CHAPTER 1

 

Brenda Were looked at her watch.  Seven-forty-five.  She didn’t have much time.  Not if she had to catch the bus and make it to work on time.  Jobs were hard to come by and she couldn’t afford to be dismissed from her present position as a receptionist.  No job meant she wouldn’t have money to pay for college.  No college meant heading back to her hometown, where he father would likely try to arrange a marriage between her and some man she'd never met.

Pulling the rollers out of her hair, Brenda disappeared inside the bedroom she shared with her niece.  She shoved the spongy pieces into her panties drawer, grabbed a scarf and covered her hair.  There was no point in styling it when she had to run.  At least she was already dressed.  She threw her high-heeled shoes into the bag with her accounting books and pushed her feet in sneakers.  Putting on a light tan trench coat, she picked up her purse and book bag, and hurried toward the back door.

Ruth was in the kitchen, cleaning up.  The middle-aged maid squinted with concern.  “She is not giving you a ride?”

By ‘she’, Ruth meant Brenda’s Aunt Silvia, her uncle’s wife and the woman of the house.  Brenda shook her head.  “See you tonight, Ruth.”  She let herself out of the house. 

Chilly morning air brought a wave of goose bumps to her skin.  Dew dotted the grass and birds chirped in trees. The sun hadn’t risen above the lush vegetation around Kilimani Estate, but the sky was clear, heralding another hot April day.  

Brenda raced down the stairs leading to the backyard and rounded the house to the driveway, hurrying past Silvia’s white Peugeot parked outside the garage.  Flowerbeds and neatly trimmed shrubberies lined the mowed lawn, and tall hedges separated their house from their neighbor’s, a Chinese expatriate. 

The daytime security guard saw her coming and opened the gate.  She hardly knew the guy, since she was gone most of the day, but they exchanged greetings, then she thanked him and raced toward the main road. 

Brenda pulled her coat tighter and clutched her bags close to her body.  The heavy duffel book bag bumped against her hip with each step.  It had a draw string but because of her shoes and extra books, she couldn’t tighten it no matter how hard she tried.  Grimacing, she left it alone, kept her eyes low and ignored the commuting servants and gardeners who hurried on alone either side of the street.  Most disappeared behind the gated homes with high hedges and tumbling bougainvillea flowers.

A colorful blue and yellow bus pulled into the bus stop at Adams Arcade just as she arrived, breathless and a little sweaty.  She followed a line of commuters and slid into a window seat, a sigh escaping her.  The decision to wear sneakers had spared her toes.  She could just imagine enduring that brisk walk in high-heels. 

A giant of a man slid next to her, a cloud of fetid air wafting off him.  Someone must have told him that dousing himself with cheap cologne masked body odor.  Or perhaps, he was merely allergic to soap and water.  Whatever the case, Brenda spent the entire bus ride to downtown ....Nairobi.... trying to keep her breakfast in her stomach.  Worse, the man kept pressing against her whenever the bus careened around a corner. 

When they stopped at KenCom, she squeezed herself past Mr. Smelly, who didn’t seem inclined to give her enough room to move.  He leered at her as she inched past him.  Her relief when her feet hit the pavement was short lived.  Someone bumped her shoulder bag from behind, nearly spilling its contents all over the pavement. 

Brenda ground her teeth, clasped the bag a little tighter to her left side, her purse against her chest with her right hand and turned toward Nairobi Cinema. 

Tall buildings cast shadows on the busy streets of ....Nairobi...., blocking the glorious tropical sun that was slowly climbing up the brilliant blue sky.  Laughter and conversation competed with the humming engines of private cars, colorful buses, and minibuses, or as they were usually called, matatus.  Men in suits and ties, or casual pants and light jackets, cut her path and entered office buildings.  Women trying to outdo each other in varied outfits and accessories, high-heels and fancy hairstyles, glided along like queens of the catwalk.  Some, like her, plodded in sneakers or sandals, wore headscarves and carried bulky handbags.  She often wondered about women who dared to dress like this for the commute to work.  Now she was one of them.  

Brenda caught her reflection on the wall of an office building and grimaced.  In her haste, she’d forgotten to put on make-up.  She dipped her hand inside her purse to make sure she at least carried powder and lipstick.  All there, including deodorant.  Her gaze landed on the side of her bag. 

Oh no.  Not to her new purse. 

She brushed the black, soft leather, smothered a groan, then flipped it over to check the other side.  Brenda pulled out her cell phone from the purse, speed-dialed a number and brought the silver instrument to her ear. 

“I’m going to kill you, Penny,” she vowed when a low-pitched voice answered.

“What did I do?” her best friend answered.

“Does a designer bag peel?”

“Uh, no.  Unless it’s pleather.”

Brenda scrunched her face.  “Play-what?”

“Pleather, a term I picked up in a magazine.  It means plastic leather, a knock-off or a fake.”

“Then the very expensive bag you convinced me to buy last month from Garissa Lodge is pleather.  ‘It’s the latest thing, the same one in InStyle magazine,’ you told me.”

“It is,” Penny protested.  “And there’s no way it’s a fake.  I’ve bought lots of things from those Somali women and never complained.  Just a minute.”  There was a brief moment of silence on the other end then Penny came back with a screech.  “Mine’s peeling, too.”

“Remind me to never, ever listen to you again,” Brenda griped.

“Hey.  I got ripped off too.”

Brenda rolled her eyes.  “I’ve got to go.” 

“Did you finish the accounting homework Dr. Mazrui gave us?” Penny asked, changing the subject.

“Yes, I did.  Why?”

“I couldn’t figure out three answers.”

Brenda walked passed Nairobi Cinema and headed toward the entrance of ....Reinsurance.. ..Plaza.....  “Let’s meet for lunch at Green Corner and discuss them.  You’re buying for the pleather mess.” 

Penny groaned.  “Okay, okay.  See you at lunch.”

Brenda grinned, her anger long gone.  There was no point in staying angry with Penny.  Four years her senior, the extroverted Penina Okange was the only friend Brenda had in ....Nairobi.....  The two of them met the first week of class at KEMU—....Kenya.. ..Methodist.. ..University...., and hit it off. They both took accounting and marketing classes in the evening and worked full-time during the day—Brenda as a receptionist at Central Finance Corporation, a position she considered temporary, and Penny as an assistant to the front desk manager at the Hilton Hotel. 

While Brenda only moved to ....Nairobi.... two years ago, Penny was born and raised in the city, which meant her friend knew where to buy black market designer goods.  The Somali hawkers at Garissa Lodge in ..Eastleigh.. were obviously passing off fakes for the genuine stuff.

Snapping her cell phone shut, Brenda slipped it back into her pathetic excuse of a designer purse.  The women at her place of work mustn’t see it, or they’d never let her live this down.  They already thought of her as being too ‘country’.  Brenda shook her head.  Just because she dressed in non-trendy outfits, didn’t waste her money on fake nails or hair didn’t make her a country bumpkin.  Her father had money.  He just didn’t believe in investing in daughters like he did in sons.

Brenda pushed aside the thoughts of her father and sighed.  What a morning!  She should have known things would only get worse when she woke up to find her uncle had left for a business trip to ....Mombasa.....  Silvia’s excuse that she didn’t plan to drive through town after dropping her kids off to school was as false as the kindness she showed Brenda whenever Uncle Bob was around.

The fact was the woman barely tolerated her.  Silvia treated her like a poor relative mooching off them when Uncle Bob, her mother’s youngest brother, had insisted she stay with them.  The fact that she was twenty-five years old hadn’t mattered.  As long as she was unmarried, tradition dictated that she had to be under the protection of her family, which meant living with an older relative. 

If only her college was in some other town where she knew no one, she thought with a sigh.  Living with relatives was a major headache.  And getting married wasn’t on her to-do list until she finished college.  Not that she’d ever received a marriage proposal.  She wasn’t even dating.  Most men she met were only after one thing—casual sex.  After her first and only boyfriend, she’d decided that route wasn’t for her. 

Brenda entered the air-conditioned foyer of the plaza, waved at the security guard and smiled when he frowned at her sneakers and headscarf.  

“How are you doing this morning, daughter of Alego,” the guard asked in Luo, her vernacular, as he walked alongside her toward the lifts. 

“Fine, Joseph.  And you?”

“I’m fine, thank you.  It’s going to be another hot day today,” he added.

“Yes, it is.”

Joseph’s grin widened.  “So when are you coming to Kisumu with me, Brenda?  I told my son about you, and he can’t wait to meet you.”

Brenda grimaced.  The elderly security guard kept hinting at introducing her to his son ever since she started working in the building.  Today he was being direct.  “Uh-hmm, after I finish college and get a decent paying job.” 

 “My son has a good business.  He owns a lumber yard in Kisumu and is opening another one in Eldoret.  He can take good care of you.”

And be his what?  Second wife?  She refused to repeat her mother’s mistake.  “I want to take care of myself first, Joseph, but thanks for thinking of me.”  She lowered her voice as they neared the other people already waiting for the lift.

Joseph shook his head.  “When will you young girls realize that a job can’t take the place of a good husband?”

Brenda looked around and cringed.  They were attracting attention, which meant some of these people understood her mother tongue.  “That’s not it.  I’m just not ready for marriage.” 

Joseph opened his mouth as though to argue, then sighed and shook his head.  “Then when you’re ready, let me know.”

By then, his son would be with wife number two.  “I will.”  She added under her breath in English, “In your dreams.”

Someone chuckled behind her.