Butter Honey Pig Bread. Francesca Ekwuyasi

“It’s very nine-to-five, but let me tell you, the money is good!”

      “Good for you o jare, I’m happy we’re not all aimless and jobless.” “

      How about you?”

      “I don’t really know. I left a bakery job in Halifax, and now I’m trying to find anything.”

      “Wait, what did you study at uni again?”

      “Chemistry, but I’ve ended up mostly working with food, so I went to culinary school to try and make it official.”

      “Culinary school sounds fancy.” Isabella lit a cigarette. She ran a free hand through her curls, twisted her mouth to the side to blow smoke away from Taiye. “What are you going to do in Lagos? Any restaurant connections?”

      “I don’t know yet. If you know anyone that will pay me to cook, hook me up, yeah?”

      Taiye wouldn’t be able to tell you at exactly what point the quality of the air between their bodies changed. Most of the time, with the women she took or followed home, there was an intentional stirring, mostly her doing. There was a way that she gently, sweetly captured their attention and, with a particular use of that gap-toothed smile, shared her intentions. With very little else, she found that the attraction was mutual. But despite her desires, she hadn’t intended anything with Isabella. In fact, all Taiye’s memories of Isabella carried a salty scent of shame and some self-loathing that she had spent many years working to unlearn. Taiye wanted none of that. And yet, it had been what? Twenty minutes? Not even. And there it was, that thing.

      “Where’s Toki?” Taiye heard herself ask.

       Why do you want to know, Taiye? “

      In Abuja.”

      “For work?”

      “Yes, for a few weeks.”

      Taiye nodded and started to get up. “I’m going to see what those girls are up to, but it’s been really good to catch up.”

      “In a rush suddenly?” Isabella tried to mask her disappointment with humour.

      “No, it’s just that they brought me here, it would be rude …” Taiye trailed off.

      “Okay, give me your number. We should plan something,” Isabella cut in with a wave of her cigarette-holding hand and gave Taiye her phone. “You know, I heard gist about you, Taiye.”

      “Yeah? What did you hear?”

      “I heard that in London you were experimenting with …?”

      “Is that a question?”

      Isabella shrugged and arched a meticulously shaped eyebrow.

      “Yeah, I’m gay. Is that what you’re not asking?” Taiye shrugged. So much shrugging and eyebrow-raising between them; Taiye just wanted to talk plainly.

      “Yes,” Isabella replied.

      LATE INTO THE NIGHT, after Habiba and Kareema dropped her off, and she’d tiptoed up the stairs to keep from waking her mother, Taiye undressed and lay beneath thin covers. She was exhausted from all the dancing, but sleep denied her. Her mind spun and spun. Then a beep from her phone alerted her to a message:

      It was so good to see you today, Taiye. I’m sorry about all the personal questions, I didn’t mean to be so somehow. Let me make it up to you. Mumsie is making small chops for an Easter get-together, you should come.

      After Easter Mass and a quiet meal of pepper soup and steamed ofada rice with her mother and great-aunt, Taiye draped her narrow body in an oversized white button-down, tied at the waist, and pulled a tight pair of dark jeans over her hips. She started to apply a deep red stain to her lips but decided against it.

       What are you going for, Taiye?

      She shrugged at her reflection and left.

      Isabella’s mother, Sabirah, still lived just two houses down from Taiye’s childhood home. When Patience, the chubby, wide-eyed maid, led Taiye inside, Isabella was busying herself at the dining table by her mother’s side, swaying her hips in a short lace tunic the colour of butter. They were arranging palm-sized samosas and spring rolls on a white plastic tray.

      “You came!” Isa exclaimed. “Mummy, remember the twins from down the road?”

      Sabirah smiled, faint and shallow. “Of course I remember the twins. Long time no see.”

      She gave Taiye a very brief embrace, so brief in fact that it was merely a matter of lightly touching her warm cheek against Taiye’s and gingerly patting her on the shoulder. Except for a few new fine lines at the corners of her eyes and her plump mouth, Sabirah looked exactly the same as Taiye remembered. Her shoulder-length locs were wrapped in a red silk scarf, and a purple and yellow adire bubu hung elegantly from her slender shoulders.

      “Which one are you?” Her voice was a calm, dispassionate purr. To Taiye, she’d always seemed bored and vaguely disinterested in anything other than her only child and their house—both of which she kept impeccable.

      “I’m Taiye. Good afternoon, ma. Happy Easter.”

      “Happy Easter. How is your mother?”

      “She’s fine. She’s at home.”

      “It’s been long since you came home abi? When did you get back?”

      “A few weeks ago.”

      “And your sister, she’s back as well?”

      “She will be here in a few months.”

      “Haba so many questions,” Isabella interrupted. “Taiye, do you want anything to drink?”

      “Water is fine, thank you.”

      “Okay, come with me through the kitchen. There are people in the backyard.”

      Taiye trailed her through the old but pristine kitchen to the backyard, large and covered in lush grass. In the centre stood a white canopy. Under it, a feast and a few people, none of whom Taiye recognized at first glance. She followed Isabella to a blue plastic cooler filled with large jagged chunks of ice and bottles of soft drinks, beer, and water.

      “You guys, this is Taiye,” Isabella said to the small crowd of guests. “We’ve been neighbours since we were small.”

      Taiye tried to be friendly, to seem interested, but she was distracted. In the daylight, on the celebration of Christ’s resurrection, Taiye thought she might un-feel whatever it was that had passed between her and Isabella the night before. But she thought wrong. The thing remained; it had marinated in its own fervour (the fervour of an unresolved childhood crush) and become more potent: a childhood crush calcified by rejection into some sort of hallowed wanting. Taiye knew that she should leave. Instead, she took a beer out of the cooler and made small talk.

      Despite having spent all the sunlight and a healthy portion of the evening at Isabella’s get-together, or perhaps because of that, Taiye’s memory of most of that afternoon blurred almost as soon as she left. Isabella followed her out and walked her the five minutes home. She seemed to be vibrating in the night breeze, her face shifting in and out of the air in front of her. They were both considerably intoxicated—Isabella by the numerous drinks she’d thrown back, and Taiye by Isabella’s focused attention. So when Isabella invited herself up to Taiye’s room, Taiye let her. But when they got up there, she panicked and blurted something about needing some cold water.

      By the time Taiye had returned from the kitchen with a plastic jug of water and two small tumblers, Isabella’s lace dress was a crumpled pile of soft fabric at her feet. She smiled in a way that swallowed Taiye into a tingle. The air between their bodies—Isa in dark cotton underwear and Taiye fully clothed—bristled electric. Isabella traversed the space that separated them in four languid steps; Taiye counted. Isa kissed a soft line along Taiye’s earlobe, across her cheek, to the corner of her mouth, the whole time humming