Everything Good Will Come. Sefi Atta

      She went home with mascara tears and said it was my fault. The following Sunday, she appeared at my bedroom window again. This time, Baba was burning leaves and the smell nauseated me. I leaned over to shut my window and Sheri’s head popped up: “Aburo!”

      I jumped at least a foot high. “What is wrong with you? Can’t you use the door?”

      “Oh, don’t be so morose,” she said.

      “Sheri,” I said. “I don’t think you know the meaning of that word.”

      She was dressed in a black skirt and strapless top. Sheri was no longer a yellow banana. She could easily win any of the beauty contests in my school, but her demeanor needed to be toned down. She was gragra. Girls who won were demure.

      “You look nice,” I said.

      She also had the latest fashions: Oliver Twist caps, wedge heels and flares. Her grandmother knew traders in Quayside by the Lagos Marina, who imported clothes and shoes from Europe.

      She blinked through her mascara. “Are your parents in?”

      “Out.”

      “They’re always out.”

      “I prefer it.”

      “Let’s go then.”

      “No. Where?”

      “A picnic. At Ikoyi Park. Your boyfriend will be there.” I smiled. “What boyfriend, Sheri?”

      “Your boyfriend, Damola. I found out he’ll be there.” Tears filled my eyes. “You rotten little... ”

      I resisted the urge to hug her. As she tried to explain her connection to him, I lost track. I wore a black T-shirt and white dungarees. In the mirror, I checked my hair, which was pulled into two puffs and fingered the Fulani choker around my neck. I picked a ring from my dressing table and slipped it on my toe.

      “Boogie on Reggae Woman,” Stevie Wonder was singing. Sheri snapped her fingers and muddled up the lyrics between grunts and whines. I studied her leg movements. No one knew where this latest dance came from. America, a classmate had said, but where in that country, and how it crossed an ocean to reach ours, she couldn’t explain. Six months later the dance would be as fashionable as our grandmothers. Then we would be learning another.

      “Aren’t you wearing makeup?” she asked.

      “No,” I said, letting my bangles tumble down my arm.

      “You can’t come looking like that,” she said.

      “Yes, I can.” “Morose.”

      I was, she insisted. I wore no makeup, didn’t go out, and I had no boyfriend. I tried to retaliate. “Just because I’m not juvenile like the rest of you, following the crowd and getting infatuated with... ”

      “Oh hush, your grammar is too much,” she said.

      On the road to the park we kept to the sandy sidewalk. I planned to stay at the picnic until six-thirty if the rain didn’t unleash. My mother was at a vigil, and my father wouldn’t be back until late, he said. The sun was mild and a light breeze cooled our faces. Along the way, I noticed that a few drivers slowed as they passed us and kept my face down in case the next car was my father’s. Sheri shouted out insults in Yoruba meanwhile: “What are you looking at? Yes you. Nothing good will come to you, too. Come on, come on. I’m waiting for you.”

      By the time we reached the park, my eyes were streaming with tears.

      “That’s enough,” she ordered.

      I bit my lips and straightened up. We were beautiful, powerful, and having more fun than anyone else in Lagos. The sun was above us and the grass, under our feet.

      The grass became sea sand and I heard music playing. Ikoyi Park was an alternative spot for picnics. Unlike the open, crowded beaches, most of it was shaded by trees which gave it a secluded air. There were palm trees and casuarinas. I saw a group gathered behind a row of cars. I was so busy looking ahead I tripped over a twig. My sandal slipped off. Sheri carried on. She approached two boys who were standing by a white Volkswagen Kombi van. One of them was Damola, the other wore a black cap. A portly boy walked over and they circled her. I hurried to catch up with them as my heart seemed to punch through my chest wall.

      “We had to walk,” Sheri was saying.

      “You walked?” Damola asked.

      “Hello,” I said.

      Damola gave a quick smile, as if he had not recognized me. The other boys turned their backs on me. My heartbeat was now in my ears.

      Sheri wiggled. “How come no one is dancing?”

      “Would you like to?” Damola asked.

      I hugged myself as they walked off, to make use of my arms. The rest of my body trembled.

      “How long have you been here?” I asked the portly boy.

      The boys glanced at each other as if they hadn’t understood.

      “I mean, at the party,” I explained.

      The portly boy reached for his breast pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes.

      “Long enough,” he said.

      I moved away. These boys didn’t look like they answered to their parents anyway. The portly one had plaits in his hair and the boy with the cap wasn’t even wearing a shirt under his dungarees. Damola, too, looked different out of school uniform. He had cut-off sleeves and his arms dangled out of them. He was smaller than I’d dreamed; a little duller, but I’d given him light, enough to blind myself. I pretended to be intrigued by the table where a picnic had been laid. The egg sandwich tasted sweet and salty. I liked the combination and gobbled it up. Then I poured myself a glass from the punch bowl. I spat it back into the cup. It was full of alcohol.

      The music stopped and started again. Sheri continued to dance with Damola. Then with the boy in the cap, then with the portly boy. It was no wonder other girls didn’t like her. She was not loyal. I was her only girl friend, she once wrote in a letter. Girls were nasty and they spread rumors about her, and pretended to be innocent. I watched her play wrestle with the portly boy after their dance. He grabbed her waist and the other two laughed as she struggled. If she preferred boys, she was free to. She would eventually learn. It was obvious, these days, that most of them preferred girls like Sheri. Whenever