Being Lara (23 page)

Relief flooded over her as the Lady nodded her head in firm agreement.

“I'll call you,” said Lara, standing up, suddenly a bit light-headed, maybe slightly breathless.

“But you do not know my number!”

She waited impatiently as the Lady wrote her number on one of Lara's old business cards, after Lara tried unsuccessfully for some reason to navigate her BlackBerry phone book. Her brain was a mess. The whole process seemingly took an eternity, all the while something fought to escape from her body.

The Lady slowly slipped back into her coat and began to drone on about their next “meeting,” which would perhaps be after her trip to Buckingham Palace, she wasn't sure. Blah, blah, blah. Lara felt desperate for her to just go, hurrying her along quickly. And when Lara finally closed the door behind her, a rush of emotion traveled rapidly from the pit of her stomach, past her chest, through her mouth, and out into the atmosphere, as the loudest angriest noise she'd ever heard in her life.

She literally shook with emotion. She was exhausted as she crumpled down the side of the fridge, staying there until the sound of the red retro phone interrupted everything.

A mini-meltdown was probably what she'd needed.

Because whatever “it” was, it now lived outside of her and the morning signaled another day, full of fresh hope and possibility.

Sandi swanned into Lara's office that morning, her beautiful face showing concern and curiosity.

“So then, spill. What's she like then, this mother of yours?”

She parked herself on the swivel chair, stilettoed feet resting on the desk.

Reduced to sitting in one of the visitor's chairs, Lara didn't like the lack of power it gave her.

“Her name's Yomi.”

Sandi made an “
excuse me
” expression and placed her feet back on the floor.

“So how do you feel about it all?” she asked. Lara paused slightly as she pondered her best friend. Sandi may have been in and out of children's homes since the age of thirteen and not seen her natural family since then, but far from becoming a statistic, Sandi had become the successful beauty she was today. Her life “sorted” in a way that seemed to make her happy and seemingly without the daily angst Lara managed to surround herself with psychologically. She envied that utopia.

“What can I say…?” began Lara, entering this unfamiliar territory with her best friend. Their friendship was never based on heart-to-hearts and holding each other, but on a similar past and an unspoken rule that if shoved against a wall, they'd probably do anything for each other. But just sometimes, Lara imagined what it would feel like to break free from the shell that seemed to cover them both in a protective shield, that armor they'd clung to like oxygen for as long as either of them could remember.

“She left when I was, like, a minute old,” began Lara's regression to teenage speak, which occurred anytime they were alone. They were two successful businesswomen and yet, inside, they were still those two little teenaged girls with a similar past.

“Chillax!” replied Sandi, and they both burst into laughs.

“Chillax? Been listening to the kids on the bus again?”

“You know I don't do buses, dahling!” mocked Sandi. Indeed, Sandi may have been born into poverty, but Lara's best friend certainly didn't do buses anymore. She could afford whatever she wanted and never had to rely on anyone.

Sandi cleared her throat. “Seriously though, what do you know about her?”

“I know nothing about her except she lives in Nigeria and she's back for a limited time only!” replied Lara in her best announcer's voice. They both smiled stiffly, acknowledging this as perhaps a lot more serious than Lara pretended it to be.

“If you want to talk about it … you know, the whole foreign culture part of it…” began Sandi.

“Uh-huh…?”

“You could always talk to Jean.”

“About African culture?”

“He's French, isn't he? Or maybe you could ring a helpline or something! Oh, I don't know, I'm from East London!”

As useless as Sandi was, she'd coaxed a reluctant smile to Lara's face, helping her—for a minute at least—to forget the huge fat curveball that had just been thrown into her life.

A few days later, Lara stayed at work long after Sandi, Jean, and most of the others in the building had left, which was hardly a rarity. What was new, however, was this lack of motivation to actually do any work as thoughts of Yomi invaded her head.

What was she really doing here in England?

Why now?

She'd had plenty of chances over the years to seek Lara out. Mum had left their address with the children's home and they'd never moved. And what about the time after that infamous birthday party no show, when Dad had gone to all the trouble of trying to track a person down who didn't want to be found? The mere fact Yomi had found her meant she could have done so five, ten, twenty years ago.

Luckily, Lara was no longer that trusting ten-year-old girl in a black-and-white polka-dot dress waiting for a stranger to arrive, sobbing herself to sleep as the weight of abandonment pushed her deeper into the mattress. She was a thirty-year-old businesswoman equipped with the strength and confidence to know she didn't want or need Yomi in her life anymore.

And as for Yomi, she was after something. And the only thing it could be was money.

That had to be it.

Although hardly dressed in rags, she must have been brought up in a poor family, or why else would she have resorted to abandoning Lara all those years ago?

That had to be it. Money.

Lara had finally nailed the real reason for Yomi's visit, and it felt strangely bittersweet.

Through her huge office window, the colorful swish of a red bus moved swiftly along the road. It was a familiar London sight adorned on numerous postcards and shoddy souvenirs and one of the very things foreigners equated London with. Lara wondered if she'd have been one of those people dreaming of a far-flung land paved with gold, and cucumber sandwiches eaten on every corner? Would she have been dreaming of a “better life” in England as she sat in some nameless village in Africa, carrying pails of water on her head, never knowing when the next meal would arrive? Would she have become one of those kids on the advertisements asking for regular donations?
Adopt a child. Please help.
Had her life been headed in the same direction as those poor children before the hands of fate literally grabbed her from the jaws of destitution in a hot country to place her in affluence and opportunity in a freezing one?

She swallowed hard, picturing just how impressed Yomi had appeared with the flat and the car. The kid she'd given away had done all right for herself, and perhaps she wanted a little piece of this steak and kidney pie. Yomi was definitely after money—Lara was now fully convinced of this. There was nothing else it could be, and it perhaps wasn't a strange coincidence that her trip to London coincided with a time when Lara's career was on the verge of reaching new heights.

She happily put the finishing touches to a report, shut down the computer, and envisaged a takeaway for dinner. Then the perfect stranger walked into her office.

“Hello, Omolara. Mrs. Reid gave me this address.”

It felt weird to hear Yomi mention Mum's name in such a formal tone, but then saying “Trish gave me the number” would have been equally wrong. Yomi stared at the two picture frames sitting on Lara's desk—one was of Mum, Dad, and Lara in the garden taken around ten years ago; the second snap was of Lara and Sandi larking about in Brighton.

“So you are the boss here?” asked Yomi, pumping air into an already inflated theory about her true intentions.

“Yes, you could say that.”

“This is a good thing. It is well,” Yomi said, nodding her head.

“So … how can I help you? Why are you here? I thought we were going to wait until the next meeting?”

“It has been days and I have not heard from you.”

“Why have you come to England?” And then it was out there.

“Because you are my dotter.”

Lara looked her square in the face, and Yomi turned away. And to Lara, this felt like a rejection all over again.

She can't even look me in the eye.

Am I really that bad?

“There are many things you do not know, Omolara, and if you give me the chance—”

“To what?”

“If you give me the chance to explain.”

“I have parents. The best parents anyone could ever have asked for!”

Within the silence that followed, Lara recalled the time she once fantasized about Claire Huxtable being her birth mum. Now she'd settle for Michelle Obama:
forced to give up her baby as a young teenager, only to go on and run a nation with her husband. Now that would be a good explanation. Anything less—just too inadequate.

“I am glad, Omolara.”

“Could you please stop calling me that?”

“But it is your name—the name I gave you…”

“Why are you here?” she asked again, this time with less anger—more a resolute whine.

An unfamiliar voice echoed from outside the office.

“What is going on in there? I will come in!”

The door opened and in, very slowly, walked a rather round and elderly woman dressed in traditional African attire—a green tie-dyed wrap and matching blouse decorated with purple butterflies and leaves, with an identical head tie. She seemed to be hobbling and squinted her eyes until she spied a chair and immediately sat down with a huge sigh.

“This chair is just as uncomfortable as the last one. Ah ah, these English chairs are so
robbish
! Why?” She spoke in a very thick dialect.

“Who are
you
?” asked Lara.

“She is—” began Yomi as the older woman “shushed” her.

“I will introduce myself in due time.”

Yomi cleared her throat. “As I was trying to say, I will be here in England for a few weeks, Omolara, by which time I hope your hostility to me will be mild. There are many things I wish to explain, but most of all, I wish to get to know you. That is all.”

Lara was more concerned with the older woman who seemed to be chewing on something while staring at her intently. Eyes bored into her unwelcomingly.

“Yes, I can see it,” said the older lady.

“See what?” asked Lara.

“The resemblance to your aunty Morenike. And Kunle. You have his lips.”

“Who's Kunle?”

“Your uncle. You are lucky; yours are not as dry as his!”

“What?”

“His lips. Dry like the skin of yams.”

Lara rolled her eyes, not quite sure what was happening in her office, which up until a few minutes ago was a place of calm, work, normality. She wasn't sure either whether she could cope with all this. But five minutes later, she was still standing upright, walking them to the lifts.

The old lady turned to Yomi, muttering hurriedly in their language, before turning to Lara and gripping her tightly, pressing a not-so-frail body against her. Lara could not believe a woman of such years could possess such strength.

And then she let go.

“As skinny as a piece of sugarcane, but it is definitely you. Very good,” mumbled the older lady as she slowly stepped into the lift.

“What was that all about?” hissed Lara in Yomi's direction, quiet enough for the older woman not to hear as the lift comically closed and opened as Lara kept her foot within the sensors.

“She is happy. That is all,” replied Yomi as the older woman seemed to withdraw into her own world, now smiling widely, humming to herself, shoulders swaying happily to the tune.

“Why would squeezing me half to death make her happy?”

“Because for the very first time, she has held her firstborn granddotter.”

Lara's mouth dropped open and remained that way as Yomi slid into the lift and the doors slowly closed, taking with it the image of two women who had entered Lara's world and rocked it to its very core.

Then

B
eing Sandy's best friend had its advantages. Unlike in primary school, no one seemed moved to mess with Lara or call her anything other than her name; more important, any questions about her family were permanently confined to a polite “I hear your mum used to be a pop star.” Some of the older girls would even allow her to listen in on school gossip: who had beaten up whom and who had snogged whom from the neighboring boys' school. But most intimate was the sharing of music, an avenue that opened Lara up to a land of magical possibilities a world away from what she'd grown up with.

“You can borrow some if you like,” said Makeda from the fourth year—she was possibly six feet tall and with the neatest pleats in her uniform skirt, hair in a permanent high bunch, and large square fake gold earrings a lot of the older girls seemed to be wearing. Since it was already a privilege to even be allowed to sit with the older girls on the back wall behind the school, to be asked
if she'd like to borrow music
was simply more than Lara could have hoped for—so of course, she wasn't about to refuse,