Page 19 of Cursed Daughters
He raised a perfect eyebrow. “Golden Boy?”
“Mmm. Golden skin, golden eyes, golden heart…”
He laughed. “Golden heart?! High praise. I hope I can live up to these expectations.”
“You will.”
She was lying on her stomach and he mimicked her position. “I have a question for you.”
“Hit me.”
“Will you be my girlfriend?”
“Oh…I thought…I thought we were already…”
“Oh! It’s cool…umm…we can officially start counting from when—”
“I’m fucking with you, Golden Boy. Yes, I’ll be your girl.”
“Great.”
“Fantastic.”
*
She was in the pantry, searching for a snack, when she heard her mother calling her from the west living room. Bunmi must have heard her close the front door as she entered the house. She took the elation she felt, folded it and tucked it away; she would keep Golden Boy to herself, and the pureness of what they had, for as long as she could.
She crossed the courtyard, past the iroko tree, and spotted her mother through the window as she approached. Monife could go weeks without setting foot in the west living room, as could most of the household. The room was generally quite dusty as a result, but her mother was using it more frequently.
“Where have you been?” Bunmi asked.
“At a friend’s,” Monife replied casually, opening the bottle of chin chin she’d fished out the pantry. The windows were all open, undoubtedly to air the room out. Then she noticed two glasses, a tray of drinks and puff puff laid out neatly on the coffee table. Her mother had prepared for a guest.
“Which friend?”
“Gbeminiyi.” She pulled a name out of her hat. It didn’t matter anyway; her mother would never check. She just wanted to feel as though she was in control. It was this need to control everything that had her in constant pursuit of spiritual remedies.
Mo grabbed a puff puff before her mother had a chance to stop her. “Are we expecting someone?”
“Use your right hand.”
She complied, just as the someone entered the room: Mama G. Mo groaned, took a fistful of puff puff, exchanged a terse greetingwith Mama G and walked out, leaving her mother and her spiritual adviser to cook up more insane rituals for breaking the family curse and bringing her husband back. She wondered what Golden Boy would think of all this, and then decided she would keep it from him for as long as was humanly possible. She would wait till he was madly in love with her before letting him anywhere near her family.
X
Everything that had happened prior to Mo laying her eyes on Golden Boy was insignificant.
They spent every moment they could together. He was open and curious, wanting to know her, her thoughts, her opinions. She found she was more herself when she was with him. She wasn’t Mo with the sharp mouth, or Mo who never finished what she started. She wasn’t even Mo the dark-skinned beauty. He seemed to appreciate her most at her messiest, silliest, most unhinged. They spent their time laughing—at the world, at their families, at themselves.
He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, sketching. She was lying next to him, reading her latest Mills & Boon novel. He wasn’t a talker—she took the lead in most of their conversations—but she felt closest to him when they were quiet, connected by a hand or a foot. At present, his toes were stroking her thigh. She turned the page of the book.
“I don’t know how you can read those.”
“What do you mean?”
“Girl meets boy. Girl desires boy, or hates boy. Middle middle middle. Bam in love!”
“I don’t see the problem,” she said, peering over the top of the book.
