The next day, she boarded a bus going directly to the area and arrived twenty minutes before Abdul Collectibles opened, waited on a bench and was first through the shop’s door when it was unlocked.
“Yes we handle this line,” a petite mid aged woman named Latifat said after listening to Temi’s succinct explanation and examining the porcelain dog. “And in fact I sold it myself just yesterday to a young guy.”
“Do you know his name?”
“I’m sorry, no.”
“What did he look like.”
“I remember him well because of his height, six five, I’d say. He was quite well dressed, a coffee brown T shirt and a red tie. I think he was a student he kept receiving calls that lectures would soon start or something.”
“Did you hear anything else; the school, faculty or department anything/” I have to be sure we are even in the same school. She thought to herself.
“I heard him say: Unilag would not kill person and all this Bis Admin lecturers sef.”
Temi was thrilled she was getting somewhere with her mystery admirer
“Did he pay cash?”
“Mmmm… no, I believed he used a credit card.”
“Would you still have the charge slip?”
“Oh, yes it must have been transferred to the master ticket for deposit.” She led Temi past glass display cases filled with porcelains and other expensive items, to the cramped office at the back of the store. The suddenly she had a second thoughts about sharing her customer’s identity.
“If his intentions are innocent, if he’s just an admirer of yours and I must say there seemed to be no harm in him, he seemed quite nice then I’ll be spoiling everything for him.” Temi tried hard to charm the woman and win her sympathy; genuine tears sprang to her assistance, surprising her even more than they did Latifat. From the MasterCard slip she got his card number.
She got home and made a call to the call center of the bank and pleaded with them after explaining her mystery. The man on the other end was nice enough to give her the name and phone number through a text on his personal line. Temi appreciated him and promised to be discreet about it. Within few seconds she dialed the number.
“Hello?"
“Chinonzo Amara, this is Temi Alabi. Why have you been sending me packages with dogs figurine.” She asked impatiently.
“Because… Because.”
“I’m waiting.”
“How did you get my number? How did you find out it was me.”
“That’s not important. What’s important is that I don’t know you, and yet I got a dog menagerie that you’ve been sending me, you come around in the middle of the night to leave them in front of my apartment, you follow me around and its been going on for weeks, so don’t you think its time I knew what the hell is going on?”
“Well, sure, but I didn’t… wasn’t ready… didn’t think the time was right.”
“The time was right a week ago!” She heard herself scream.
“Ummm.”
“So tell me before I report you to the school authority.”
“I love you.”
“You love me? How can you love a person you’ve never even met?” she said mockingly.
“I don’t know; but there it is, and I… uh… well, ummm, I have this feeling see, that I’ve got to spend the rest of my life with you.” Temi laughed hysterically.
“Listen Chibueze I don’t want you sending anymore dogs.”
“Well, see, I really want to send them.”
“But I don’t want to receive them and I’ll send back all the ones you’ve sent me. If not I’ll report you. I know your name and your department, its just a matter of days before I get your matric number and you’ll be fished out.”
“I thought you like dogs.”
“I do like dogs.” She replied growing in anger. “I love dogs. I think dogs are cutest animals ever. Right now I even wish I were a dog you bite you off, but I don’t want your dogs understand?!” She dropped the call.
Few hours later, she had just had her lunch when her phone rang. She answered it on her bed. It was Chibueze.
Speaking so rapidly that he ran his sentences in long gushes, he said.
“Please don’t hang up on me, you’re right. I’m stupid about these things, an idiot, but give me just one minute to explain myself. My name’s Chinonso Amara, but you know that. Am twenty-four and in my final year. I take night reading in the library that was how I came across your story about the dog in the school magazine, it was terrific, I loved it, a great story, really, so I searched for more issues you’d written, and I read it all, and a lot of it was good, damned good, not all of it, but a lot. I fell in love with you somewhere along the way, with the person I knew from her writing, because it was beautiful and so real. I even went further to search for you on Facebook wow you wouldn’t imagine how many Temi Alabi I found, after carefully checking each profile I finally found you and just like the magazine your wall was filled with your stories which made me love you more. One afternoon I was sitting there in the library reading one of your stories and this librarian was passing behind my chair, and she leaned over and asked if I liked the story, I said I did, and she said, ‘Well, the author’s right there, if you want to tell her it’s good,’ and there you were three tables away, I never knew you were as beautiful as your writing and there was no way I could approach you because I’ve always been tongue-tied and stumble footed around beautiful ladies. Because of your story, I thought I’d use the dogs, that whole secret admirer bit with the gifts, as a way to soften you up, and I planned to reveal myself after the third or fourth dog, I really did, but kept delaying I didn’t want to be rejected. I knew it was getting crazy but I couldn’t just stop it and forget you, yet I was unable to face you, either, and that’s it. I never meant you any harm, and didn’t mean to upset you or scare you, can you forgive me, I hope you can.”
He stopped at last exhausted.
“Well…”
“So you go out with me?”
Surprised by her own response, she said , “Yes.”
“Tonight? Pick you up at six. I know a good restaurant not far from your place.”
“Okay.”
After she hung up she stood for a while, staring at the phone. Finally she said aloud, “Temi, are you high?” Then she said, “But he told me my writing was ‘so beautiful and so real.’” She looked at the collections of dogs on her table. She said, “He’s inarticulate and silent one time, a blabber the next. He could be a psycho killer, Temi.” Then she said, “Yeah, he could be but he’s also a great literary critic.
This wraps the end of our mysterious Package. Would I keep going with this plot...maybe, maybe not... we should see how their romantic lives turn out right? So this might not be the end of Temi and Chinonso.... Thanks for reading till the end!!
