Maid of Honor
It was the day before Uzoamaka’s wedding, and the bride-to-be and her maid of honor were basking on a rock by the shore.
“And I finally found the perfect earrings!” Uzoamaka shrieked. She kneeled towards Adanna, braids flowing around her off-shoulder dress.
Adanna squinted at the pearls cascading from Uzoamaka’s fingers, and a smile spread across her face. “You’ll make a beautiful bride,” she said. She gazed up at her friend’s eyes. “What about your dress?” Uzoamaka asked.
“My auntie’s still sewing it.” Her arms hugged her knees to her crinkled blouse. “Hopefully it'll be ready by tomorrow.”
As the evening mist enveloped the sky, Uzoamaka and Adanna’s chatter eased into a silence. The pair hopped from their rock and drifted through the maze of ambling horses, sleeping mothers, and children running through the sand.
“I’ll see you tomorrow! I can’t wait to see your dress!” Uzoamaka squeezed Adanna’s hand and flitted through the bustling street.
Adanna’s dark eyes widened as she felt a hand squeeze her waist.
Ikechuwkwu spun her stiffened body towards his chest. “Adanna…are you okay?”
“Sorry...” she cleared her throat and leaned from his crisp shirt and tie. “I’m just tired from being in the sun all day,” she said.
They exchanged their usual pleasantries and with his hand on her back, he guided her inside the restaurant.
Adanna sat at her vanity between stacks of tabbed magazines, searching for the perfect wedding hairstyle. She turned to a page for a faux pixie cut, and she tightened her braids into a ponytail, monitoring her sharpening chin and eyebrows. Gazing at her reflection with ambivalence, she released her grip and a barrage of knocks stormed through her room and struck her lights into a flicker.
She slammed her magazine shut and slowed her breath. Her scrawny feet tiptoed through the heavy air of the dim living room, and fell to a halt at the front door. Hunching her body over the door knob, she pulled the door inch by inch until her cousin’s sharp-toothed grin and scrunched nose and eyes poked through.
“Very funny.” She crossed her arms across her chest. “Do you have the dress?” Kwento crossed her arms behind her back. “Nope,” she said, “but my mom wants you to come over and try it.”
Her eyes followed Kwento’s swaying smock dress, and she pressed her fingers to her temples. “I don’t know . . . It’s getting dark. Can you just bring it tomorrow?”
“Ada - she made food for you,” Kwento said, her shrill voice rising. “Should I walk back and tell her you refused?”
Adanna treaded on Kwento’s heels as they trudged down the apartment staircase and joined the streets astir with weekend excitement. They weaved through headlights and the leering glow of neon signs until they descended into the winding alleys of the old city. Its crumbling walls heightened into the night, obscuring the town into a shadow. Their footsteps crushing against the corridor’s gravel slowed to a stop as they stood at a towering iron gate. Kwento pushed the gate into a stuttering clank, revealing a woman perched over an open fire. Her cracked hands slowly rotated a pole that pierced through a horned goat - its hooves chopped, mouth agape, and eyes bulging. She rose and drifted towards Adanna, and the cloth wrapped around her shapely figure slithered over the dust.
“Ah-dah-nah…..” Her booming accent crescendoed into the wind “Welcome! I have finally finished your dress!”
“Hi, Auntie Ogechi.” She lowered her head.
Auntie Ogechi entwined her arms around Adanna. “I hope you have not eaten,” she jeered, carrying her through the doorway of the thatched home. Kwento, skittering close behind, shut the door and a resounding snap trailed behind them.
Adanna and Auntie Ogechi silently sat at a table tucked into the corner of the softly lit kitchen. Its weathered walls teemed with framed portraits of young and aging relatives and countless children. Their expressions, ranging from stern and sorrowful to joyful, hung over them. Kwento, smiling ear to ear, fetched a bowl and pitcher of water. She gently set the bowl under Auntie Ogechi’s clasped hands and poured the pitcher over her calloused palms. Auntie Ogechi breathed a stammering prayer through her stiff, wrinkled lips as she wrung her hands over the table. With her silver coils bouncing around her, she prostrated to the stoned-floor, then threw herself into the air.
“Here we are our Father...We stand at your altar….Hear our voices and open Your door!” She outstretched her arms to the heavens and whipped her glistening neck. “Eat with us, oh Lord. Wipe away our death, our mourning, and our cries. With Your mighty hand, open the heavens so Your righteous truth shall reign!”
Her wrinkled eyes fluttered open, and she gently rested her hands on her heart. Kwento fetched a platter of fried yam and set the steaming dish in front of Adanna.
Adanna finished, and with exasperation, lifted herself from her chair. “Auntie, I know this was a lot of trouble for you. Thank you very much.”
Auntie Ogechi sucked the air through her jagged teeth and flared nostrils. “Sit down, oh! Did I not ask you if you have eaten?”
Adanna recoiled to her seat while Kwento placed a large bowl of okra soup and a ball of pounded yam in front of her.
She turned to Kwento, then to Auntie Ogechi, and submerged her fingers into the dish. “Finished,” she groaned through the last bite of food stuffed in her cheeks. “Auntie, can I try on the dress now?
Kwento scurried to Adanna, balancing a heaping pile of rice and plantain. Adanna looked at her auntie’s stony face with pleading eyes. “Auntie, I have to wa -” Auntie Ogechi slammed her fists to the table sending the cutlery and picture frames to a ringing quake. “Adanna...do you not see how I have suffered for you? Have you no training?” “Sorry, auntie.” She ripped her jeans open and, with agony, scraped her fork against her food. Before she could finish, Kwento proudly carried a whole fish decorated with onions and tomato stew and plopped it in front of Adanna.
Sweat dripped from Adanna’s temples, down her neck and arms, and puddled on the table. She hugged her swelling stomach. “Auntie, I-”
“Pearls before swine!” Auntie Ogechi said, her hooded eyes contorted with vexation. “Osiso, eat!”
Adanna ate until her cheeks puffed from her face and her eyelids drooped shut. Auntie Ogechi and Kwento loomed over her with delight as her head bobbed. She dropped to her plate, arms swinging along the table, and fork clinking against the floor.
Adanna’s heavy eyelids opened to a crack, and through spasms of light she watched as Auntie Ogechi massaged her bloated legs into the head of a dress, and Kwento blotted sweat from her forehead. She tried to speak, but her swollen tongue filled her mouth, and only a wheeze passed through. A pulse radiated from her scalp to her feet, as she slowly teetered in her seat.
Adanna’s dress hung tightly from her chest and glided into a layered mass of white feathers that clouded around her. She drank, danced, and laughed with Ikechukwu, and wherever she walked, a sea of bodies parted and stared.
The day’s festivities had finally dwindled to a murmur, and Uzoamaka and Adanna sat chatting at a table.
“Adanna, you looked more beautiful than me tonight!” She fiddled with a glass. “Your aunt is a talented seamstress.”
Uzoamaka smiled as she watched her friend laugh, her braids swaying and earrings grazing against her full cheeks.
Nneoma Njoku (she/her) is a learner & designer. She is passionate about researching subjugated histories and using book design as a tool to share these histories. In her free time, she likes to perfect her roast chicken recipe, watch movies, and make Spotify playlists.