April 27th, 2018
Friday, 8:15am

“Hm,” Jessica sounded out, loud enough for her mother to hear as she directed most of her attention to her small, silver coffee maker—the one that decided to defy her commands that early morning. It was currently at her eye level as she twisted it this way and that, trying to figure out why it wasn’t coming on. A tendril of her Brazilian hair fell out of her black bonnet and tickled her ear, and she banged it on the counter out of pure annoyance, letting out a long sigh.

“Kay Bear. Are you listening to me?” Her mother’s voice got louder and she winced at the good quality that her earpiece decided to display at that very moment. “Jessica. Helloooo?”

“I’m here, mammie. I’m listening.”

“Really? What did I say?”

Jessica leaned on her black quartz countertop and held her palm against her forehead, resigning to her fate. “You want me to come to the restaurant to see you. Basically. And I’d love to, really. But work is preventing me. You know how it is.”

“I really don’t. It’s either work or that foreigner you’re dating—what’s that? Let me see. Give it to Vee, it doesn’t belong there,” she sounded far away, her phone conversation forgotten. Jessica could still hear her go on and on as she directed her new batch of employees at the restaurant.

Her eyes fell on the coffee maker and they lit up when she noticed that the light had turned on. Looks like the day has a silver lining after all.

“Mammie, I have to go. I’ll call you as soon as I can, okay?” Her words went into the atmosphere and not her mother’s ears, as she was still talking and directing. She ended the call after taking her phone out of the pocket of her purple pajama pants, relishing in the soft, fluffy feel of it against her legs. Her white under blouse that she’d slept in the night before had ridden up her stomach, leaving her side exposed. Her dark purple acrylic nails clicked at the screen of her black Samsung S8 plus as she checked for important messages, while simultaneously praying that there was none work related.

A swift thank you prayer left her lips as messages of Amin flooded her notifications; no work message in sight. She needed the day off on her actual day off, because her bosses thought it was funny to call her in every Friday to work half days. They were mostly messages from the night before, about ten in total. Without hesitation, she pushed the call icon and slid it back in her pocket.

“Are you okay?” His smooth, lightly accented voice washed over her and she smiled in appreciation, trying and failing at not thinking about the mouth it was coming out of. Oops.

“Normal people greet when they answer the phone, you know?”

“Sabahu Alkhayr, habibata.”

The laughter in his voice was plain as day and she bit her bottom lip to keep from cursing him out. “Really? We’re doing this? At eight in the morning? Better rethink it. If I start blasting Grebo now, you’ll feel my pain.”

“Okay, okay I’m sorry. I can’t resist sometimes,” he murmured then stopped speaking to her to answer somebody near him in rapid Arabic, before laughing at something they said in response.

“Okay. I’m fine,” she rolled her eyes and poured her now ready coffee into her speckled, red ceramic mug.

“Jess, I’m at work. It’s hard to have a conversation without interruptions.” The background noise receded as he stopped speaking for a few seconds. “I’m hiding in my office because of you. Can you smile now?”

“Why are you so corny today? Tune it down, it’s making me sick.” He laughed and she smiled in spite of herself. He was too adorable to be mad at. “When are you going to be free?”

He sighed and her heart dropped—it sensed her disappointment before he said a word. “I wish I could say. It’s that time of the year, and the auditor should be paying us a visit in a couple of days. I need to go through everything from the past three months, check and double check. It’ll take forever.”

“I understand,” she spoke softly and stared into her mug—the urge to drink it gone suddenly. What was the point? She didn’t have anything to do that day anyway. “I’ll be home, going over some stuff for work probably. And sleeping.”

The silence went on for a few minutes, neither wanting to say anything, especially if it’s the wrong thing.

“If you can promise me that you’ll be quiet—”

“Yes,” Jess practically screamed it and leapt from her seat at her kitchen table. She wasn’t ashamed to say that she’d been waiting for the day he’d invite her over on his own.

“You’ll also help out because Chisom is busy with the invoices—”

“Yes, a million times, yes!”

“Jessica. I won’t be able to pay attention to you all through, but at least you’ll be beside me.”

“That’s all I ask. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Mwah! I’ll be there in thirty minutes.” She placed her mug in the sink and hurried into her room to get ready.

“Are you sure?”

“Fine, an hour.” She hissed her teeth when she heard him chuckle. Teasing her seemed to be the highlight of his days. She went over to her closet and started to sort through her dresses and shirts.

“You know, it’s really hard to go back and forth between confident, busy Jess and big baby Jess. Hard but funny. Really funny.”

“I’ll add an extra thirty minutes if you don’t stop. Get off my phone. Mad man,” she hissed her teeth but that only made him laugh harder.

“You called me, remember?”

“So hang up. It’s only fair,” she held the phone to her ear with her right shoulder and continued to push clothes aside with a slight frown, not satisfied with what she was seeing.

“Why are you so—oohh, you’re doing that thing again, aren’t you? The multi-tasking thing.”

She stopped pushing the hangers apart and grabbed the phone off her shoulder. “Amin. I will hurt you. Hang up.”

He burst out laughing and hung up without another word, knowing fully well what she was capable of. She just shook her head and threw her phone on the bed, and doubled her efforts in the search for clothes.

It had nothing to do with wanting to impress him, but going to where he worked—a place that was probably going to be crawling with Lebanese people—made her want to pay attention to details. She was also a little scared but she was too confident to admit that.

*****

An hour later, she was pulling up in front of the store in Vai Town, looking for a place to park. His directions were precise and she found the place with no problems. The sun was already overhead and the market women sat by the side of the road, hawking at the passersby to look at their different goods. The sign above the seemingly little store read Azam Machineries Inc. in big, orange letters against a white background. She grabbed her brown handbag and got out of the car, adjusting her sunglasses on her face. Her sneaker-clad feet walked hurriedly into the store, because they noticed that she was beginning to attract attention. The cold air pricked her exposed skin almost immediately but she didn’t pay attention to it, her focus was on something else, or rather someone.

Amin was hunched over the brown mahogany desk that a girl—probably the secretary—sat behind, explaining something to her in hushed tones. He wore a plain black tee shirt and jeans, looking as normal as a beautiful ice cream cone on a hot day. Jessica frowned at the nervous smile on the young woman’s face, her light skin tone void of blemishes and pimples. She was beautiful. Even from where she stood, and she was quite some distance away, she could see it.

She removed her gaze from on them reluctantly and went around the desk to sit in one of the chairs, looking around the store. It was packed with different kinds of machines, and their sizes. The walls, or the parts of it that could be seen was white. There was a pillar directly opposite the door that displayed different tools that she had no idea about. In front of it sat some black machines that she identified as boat engines, all sleek and shiny. The table where she sat at was a long one over to the right of the store. It had computers and papers stacked on them, and they all sat on top of a midnight blue glass top that covered the entirety of the table. There were three chairs on the side that she sat on and a small division in the shape of the mahogany desk that housed the secretary.

The tiny pathway leading into the back of the store was between a makeshift wall that held the different sizes of the STIHL power saw on one side and huge, blue air tanks on the other. As far as the eye could see, there were things on display, waiting to be sold or examined. And most to all of them were brands, well known and expensive.

A kiss landed on her cheek, momentarily distracting her from her keen observation of the store. He pulled up the next chair and plopped down into it before pulling hers closer. “You could have called my attention,” he smiled and looked her up and down. Her army green blouse and light blue jeans was simple but it wasn’t every day that he got to see her looking so plain and beautiful. Her face was bare, and her hair hung in waves around her neck and shoulders. Her full lips were slightly moist with Chap Stick, and they captured his attention for a few seconds.

“You looked busy, didn’t want to disturb.” Her next sentence was cut short because the light skinned beauty came over to their side, with an arm full of colorful papers. Her box braids were held in a messy bun at the back of her head and she wore a yellow ankara coat over a black under blouse and black jeans.

“I have the list already, the number of invoices that aren’t in the file. I’ll check again just in case. Did you mean to give me this…?” her voice trailed off as she showed Amin a pink paper and he scanned it briefly before shaking his head.

“Nope, probably an oversight. Thanks, Chisom. I’ll handle things out here.” She nodded and walked away from them, completely ignoring Jessica’s existence.

“So that’s …Chisom, huh?” The way the name rolled off her tongue had Amin laughing.

“Don’t take it personal, she’s very shy. She’s not a people person.”

“Do you have to be a people’s person to be polite?” Jessica muttered under her breath and placed her phone down gently on the table beside her. “So, how can I help? I want to do something.”

“Okay um, okay,” he pushed at the table and the action sent his chair rolling a few paces backwards. His hands found the lock on the safe down at his feet and punched in some numbers, allowing it to open at his command. “I’m supposed to count a lot of Liberian dollars for it to be deposited by tomorrow. Haven’t gotten around to it. Have you ever used the money counting machine before?”

“Not really… but I’ve seen it being used at the bank. You just push the money in and it counts it, right?” Jessica regretted saying the words as they appeared in her head, because even to her it sounded dumb. But Amin either didn’t notice or chose to ignore it.

“Not exactly. There are a lot of factors involved. If all the money was in good shape, that pushing method would work quickly and efficiently. But we get all kinds of money because some of our customers are businessmen and market women. So it has to be counted twice before we can be sure.”

An older Lebanese man, shorter than Amin and with a slightly protruding stomach, walked into the store with his glasses perched on top of his head. He looked straight at the back and called, “Samson. Lee. Come help me unload the container.” A few seconds later, two boys bounded down the aisle—one that she hadn’t noticed at first— and followed him outside into the morning sun.

“Who’s that?”

“Alexander. He’s the manager here.” Amin got distracted by something on his phone so Jessica looked around with a newfound curiosity. She wanted to go to the back of the store and see where the older man was hauling all the boys from. Her curiosity was partly satisfied in the next minute when another set of boys came to the table and waited patiently for him to notice them. One of them smiled at her and waved shyly.

“Hi, how are you?” She smiled politely and her voice made Amin to lift his head.

“Lunch?”

They both nodded and the shorter one spoke up. “Robert and Paye neh at the back there. They jes came back.”

“Okay, you can go,” he nodded at them and they took their cue to leave, after staring at her one last time.

“I feel like I’m not supposed to be back here,” Jessica murmured and relaxed in her seat, fiddling with her fingers. Her excitement was depleted completely, she felt more ignored than ever. And inferior.

“You’re not. On a normal day. But there are three bosses here and I happen to be one of them—so you can relax.”

She smiled weakly at him and spied the excel table that was on display on the monitor of his Dell computer. It looked too complicated, and the figures were making her eyes blur. “So this is what you’re doing when you’re not replying my texts huh?”

“Yep, unfortunately. This and listening to my father complain about anything and everything in rapid Arabic that even I can’t understand sometimes,” he laughed at his statement and shook his head. “He annoys me so much but I miss him when he’s not here.”

Jessica didn’t have an answer to that. Khalil Azam had never liked her and he went out of his way to show it each time he saw her, which wasn’t very often. She really liked her head on her shoulders, so he was avoided at all costs. “That’s nice.”

The door to the store opened and a tall man sauntered in, looking like he owned the place. He was decked out in a grey uniform with the words UTE in yellow letters on his left breast pocket and when he turned to wave at someone outside, the words ‘UTE Elecnor Eiffage’ stood out across his back in big, italic white letters.

She watched him walk closer to the table, unable to take her eyes off his powering figure. His hair and beard was the perfect mixture of grey and white and his semi light skin gave off the look of a sheltered yet busy boss who works in the sun. Is everybody attractive in this store?

“Marhaba, Amin.” His eyes escaped her and settled on Amin as he stretched out his hand.

“Jorge, how are you?” Amin stood up and shook his hand, with a genuinely wide smile on his face—the one that Jessica loved to ogle at.

“Good, good. Another long day at work. And you?”

“Can't complain. What's up? What can I get you?”

“I need some tools for one of the generators, the 15kva, and five gallons of the 15W40,” he sat down in one of the seats across the table, which was meant for the customers. “Three tool boxes. The big ones.”

“Certainly, certainly. Lahtha min fadlika.” He took a big, pink book off his document stand and placed it in front of Jessica, along with a pen. Somebody had sprawled the words, 'Big Invoice’ on the cover in crude penmanship. Aunty Chisom, I bet.

He left her side after that and she opened it in curiosity, her eyes running through its contents.

“Hello,” the man Amin referred to as Jorge spoke, staring straight at her and smiling politely. His eyes were kind and gentle, and she couldn't help smiling back.

“Hello sir. How are you?”

“I'm awesome, thanks for asking. And you?” He had an accent quite similar to Amin's but it was not as much.

“I'm good,” she smiled politely, and looked over his shoulder when she saw one of the store boys setting two big, orange gallons—heavy from the looks of it—down beside the pillar.

“Forgive me for asking, but do you work here? I've never seen you before.”

“No, I don't. Just visiting.”

“Ah, I see. It’s very nice to meet you, Miss…?” He stretched his hand across the table.

“Jessica. Jessica King,” she shook it briefly and let go.

“Okay Jessica, I'm Jorge. Do you need help with the invoice?”

She looked down at the book in front of her and laughed nervously. “I think so, it's a little confusing.”

“Don't worry, it's quite simple. Look for UTE Elecnor and plan out this new invoice from there. I usually take the same things,” he smiled again and his eyes crinkled.

“Oh okay. That’s... helpful, thank you.” She searched the pages and came across one of them. Everything that he'd asked for was on the list but she still waited for Amin.

The tool boxes were set near the gallons and he shot to his feet, and faced Amin who was walking towards them. “Thanks man, gotta go now. Give Alex my love, yes?”

“Ma fi mushkila. Be safe, man.” They shook hands then he nodded in Jessica's direction.

“Bint halaal,” he laughed when Amin nodded with a smile and waved at her. “Good to see you, Jessica. I hope to see you again.” He walked out of the shop with the store boys trailing him with the goods.

“He's not taking the invoice?” She had already started writing and frowned in the direction of the door.

He sat down beside her. “Nah. It gets dropped at his office every Saturday, don't worry.”

“Okay. And what does bint ha—something mean? What was that?” She frowned a little when he started laughing. “Seriously, tell me. Is it bad?”

“It's not bad, babe. Don’t worry about it.” She didn’t say anything and he smiled and held her hand. “Finee, I‘ll tell you. It… basically means good girl. Bint is girl. Halaal means good. Pure. But it’s not just good girl, it’s like saying future wife or something. Girl good enough to marry. It’s hard to translate that in English but that’s what it means. Kinda.”

“Oh,” she relaxed in her chair and stared at him, “so he’s saying that I’m your future wife? After one interaction with me? You Arabs are weird.”

“He’s saying that you’re a good girl and that he likes you. Let’s take that part,” he winked at her and she shook her head at him.

“You’re something else.”

“You like this something else,” he kissed her hand and laced their fingers together. “Thanks for coming, babe. The day sucks a little less.”

She just smiled in response, staring at him. Even as he was being distracted by a phone call seconds later, she didn’t mind. She had gotten a little taste of his world. And she liked the warm feeling that came along with it.

__________

Glossary

Sabahu alkhayr, habibata—good morning, my love

Marhaba—hello

Lahtha min fadlika—one moment, please

Ma fi mushkila—no problem

•We move•