He wrote his number on her magazine. “You take care,” he said. He touched her shoulder lightly as he left and there was something in his eyes, something both tender and sad, that made her tell herself that she had been wrong to sense reluctance from him. He already missed her. She moved to his seat, reveling in the warmth his body had left in its wake, and watched through the window as he walked along the platform.
When she arrived at Aunty Uju’s house, the first thing she wanted to do was call him. But she thought it was best to wait a few hours. After an hour, she said fuck it and called. He did not answer. She left a message. She called back later. No answer. She called and called and called. No answer. She called at midnight. She did not leave messages. The whole weekend she called and called and he never picked up the phone.
WARRINGTON WAS a somnolent town, a town contented with itself; winding roads cut through thick woods—even the main road, which the residents did not want widened for fear that it would bring in foreigners from the city, was winding and narrow—sleepy homes were shielded by trees, and on weekends the blue lake was stippled with boats. From the dining room window of Aunty Uju’s house, the lake shimmered, a blueness so tranquil that it held the gaze. Ifemelu stood by the window while Aunty Uju sat at the table drinking orange juice and airing her grievances like jewels. It had become a routine of Ifemelu’s visits: Aunty Uju collected all her dissatisfactions in a silk purse, nursing them, polishing them, and then on the Saturday of Ifemelu’s visit, while Bartholomew was out and Dike upstairs, she would spill them out on the table, and turn each one this way and that, to catch the light.
Sometimes she told the same story twice. How she had gone to the public library the other day, had forgotten to bring out the unreturned book from her handbag, and the guard told her, “You people never do anything right.” How she walked into an examining room and a patient asked “Is the doctor coming?” and when she said she was the doctor the patient’s face changed to fired clay.
“Do you know, that afternoon she called to transfer her file to another doctor’s office! Can you imagine?”
“What does Bartholomew think about all this?” Ifemelu gestured to take in the room, the view of the lake, the town.
“That one is too busy chasing business. He leaves early and comes home late every day. Sometimes Dike doesn’t even set eyes on him for a whole week.”
“I’m surprised you’re still here, Aunty,” Ifemelu said quietly, and by “here” they both knew that she did not merely mean Warrington.
“I want another child. We’ve been trying.” Aunty Uju came and stood beside her, by the window.
There was the clatter of footsteps on the wooden stairs, and Dike came into the kitchen, in a faded T-shirt and shorts, holding his Game Boy. Each time Ifemelu saw him, he seemed to her to have grown taller and to have become more reserved.
“Are you wearing that shirt to camp?” Aunty Uju asked him.
“Yes, Mom,” he said, his eyes on the flickering screen in his hand.
Aunty Uju got up to check the oven. She had agreed this morning, his first of summer camp, to make him chicken nuggets for breakfast.
“Coz, we’re still playing soccer later, right?” Dike asked.
“Yes,” Ifemelu said. She took a chicken nugget from his plate and put it in her mouth. “Chicken nuggets for breakfast is strange enough, but is this chicken or just plastic?”
“Spicy plastic,” he said.
She walked him to the bus and watched him get on, the pale faces of the other children at the window, the bus driver waving to her too cheerfully. She was standing there waiting when the bus brought him back that afternoon. There was a guardedness on his face, something close to sadness.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her arm around his shoulder.
“Nothing,” he said. “Can we play soccer now?”
“After you tell me what happened.”
“Nothing happened.”
“I think you need some sugar. You’ll probably have too much tomorrow, with your birthday cake. But let’s get a cookie.”
“Do you bribe the kids you babysit with sugar? Man, they’re lucky.”
She laughed. She brought out the packet of Oreos from the fridge.
“Do you play soccer with the kids you babysit?” he asked.
“No,” she said, even though she played once in a while with Taylor, kicking the ball back and forth in their oversized, wooded backyard. Sometimes, when Dike asked her about the children she cared for, she indulged his childish interest, telling him about their toys and their lives, but she was careful not to make them seem important to her.
“So how was camp?”
“Good.” A pause. “My group leader, Haley? She gave sunscreen to everyone but she wouldn’t give me any. She said I didn’t need it.”
She looked at his face, which was almost expressionless, eerily so. She did not know what to say.
“She thought that because you’re dark you don’t need sunscreen. But you do. Many people don’t know that dark people also need sunscreen. I’ll get you some, don’t worry.” She was speaking too fast, not sure that she was saying the right thing, or what the right thing to say was, and worried because this had upset him enough that she had seen it on his face.