They had planned to come together but Genny had cancelled at the last minute. Apparently she was free now and would be joining her in a few minutes. Lara got up to go buy a ticket for Genny.

Their eyes met from the other end of the room and her heart did a somersault. The wait was suddenly worth it. Lara quickly averted her eyes and tried hard to concentrate on the person selling her  the ticket. She could feel him looking at her, such a beautiful man, she mentally hoped he too had come alone, their love would be just like in the movies. She smiled thinking how she would tell everyone that they had met at the movies, it was fairly romantic, she had always been a sucker for romance. She smiled, she was already getting ahead of herself. The ticket vendor looked at her curiously as she handed her the tickets.

Lara went back to her seat and tried not to look at the lonely Adonis seating a few tables away. She couldn’t be caught dead glancing at him, she would be so embarrassed. Hopefully he wasn’t waiting for someone, he would come over to say hi soon. She kept her fingers crossed as she pretended she was busy looking through her phone.  She raised her eyes to steal a glance at him, he was smiling, but he was not looking at her; he was looking toward the entrance of the waiting area. Lara turned slightly to look at what had caught his attention, her heart sank. It was a girl, light-skinned ( well 'agbalumo' yellow in Lara’s opinion), she wasn’t even that pretty. Lara was absolutely positive that she wouldn’t even be pretty at all without the layers of makeup. The girl went straight to Lara’s man's table and he stood up to hug her. Lara sipped her smoothie and sulked, the girl even looked like a runs girl sef, runs girls be snatching all the good guys since beginning of time. She sighed and picked up her phone, where in the world was Genny though? This place was getting more annoying.

Lara laughed at herself when a few minutes later the girl with the complexion of an over ripe agbalumo (udara in some places) got up and left with a young man who had just walked in. Great, they were just friends. Lara took a quick glance at his ring finger, empty. Just perfect. She somehow had to make him walk up to her. She’d heard somewhere that to get a guy’s attention you had to keep  catching his gaze and then stop. But Lara was finding it hard to consciously let him catch her looking

Her phone rang. Genny. She looked towards the entrance and saw her, Lara rolled her eyes. The ever dramatic Genny stood at the entrance of the waiting area, her eyes scanning, she was putting a halter neck ankara sundress with a plunging neckline.  Her dark skin shone like it had been oiled.Her natural afro was pushed slightly away from her face forming a thick dark halo around her head. Lara watched her scan the area and saw as her eyes linger a few seconds at the direction of the Adonis, Lara watched her friends nude painted lips arch slightly in a smirk. “Oh gosh!” she thought  as she shot her hand up so Genny would see her.

“My, my, my!” Genny said before her five foot ten frame settled into the chair opposite Lara “who is that delicious looking glass of hot chocolate over there?”The half dozen gold bangles she wore on her wrist jangled as she placed her elbows on the table and starred unashamed at the man Lara had been looking at. Lara smiled at her friend and shook her head, trust Genevieve to sweep into a place like a hurricane and get everyone’s attention. A  lot of people were looking at her, probably for her ‘ óh so African attire’.  True Genny was the definition of black beauty; shiny dark skin, tall, trim fit body with eyes and gait that made you think of a cat on the prowl. But Lara was never intimidated by her, she was equally if not more beautiful if she did say so herself. Though unlike Genny, Lara was certain she would never wear something that would attract so much attention to her. She liked her jeans and t-shirts just fine.

“ Very nice to see you too” Lara said innocently. Genny broke her evaluation of the cute guy long enough to cork one perfectly arched eyebrow at Lara,

“Right” she said smiling softly “so have you spoken to that guy yet?” she asked referring to her newest object of interest

“Ha! Me? Why would I? Am I that desperate?” Lara answered defensively

Genny looked genuinely puzzled “And how’s that desperation?”

“So I’ll just walk up to a guy I don’t know from Adam and start a conversation? And what? Ask him for his number? Who does that na?’’

“Haha. I thought you were a feminist na. Gender equality and all that. If a man can walk up to a girl why can’t it be vice versa?” Genny folded her hand under her chin and waited.

Lara thought about it for a while. “No abeg. It’s a sign of low self esteem. Besides, a lot could go wrong. what if he has a girlfriend. Or he turns you down. He’ll think you are all these cheap girls. Plus it’s not our culture ”.

“The same applies with women na. there is no guarantee for a guy that if he walks up to you you wouldn’t rebuff him. It’s all in the manner of approach”  of course Genny had an answer to everything.

“Please if he wants to talk to me he should come and talk to me, I cannot degrade mysel….. wait, where are you going?” genny had stood up in the middle of Lara’s sentence and was gathering her sundress

“Be here and be assuming things. LASTMA chairman.You’ll never know until you try. That is probably future bae sitting right there and you want me to sit here and listen to you. If he’s not the one it won’t work out. YOLO darling”.

Lara watched in stunned silence as her friend boldly walked up to the man of her dreams and said something that made him laugh.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

A year and half later Lara sat among the bridal train as she watched her friend Genny being toasted by the Adonis ( who was her groom of course) who told everyone that he had fallen in love with her because of her brazen confidence. But Lara didn’t feel bad or slighted. She twisted the engagement ring on her finger. She knew her fiance loved her because of how ardently she held to her old school principles. she couldn’t be any happier.

‘To each his own’ she thought…