Tales of the Heart

He said: “She was a friend, a true friend

Maybe the only person I could call a friend out of all my colleagues

We worked in the same organization

I was like her boss but not her direct boss

She was heading one of the branches of the organization at the time and I was supervising six branches

So she was under my region but a boss in her own right

We had worked in this same organization for four years and we usually met at the annual conference and annual general meeting of the organization

At the meetings I observed that she is a very competent leader who took her work quite seriously

She also had very little patience for office gossip

I noticed this or perhaps it was this attribute that made me like her the most

One day I was having a chat with a lady during one of our conferences, she walked up to me out of the blue and said, ‘Do you know everything you tell that lady will be flying all over the office by this time next week?’

And then she walked away with that “be careful” look on her face

I had no idea what she was talking about but I became cautious with the lady afterwards

Sure enough everything I said came back to me as predicted

That was the day I told myself she would make a good friend

Someone to talk to without any fear of being made the cannon fodder for gossip

Her office was in another state entirely and I had no basis to start a phone relationship with her

Things just didn’t seem to pan out in such a way that I could consider her a prospect in terms of marriage

I was single at the time and I desired to be married

There was no woman in my life

This lady was worth getting to know but how do I even begin to align our paths so that it could be a possible dream?

I thought about it

Do I resign and relocate to her state so I could get to know her?

Do I ask for a transfer to her state so that I could get to know her?

Do I get to know her first and see if it would be worth it?

What if there were other things I needed to know about her that could be a problem for my plan?

Yes, she was single but we all know what being single means to most “single” ladies of today

For many it meant sleeping with whoever is available until the one willing to give them a ring comes

I know I had no right to ask someone whom I didn’t even know yet to be faithful to me but I’d rather not jump into a river full of crocodiles

Maybe I was an over thinker

I ended up not doing anything about it

I took my annual leave and eased off the stress of trying to date this lady or be with her

Why not let sleeping dog lie?

January came and we were to have our national conference

Somehow we ended up in the same official vehicle together

After day one of the conference, she asked the driver to take her to a part of Lagos

I was heading in the opposite direction

We were assigned the same car

As the driver drove towards her destination, we got talking

She said she was staying with a friend instead of a hotel so that she could save some money

I got curious

Is this friend male or female?

She said he was a guy but she was not dating him

She said it as a matter of fact!

My system turned upside down

Here was I, a guy secretly in love with this babe

Maybe love is a strong word here though but you get what I mean…

She had nobody in her life and she would be staying with a male friend for four days so that she could save some money

Wow!

I didn’t know what to do

Again, it was a slippery slope

I kept imagining her sleeping with the guy, laughing with him and being happy with him

I even imagined she saw me and was wearing a ring, telling me the guy proposed

I told her this, just like that

I said, “This guy you are staying with, I assume he is single

She answered in the affirmative

I continued, “what if he proposes to you this weekend?”

To this she said, “He won’t. I am his friend not his lover. We are not dating and he is not my type”

Whew!

It was not relief enough though, I still had this tightness in my throat

She dropped off and I went my way

When I got to my hotel, I said, “If this girl is mine, she should find her way to me herself”

Thirty minutes later I got a message

She said, “I will like to come and see you to discuss my expansion plans for my branch”

I sent her my hotel address

She arrived at about 5pm

We had barely started talking at the reception when the fire alarm went off

We rushed outside

The hotel was on fire

The fire started in my room or around my room

We were outside for hours

They were able to salvage my laptop and some clothes

My international passport, ATM cards, wallet, clothes, etcetera were all gone

I needed to get another hotel to stay for the night

I asked if she could help me book a hotel nearby

She did

Then I asked if she would come with me to the hotel so she could pay for the room with her card while I transferred the money to her account

She obliged

We got to the hotel at about 11:30pm

She booked the room

We got to the room at about 11:45pm

She said, “I have to go”

I replied l, “Where are you going?”

She stood for a while, checked her watch and said, “You are right, it is too late to go anywhere at this time”

I prayed she wouldn’t say, “I want to go and get my own room”

She didn’t

I left the room

Told her I was going to clear my head with a walk

Went to the tennis court of the hotel to sit and think for an hour

When I got back to the room, she was asleep

I slept right beside her like a log of wood

We both woke up shy the next morning but not clumsy

We discussed her expansion plans

When it was noon she said she needed to leave

I said I needed her ATM card to get things done

She said, “It is true”

We went for Day 2 of the conference, then I took her to lunch, then to dinner

After the dinner we got to the hotel room and I hugged her, she hugged me back

 Then she said, “What do you want?”

I said, “Not sex but a cuddle will be of great help”

She laughed and said “All you will get is this hug”

Then she sauntered off to the bathroom

I slept, she woke me up with, “This is your cuddle”

Her head on my shoulder as she slotted right next to me”

I didn’t dare breathe

It was just perfect

Then she kissed me and well…

It was a back and forth until the Eiffel Tower moved into Alagbado in Lagos State

It happened and it was good

Very good

We stayed up all night

Went for the conference and came back to continue moving landmarks from London to DJIBOUTI and from Malaysia to Jankara

Conference over

I wouldn’t let her go

She left, I was in her city the next weekend and the weekend after and well…

I married her a year

Later

I kept wondering if it was God that orchestrated that fire in my hotel room or if it was sheer coincidence

Every time I hear people say God gave them a wife or something like that; I think “Can I say that too?” or how do I explain how everything came together?

-GSW-