Appointment

If his patience wore any thinner, it will be bulimic. But what options did he have? He glanced at his wristwatch for the umpteenth time. He knew what the time was but the action gave him something to do just to get it off his mind that he’d been sitting on the same spot for at least 3 hours. The time confirmed what he already knew. 12:45pm. He was still waiting in the reception for his 10am appointment with the MD of the auditing firm. Ben shrugged his shoulders and sighed. Really, what options did he have?

“Oh, you’re Leye’s boy?” the MD’s excited voice had asked over the phone when he’d called the day before.

“Yes sir.”

“Good, good. He’s so very proud of you, kid,” Mr Ojo had continued, “Can’t stop telling everyone how good a student you are. And with such impressive grades, who can fault him?”

Ben could imagine Mr Ojo poring over his CV while speaking with him on the phone. As in most situations where Ben had been complimented for his academic excellence, he’d laughed to hide his difficulty in knowing how to respond to such praise.

Mr Ojo had laughed with him and added, “You know what? Come see me on Wednesday at 10 in the morning, ok?”

“Alright, sir. I will do that, sir.”

“Oh wait!” Mr Ojo had interjected, “I’ve been reminded that I have an appointment slated for 9am on Wednesday and I’m certain I will not be back by 10. Let’s make it tomorrow then. Come by 10 tomorrow morning. Let’s talk face to face, ok?”

“No problem, sir,” Ben had answered.

“Good, good! You know your way to the office, I s’pose?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Ben. Immediately, his mind’s eye navigated from his house to the auditing firm in the Ikeja metropolis. He could make it easily.

“Excellent,” Mr Ojo was concluding, “So, come around, my boy. Looking forward to picking your brains. Knowing your dad, I’m too sure you’d be a treasure trove of information. We could use that addition of intelligence here. So, we’d see tomorrow, ok?”

Ben laughed again as he answered, “Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”

He was about to say goodbye when it occurred to him to ask, “Sir, should I come with any docu…” but the call had already been cut from the other side.

A flurry of activities brought him back to the office and to his now cramp-arrested left thigh muscle. He shifted his left leg to adjust the pressure his extended sitting was having on his leg. The jarring effect of the cramp made him catch his breath. He tapped the leg on the floor several times gently not to draw attention to himself as he felt the blood begin to flow back into the arteries.

He looked around the reception. He wondered what could be turning the hitherto “quiet” office into a beehive. Two female members of staff who had been chatting away just outside the office quickly re-entered and without pausing, made their way into one of the doorways leading from the reception. Their mannerisms suggested that they did not want to be seen outside. A male staffer who also passed by and disappeared into one of the three doors in the reception could be seen adjusting his tie tighter. The tie had been hanging loose around his neck for each of the three times Ben had seen him pass by in his time waiting.

On observation alone, Ben could already tell, by virtue of his 3-hour watch, the category of the staff at the firm. One of the staff members he’d seen whom he could label as business-minded walked through the farthest door by the left of where Ben was seated. He gallantly marched to the water dispenser which was adjacent to the guest chair, at the point where the walls met on the far left. Noticing that there wasn’t any of the disposal cups left, he called the attention of the receptionist.

“You have any cups there, Angie?” Strong-voiced and as business-like as possible.
By contrast, Angie’s voice belied her big frame. Almost whispering, she said, “Clem, oga dey come oh!”

But Clem just shrugged. “So?” He boomed and with a hiss said, “Abeg, gimme cup jare. Na crime to dey drink water for office again? Why dem com put di dispenser for here na? Abeg na doz wey neva do deir own wok go dey fear joor!” He walked towards Angie’s desk as he spoke. Confidence exuded from his every step. Here’s someone who knew himself, Ben thought and immediately took a liking of Clem.

Clem was still trying to remove a disposal cup from the lot Angie gave him when the door of the reception opened and the MD stepped in. You could feel the change of aura in the reception. He appeared mercurial. This was only the third time Ben was seeing him and it appeared he looked a lot bigger each time. He seemed like an athlete from the ancient Grecian Games at Mount Olympus. A full height with the body figure to carry it. He carried himself like the award-winning MD of the award-winning auditing firm that he was. Ben was so engrossed in his admiration of the man that it took him a while to realise that he came with something of an entourage.

Mr Ojo had barely entered the reception when his driver followed with his briefcase. The driver entered through one of the doors and vanished. Close on the heels of the driver was the cleaner Ben had seen emptying the bins a little after he had arrived at the office. Behind the cleaner were four well-suited corporate types with their conceited air of self importance. Ben couldn’t explain why he just didn’t like the smell of them. These four immediately converged around the MD who proceeded to gesture around as he spoke.

“So, let the decorator be made to understand that all of these areas,” he spread his arms around the areas covering the reception that went from the three doors of the reception all the way to the main entrance – including the area in which Ben was seated, “… should be left the way they are, ok? The warm ambiance has proven to be welcoming for guests, ok?”
Ben almost coughed his disagreement but thought better to keep his opinions to himself. Welcoming indeed.

“As for the rest of the building,” Mr Ojo said, moving already towards one of the doors, “please come along, ok?”

Even as it struck him how freely Mr Ojo used the word “Ok” it also occurred to him that the MD didn’t as much as acknowledge his presence. Even a little, “I know you’re here, ok?” would’ve been nice. For goodness sake, he’d been here for…

His phone beeped. It must be the battery warning that it was exhausted, Ben guessed.
He shook his head. That was just a summary of his day, wasn’t it? He retrieved the phone from his pocket, dropped the folder he brought along on the empty seat next to him and stretched out his left arm to exercise the taunt muscles a little. A slight yawn escaped him.

Angie noticed the yawn. She was already feeling sorry for him. She’d watched him do everything imaginable to pass the time. Re-read the document he had with him, play endlessly with his phone until it began to bore him, change his sitting position and even dozed off a few times. Whatever it was keeping him must be mighty important. So, when she saw the MD breeze in without checking in on him, she didn’t know how to console him.

With the yawn, she said in a voice dipped in pity, “Pele.”

Caught unawares, Ben tried unsuccessfully to stifle the yawn so that he could respond. The response came out in an inaudible mumble. He had to laugh to cover the slight embarrassment he felt.

“Thank you,” he finally managed to say. Smiling. He noticed, for the first time, that Angie was an attractive big woman.

“He’d see you soon,” she was saying, “as soon as he’s done with the architects.”

“Thanks so much,” Ben replied, relief written all over his face.

A rapid set of four beeps returned his attention to his phone. How come it was still alive? Ben wondered. It should’ve been dead by now. He turned on the screen to see notifications from his twitter and gmail accounts. As he moved to touch on the twitter notification to see who retweeted him, a new notification arrived with another beep.

<2% battery remaining. Phone running on battery-saver mode.>

No wonder, Ben thought to himself, as he quickly turned off the screen to conserve whatever battery it could conserve before the next charge. He’d check the tweets and mails later.

A phone rang on Angie’s desk.

“Hello, reception?” she said as she answered it.

Angie listened for a while. Then, she nodded, earrings jingling, and said, “Ok, sir.” She dropped the receiver, stood up and left the reception via the door closest to the entrance.

For the first time since he arrived at the firm, he was alone in the reception. He allowed himself an unrestrained yawn, opening all of his mouth and emptying his body of air. He suddenly felt tired. And hungry. He slowly sucked in air and exhaled only to feel another yawn coming. He stood up briefly to stretch his legs and was about sitting down again when a beautiful specimen of womanhood in an all-red ensemble complete with red accessories opened the entrance door slightly and peered inside. She must’ve been checking for Angie. Or some other person.

She stepped in fully, filling the entire reception with such fragrance, Ben felt it could’ve been edible. Hard as he tried not to openly stare, he couldn’t stop himself. She was that ravishing. If the sight held him, her voice didn’t help him.
A mellifluous, “Please where is the receptionist?” took what was left of his breath away.

He had to blink and shake off her charming combo of beauty, sweet-smelling fragrance and soothing voice before his brain reconnected with his tongue.

“She stepped out briefly but…” was all he managed before Angie returned to the reception.

“Hi Sharon,” Angie said, greeting the Lady-In-Red.

A sweet name to ice the cake. Awesome, Ben concluded. How happy she was going to make some guy’s day – whoever it was she was here to see.

“Hello Angie,” Sharon replied in that honey-dripping soprano. “I called him on my way in. He said he was with some architects but that I should come right in.”

And at that exact moment, Ben’s ears stood like the three huge white figures that welcome people into Lagos State. Come right in? By Jove, he’d been waiting for a 10 am meeting since 9:46. The time now was 1:28pm and someone else who just waltzed in smelling like she doused herself with all the extracts from a garden of rose flowers was going to be given priority of attention? Why? Because she was… He stopped himself. It wasn’t going to help his situation adding frustration to the litany of his worries.

He watched Sharon catwalk into the doorway that led into the offices. Obviously, she knew her way around. He no longer admired her. He felt nothing nice towards her anymore. He couldn’t even bring himself to call her all the unprintable names that flashed across his mind as he watched the door close behind her. A part of him knew not to blame her but he refused to listen to that voice. He turned and saw Angie looking at him. He saw she pitied him. But he didn’t want to be pitied. He looked away.

A quarter of an hour after the suited-architects had left and none of his texts to the Mr Ojo to remind him that he was waiting in the reception were replied, he politely asked Angie to send word to the MD to at least know whether he should continue waiting.

At exactly 3:12 pm, he was told that Mr Ojo had vacated the building through an exit that leads to his office from the other end of the building.

Ben was so stunned he could barely comprehend. There’s an exit somewhere? And the MD had left through it? What about… He just concluded that he wasn’t worth the courtesy of Mr Ojo’s time. He wasn’t even worth an explanation. Shaking his head, he picked up his folder. He expressed his thanks to Angie, looked around to make sure he wasn't forgetting anything and made his way to the exit. A thought came that he should drop his CV at the reception to be handed over to the MD but he discarded it.

He'd seek his fortunes elsewhere. As he left, he reminisced. All those nights he stayed up burning the midnight oil for good grades, the struggles he endured to ensure he understood all those complex concepts they were taught in class, the rewards of his hardworking with good grades and the exhilaration of graduating with honours. All those were done to avoid situations like what denigration he just suffered today.

But what options did he have? He'd lost count of his applications sent and the number of "We'd get back to you's" received. The terrible turn of his father's illness hadn't helped matters as he no longer was as influential as he used to be. As much as he knew his late mother was praying for them, he didn't know what good that was doing in his present state.

He felt hot tears sting his eyes as he walked down the street of the auditing firm. The two cobs of roasted corn he'd bought to sate his hunger about two blocks away the office were beginning to burn left palm. The small black polythene bag used to hold them had torn so it wasn't much of a help. So, he emptied the folder he carried and wrapped the corn with the 2 sheets of A4 paper.

"At least be useful for once," he admonished the CV and waved down a "keke". As he jogged towards the keke, which had stopped some distance away, he allowed himself to smile. His CV wasn't all so useless after all.