MorNing CAT & caTs

He is your Dad, he is sixty and on the board of a few companies. He parks a guzzler outside your home. His phone rings often. When it’s work he shouts into it, other times he looks at it and says, “Who is this disturbing me in the morning?” Later when he’s at The Mirage for his meeting he will call the disturbance and a sweet voice will be on the other end complaining that he never picks her calls and maybe he will Mpesa her twenty thousand bob to shut her up.

The sweet voice might be your age mate. Hell! She might be your classmate. She’s stunning. You hit on her but you know she’s out of your league; what with the jewelry, trendy clothes, and the Volkswagen Golf she drives but you still shoot your shot because what is a man without an ego?

He has rented her an apartment in Adams, or Yaya. Somewhere people will readily pass for official business. Most are the times she misses morning classes and you sign the attendance on her behalf. Those very mornings that your dad claims he has an early meeting and skips your mom’s cooking.

The sweet voice comes to class in the afternoon, and in an effort to start a conversation, you start telling her that you signed the class attendance for her. She doesn’t know what it is but you resemble someone she knows, and that’s how you end up talking, and that’s how you end up in Adams watching her 55-inch Samsung curve wondering if her father is the prince of Swaziland.

Drinks are drained, clothes fall off and you spend the night. Her phone rings in the morning. “Not this morning, we have a cat,” she says, and you wonder what the cat is about, or is it the one you did last night? You tell her you need to get going and she offers to drop you, partly because she’s afraid Mzee might drop by like he usually does.

You get home and your mom is the one who opens the gate. “Ulilala wapi wewe,” she barks. “And who is this?” She’s smiling now after she sees her. “Come in and have tea,” she demands. You follow her as you wonder why the color has drained from the sweet voice’s face. You look around and see your Dad's guzzler still parked in the compound and wonder what he will make of your new friend.

 

 

An excerpt from The Sponsor by Kisauti

Get this book The Sponsor Novel at Nuria The Honest Store, thank me later.