Marisa's story Part 1

*The stories in this series cover different themes, and are all told in first person*


Five minutes with Marissa: 12-02-1998

“Like every other day, today was no different or so I thought. It was another day at the office, pulling the back-breaking, mind numbing and soul daunting 9-5, then what, the long drive home; to an empty apartment… it feels like not too long ago that I had Keke in my life, by my side.

Goke would tell me time and again ‘it is time to let go’ (and embrace him?) he does not add this part but I know what he is thinking. But it is never easy to let go of your first love, it is not something that happens without a conscious effort and commitment on your part.

I met Keke at a night club, a cousin had just come in from the United States, and he was going all out to celebrate his return to Nigeria. What he was celebrating is beyond me, we all knew the poor thing had been deported. Yumi another cousin and I went for the ‘party’. Yumi forced me into going because except I the ‘responsible’ one was going her parents were not going to let her pull an all night some where that was not a church gathering. I would have preferred staying home, and being my boring self; in hindsight I wish I suggested this to Yumi, maybe I would like to think that.

Anyway, Keke, a tall, strappingly handsome man, with the deepest of voice and the most tender smile, walked up to where I was sitting with some friends and asked if he could get ‘five minutes’, I was curt and told him I was with friends, and quickly my friends began to laugh and scream ‘take her, take her jo.’ I knew they were tired of my ‘spinster ways’, I began to wonder rather briefly if Keke coming up to me was a set up.

Five minutes became, close to an hour; and you know what? I did not care, he was the first guy who could have me laughing so hard with reckless abandon, he would impersonate television personalities or someone from his place of work and I will just laugh, his stories were wild and comedic, ‘I like the way you laugh’ he said to me by the time Yumi and the others were ready to leave the venue.

We saw a lot after then, since Keke was a close friend of my deported cousin, Keke would come around with my cousin to visit, or we would all meet at some venue or event to hang out.

I have always laughed at people who claim to ‘have fallen in love’; I would tell them after laughing real good that love does not creep up on us, we choose it. But With Keke, I knew how it felt to wake up one day and to have fallen in love; because I can not tell you when I knew I loved him, or when I chose to love him, but I know one day I heard myself telling him ‘I love you.’ He could tell I had never said that to anyone before, and he kissed me and said ‘marry me’; this was barely a year into our being official couples, me a young twenty-something, he in his early thirties, knowing what he wanted… who he wanted. I said ‘yes’, because though young I knew there will be no one else but him.