When Atinuke woke up the next morning, it was madam’s voice that did the magic.
From her musty room in the garage she could hear her loudly like jingle bells on Christmas eve. Her heels, clicked on the floor as she spoke, enunciating her words with as much authority as she could muster.
“Atinuke! Atinuke! I hope you’re awake because it’s too early to be asleep. Make some pancakes for me and the boys, we have to be at church in the next hour”.
This Sunday morning routine was one that Atinuke had been forced to get used to having lived with madam for over a year. She was always the first to show up at church on Sunday mornings, dressed in the most expensive lace material with a head gear big enough to obstruct the view of anyone who dared seat behind her. The boys, Kamsi and Kaito usually followed reluctantly, their pants clinging obediently to the rise of their buttocks. Their presence in church, this family, had little to do with faith and more to do with their desire to show off. Yes, Madam took every Sunday as an opportunity to exhibit her freshly imported outfit and drop generous wads of cash into the offering box. This display of her’s would get the right tongues wagging and solidify tales of her wealth in the social strata.
Atinuke never went with them on Sundays. After all, a house girl had no business contaminating the Italian leather seats of madam’s Bentley. Her duty was to stuff them with enough pancakes for breakfast and serve them fresh jollof rice lunch, after which she would retire to her room flipping through the torn pages of old books until evening when Nnanna would come over to play FIFA. Only then would she come out to make light supper, watching them smack their lips as they ate, praying that they finished up quickly, so she could retire to the garage, huddled between old blankets and the same torn books.
This routine, dull and frigid, was one Atinuke never looked forward to, until today.
Today was different.
Today, the shy flutter of her heart would be the careless dictator of her actions.
She would hastily prepare the stewed jollof rice in order to save herself some extra cooking oil which she would use to cream her hair neatly. She would have a good scrubbing before madam and the boys returned from church, put on the buba she had inherited from her mother then rub some of the oil on her tender lips until they shone. She would smile sheepishly and lower her eyelids as she opened the door for Nnanna later in the evening, praying, hoping that he noticed the efforts she had put into looking nice. She would finally make their supper with fervor, taking extra care to put all the important spices in perfect quantity because she knew, Nnanna was going to be eating.