Chapter Fifty-Seven – Another party?

Carl was thinking of what to do for his upcoming party this year. It wasn’t everyday that a person turned twenty. That does seem to be a fallacious statement the more I think about it. Certainly, there were people in the world turning twenty almost every single day but then I suppose the statement relates more to the fact that the celebrant only turns twenty once. Back to the main thing, this is not that type of story.

He was in the studio with some of his new music friends when his manager, Michael, walked in. They had some small talk and then fell into silence.

“Ah, Carl, I hear you birthday dey come. What you go do?” one friend asked.

Michael’s ears shot up in interest. “Your birthday. Oh nice. What you go do?” he repeated the question.

All eyes were on Carl now. He hesitated. “Na I want do party but rydee anor know. I no wan do am for my room inside but I no get venue” he responded still in thought. Michael was beaming from ear to ear.

“I go rent Airbnb for East Legon give you. When’s the birthday.”

Thusly it was decided. Carl’s birthday would be on a Friday in East Legon with lots of booze, nice music and every other recipe for disaster.

When I heard the news, I had mixed feelings. A part of me wanted to just lay in bed feeling sorry for myself. Last night, I had gone through almost all my texts with Sly on WhatsApp reminiscing the old days and how things used to be. I was hoping to continue doing that these subsequent nights.

Really how did we even get here? It seems just yesterday I was fully in love and now I could only look on what could have been. I couldn’t even tell what Sly was up to now because his friends barely posted him and when I spied on him on Mara’s phone, the only thing he was sharing were random Sarkodie lyrics and a dot or two of the Bible App daily bible verses.

Isn’t it funny how one can go from talking to another every single day and then to never at all? That has to be one of the most tragic facts of life. Never as tragic as death but still a damn shame!

I digress.

The other part of me was excited that I’d be going out to party with my friends and take my mind off my miserable state.

Boateng, Lara, Mara and I decided to go together to find a gift each for Carl, so on Wednesday after our 12pm lecture, we hit the road for the Accra Mall.

“I am thinking of getting him a shirt” Lara had said. Boateng was thinking of getting him something tech related and I was just happy to tag alone and pick the most giftable but cheap item I could find. When we got to the mall, Boateng went his way and Lara, Mara and I went ours.

“Araba, I’ve been meaning to ask. Why did you eye Boateng like that when Aseda came to join us recently?” Mara asked as we casually strolled through the shop aisles.

I pretended to study one of the graphic tees hanging there that I knew Carl would absolutely hate. “Did I do that? I didn’t even realize” I replied, nonchalantly.

Mara and Lara exchanged a look. I looked back at them. “Is there a problem?” I asked with a bit more irritation than was necessary.

“Oh, nothing. It’s just that when either of you is in a relationship, your friendship becomes weird and then it becomes weird for all of us. Since the two of you have been single, we’ve been good” Mara said. Mara talks too much.

Lara didn’t say anything which meant she agreed. “You agree with that?” I asked her, placing the shirt back on the rack so violently one of the shop attendants looked me up and down. “She’s not entirely wrong. When one of you is in a relationship, things get awkward fast but that’s okay. It’s like how when Kwame and me made things awkward sometimes.”

We walked quietly for a while. Lara registered everything but didn’t say anything about the issue after that. When I left to the washroom, she asked Mara to explain what she meant by me eyeing Boateng.

“When Aseda came, Araba looked annoyed. Then, when she said Boateng invited her, she looked at him like she wanted to kill him. Lara, you should have seen her face every time Aseda opened her mouth and when Boateng said he may be interested, I genuinely thought she was going to whack him on the head.”

Lara took all this in and still said nothing, instead pointing out a shirt that she knew Carl would love. When I came from the washroom, I decided that Mara’s statement had annoyed me too much so I told them I’d be joining Boateng instead.

He placed his hands over my shoulder as we walked through the aisles, looking at overly priced phones and gadgets. “Why are we even walking here. Can you afford any of this?” I asked. “Nope but I want to see what’s available. Besides, if I really wanted to, I could just call my father and ask him for the money.” I shook my head. Some things never change.

He ended up buying a new earpiece for Carl because he’d mentioned that he needed them and I in turn bought a new phone case, hoping my gift would not be redundant if some overachiever bought Carl a new phone.

Lara and Mara were still not done by the time we got to the car.

“Hundred percent, they are shopping for themselves right now” Boateng observed. He was not wrong. I only nodded in agreement and fiddled with the edge of my skirt. The weather was hot and so the car was steaming. We’d opted to sit on the hood of the car while we waited for them.

“Are you okay?” Boateng asked.

I realized I had been sulking. “Yeah. I’m just really thinking. Do you think our friendship gets weird when one of us is with someone? Mara said that today but I don’t think it’s true” I said candidly. We’d been so open in the past few months, it didn’t make sense to lie.

“I think if anyone made it weird, it was me. I had been in like a thousand relationships and we were fine. It only became weird when you started dating Sly and I was spiraling.”

I nodded in agreement. “Do you really like the Aseda girl?”.  I was dreading the answer but I needed to know.

Boateng thought about it for too long. “She’s pretty. Plus, she’s a very nice girl. Who knows?”

I wish the answer were different.