A TWO-FINGER WAVE OF LOVE

It was a Saturday and she had come to pay me a visit for the first time at my parent's house. Unknown to me, my Grandma who was mostly seated at the front of the gate had her wait for a brief interrogation as to how she knew me like they will do a suspected terrorist at an airport checkpoint. She was not bothered, she answered all the questions rather unconsciously because her consciousness was concentrated on stealing a glance at me through a little opening in the gate. Although I was expecting her I didn’t notice her presence at the gate because all I heard was the usual free counselling sessions my Grandma granted to both interested and uninterested passersby. With a mirror in one hand and a hair brush in the other, I straightened my hair in a style that even charmed me anytime I looked in the mirror. I was impressed, I was not looking bad at all for a first date with my crush. When my Grandma had ended the interrogation I heard the best combinations of words in my entire life “I’m here to see you.” With all the courage I had gathered per the image I saw as my reflection in the mirror my heart still managed to skip a beat with my pride falling to her feet like a rag at the sight of her. She was a beauty and it explained why I had longed to see her.  She smiled at me and I smiled back showing my entire set of teeth like a comedian would when he cracks a bad joke to a well-built (macho) man. In my mind’s eye, I could see her run to me with her arms wide opened for a lasting embrace but in reality all she did was smile even more. A few seconds after, I gathered the pieces of my broken confidence and uttered a “hi” so low that I needed a microphone to make the word audible to my other ear. I dragged my feet lazily to the gate to begin what I call a long walk to freedom.

We had walked a few meters away from the gate but I still could not find my speech. When I began to get hold of my consciousness I asked her an obvious question for a start; “What did my Grandma ask of you?” but unlike every other person who will seize this opportunity to lecture me about the disadvantages of menopause and old age and how he/she even had two or more of a sort at home, she rather gave me a reassuring answer “Your Grandma and I just had a friendly, let’s focus on us”. You can imagine the way my face blotted with smiles. I had just found a good wife this young. We skirted around the area chatting and laughing and for the first time throughout my stay on earth I was experiencing a movie scene manifest in real life.

She finally grew tired of walking and I may have been too but I just couldn’t feel my legs, it was like I was walking on an aisle. We decided to rest awhile at the front of a deserted building. I spotted a flowery plant a few steps from where I sat and I quickly reached out to pluck a flower so I can present to my lovely lady. This time around I didn’t get lucky, the movie scene didn’t play out well, she rejected it on the basis of hygiene but it elevated me to another height of her compassionate love where she took my hands and opted to clean out the dirt I had on my hands with her handkerchief. And right there my hand remained in hers till we got up again to continue our aimless but lovely walk only this time hand in hand.

We had gradually gotten to a nearby beach where we sat to engage ourselves in what I call the phase two of our encounter; proposal of love. The sun grew dark and my proposal was still stuck in my throat although I needed her desperately for a girlfriend.  It was almost night time and as she was the “DB” type and had to get going. I had to propose love to her by all means but my mouth still suffered a fair share of speech-dumsor, it refused to let out the mysterious three letter word ”I love you.” She couldn’t tell the struggle going on in my mind by the mere look at my face because I wore a mask of courage to hide the cowardice that had dominated my bloodstream.

This time around daddy’s girl who had to get home early was already late. We picked a taxi cab but like I see in the movies, the love story does not end with a drive to the door but with a walk to the door; a possible opportunity to re-sit my proposal exams, so we alighted at the junction before her parents residence. I knew I had wasted the opportunity and knew I had been a coward by all standards but I still had an excuse; that the environment had not been conducive for a proposal per my definition of conducive. How conducive did I want the situation to get? I asked myself sincerely, knowing very well there was no time to propose love to her than now. As I kept wrestling with my thoughts I noticed a sleek green colored car pull over where we stood. She jumped and screamed the word “Daddy!” at the sight of the car and without saying goodbye she leapt into the vehicle and waved at me but with only two of her fingers. I wasn’t hurt because a coward like me deserved only a wave of a finger so to have had a two-finger wave was indeed a success story I had planned to tell my grandchildren someday.

My head grew heavy of disgrace and my legs weak of stress as I dragged myself towards home. Was this the conducive I wanted? Where happiness turned into sadness? But like a famous country musician said in the lyrics of his song; there is silver linen behind every cloud, I had obviously experienced the cloud but the silver linen was nowhere to be found.

Lo and behold I found the linen, not of silver but of love when she called to apologize for her actions. Now the courage in me seized the opportunity to ask her a question that indirectly carried my proposal to her in a much more Shakespearic manner “If I were your Romeo, would you have left me outside in the cold?” I asked and she answered “I thought you already had a Juliet”. “Yes I do now and she is you, so please do not leave me alone in the cold any longer” I replied. There I was proudly sitting on my bed like I had just been appointed as the first Ghanaian to be President of the United States of America.