SHORT STORY {CONTINUATION............}



Let’s paint her. Angelica is one of those women who take on the stature of a wife immediately they turn fifteen. They know how to dress up in fitting pencil skirts and are not afraid to wear see through blouses, sometimes in yellow, sometimes in bright pink. They can cook a proper meal, iron shirt corners and black pants without leaving a ridiculous shine, and later in life will have well watered house plants
She has, among her contacts, a plumber, an electrician, a wash lady and another who comes in when the first can’t come because she has to attend a parents’ meeting or has period cramps. Angelica does not spend her money on Sydney Sheldon novels or second hand magazines at Mfangano street. She buys cook books , new from MPH.
In her house the curtains match the carpet, she bought two sets from IKEA, and even in the bedroom, you will not catch an artsy secondhand cotton hand stitched curtain.
There is always a fresh supply of towels in the house; stripped, quite formal and appropriately so.She doesn’t want to cause anyone pain by issuing a plain towel, or white, which after use might have dark spots here and there and the user will wonder whether to wash it, wash the dark spots, soak it or pretend that’s the normal order of things, while in their heart they swear never to sleep over again. For her nieces, she will provide sleeping shirts and flip-flops , extra panties, and a toothbrush for a nephew.
She has two friends. Mary is single, well, not exactly, she has been dating Farshid for the past 5 years and even though she is 27 years old her parents will not let her marry him. So they just hang out and hope situations will change. Angelica thinks Mary is giving her parents too much leeway. Then there is Alice Tee. Married and well settled. She’s a wife, raising Chung and Ji Wen. ‘Too strict with the children, pushing them too much, piano lessons, volleyball, French,’ Angelica once mentioned it and Alice shrug and said- they need to know all they can-