Gossip - 6

Siama was secretly worried. His business wasn’t doing as well as he’d hoped it would, too many friends and relatives dumping their computers and laptops on him and nobody bothering to pay him. It wouldn’t hurt to get paid now and then, he thought, just because you’ve known me since I was in diapers does not justify receiving only gratified smiles and compliments from you as payment for your broken machinery. Man does not live on bread alone, or smiles, or compliments. And his friends were the worst. They all assumed he was a successful businessman with no worries about money, but they were all wrong. The trouble with him was he couldn’t say no to anyone. He simply wasn’t assertive enough.

On Saturdays he would open his shop as early as eight. His shop was located at a very busy section of town, bang in the middle of Dawrpui, and his window display of sleek laptops and computers and peripherals attracted many window-gazers. Saturday mornings were when lots of young rich fat housewives wandered into the shop, and they were always followed by houseboys carrying their bags. They would always talk about how their husbands were planning to buy new computers, always hinting that money was not a concern when it comes to buying gadgets. But they rarely came back to actually buy anything. On weekdays a lot of schoolboys visited, sometimes coming in and asking some questions, sometimes just looking from the outside and leaving hand prints on the glass window.

He hadn’t paid the rent in two months, and every time Marini came by he would be all tensed up and ill at ease. But she was a very sweet girl, she never mentioned money, instead she would stand in his doorway and look out at the road and whenever someone familiar walked by she would shout and ask them to come over, as if it was her shop. She was a very popular girl, and recently she had taken up introducing him to all kinds of people, her colleagues at Synod Press, her fellow choir members, her old school chums. Siama wondered what the motive behind all this was. Did she know he was having financial problems and hoped to help him out by introducing him to prospective customers? Or was it because she felt he needed to know more people, make more friends? Why this concern, all of a sudden? He had always liked her, secretly of course, and it was always a joy to see her. Her friends were decent religious people, and sometimes he felt uncomfortable knowing them.

His thoughts drifted towards her, the way she tilted her head whenever she spoke, and the mole on the back of her neck that was always hidden behind a curtain of glossy black hair (one day she thought there was an insect on her neck and had asked him to remove it, and he had seen the mole then; it was now forever etched in his memory). But he knew he didn’t stand a chance with her, she was almost a decade younger than him and pretty and popular. No doubt she would have a lot of admirers. And she probably thought he was an old bachelor, just look at the way she talked to him, almost like the way you speak to old people, deferential and carefully choosing her words, taking care not to use any slang. He had her phone number and many times had contemplated calling her, but what would he say then? They had never spoken on the phone, when it was time to collect the rent Marini would send him a text message saying when she would come, but that was the only telephonic contact they’d have until the next month when the rent was due again. What would she think? She might never come again, and that would be a tragedy he couldn’t bear to think of.

He looked at his watch, saw it was close to ten, and suddenly realized how hungry he was. He wondered if his mother had finished her Saturday morning shopping yet and if food would be ready now if he went home. Charlie had said he would come over and watch the store while he was away, and where was he? Probably sleeping late again, or helping out his mother. “My mother suddenly decided I'm her new daughter, now that Cecilia is married,” Charlie had said jokingly. Siama laughed aloud, imagining Charlie standing near the stove, wearing a pink apron and peering into a boiling pot. The poor boy couldn’t even make tea, what exactly could he do to ease his mother’s burdens?

He decided he would lock the shop, run home and come back fast. He could drop in at Charlie's house on the way home and give him the keys, but first he would call him. He opened the address book on his phone, and without thinking scrolled down to the M’s. When he saw Marini’s name, he smiled.