Against Reason Read online

  AGAINST REASON

  A novel

  by Mer Williams

  CHAPTER ONE

  An idle mind is the devil's workshop or in my case, a stalker's arena. I have just cancelled my plans for a girl's night out with my uni friends, Jessica and Shirley faking a toothache.

  Between an evening alone with a bottle of cheap wine and listening to Jessica Odero talk about her achievements and a busy life as a trophy wife, I prefer the former.

  Over the years, we have assigned ourselves roles; Jessica acting as the point of reference ,with her handsome rich husband and living a glamorous life ( her dream come true) and Shirley Atieno, the beauty with brains who love seems to evade therefore defying all laws of nature.

  Then there is me. Kate Sankale Edwards, a mixed race girl with a smoking problem and no career whose chief role is to remind you who your daughter shouldn't grow up to be.

  Or if you are a man, Kate is who your wife shouldn't be caught hanging out with.

  That's what Jessica's husband, pretentious Lucas Odero always seems to think about me. I wish I were immune to the scornful expression on the bastard’s face that is his version of a greeting. He would not even bother to hide it and I suppose that’s what I get for being me. Every year when celebrate Jessica's birthday, I make a silent vow to never to put myself in a situation where I feel this way around people.

  Unimportant and irrelevant.

  I want to share my theory with Shirley about the division of labor but I know she would roll her eyes and say I am not being fair. The three of us were college roommates in United States International University.

  Looking back, I tolerated Jess more when we were all single. She was more likable and was not so self righteous as she is now.

  Perhaps that's what marriage to a hot shot doctor does to you. It makes you want to fit in so desperately in the suburban life that you start thinking you are above your friends, the same people who have seen you in your worst and best.

  All that Jess talks about is how they want to try for a baby next year, this new fitness program that Lucas's sister introduced her to and what books she wants to suggest to her book club friends.

  In comparison, Shirley is down to death with a hourglass figure to envy and a PR career that is headed somewhere. Her only flaw being her inability to call out on someone when they are taking advantage of her kindness.

  She once mentioned that the shrink she visited after her messy break up with Caleb claimed that the contributing factor to her failed relationships was her nagging need for approval and a low self esteem. I had then told her that the woman must have been on crack. Really, Shirley is a PR officer for goddamnsake, confidence is like part of the job description.

  I have come to terms with the fact that Jess still keeps me in her circle of friends so that she can feel better about herself. Shirley on the other hand, is a two am friend who on most days I play her therapist listening to her rant about her on and off boyfriends in our pajamas binge watching Friends and Law and Order; SVU.

  I am currently sprawled across the coach scrolling through my Face book feed. Imagine Dragon’s Bad Liar is playing in the background. I am doing a miserable job of ignoring the pack of cigars on the table that are begging me to take a puff.

  This is my day one of abstinence and I hope I can go through the twenty four hours clean. So far, I have only placed the cigarette in my mouth without lighting it.

  That of course doesn't count as cheating.

  With lack of new updates to review, I decide to keep up with what the rest of my uni class of 2016 has been up to. Some would call it stalking but I prefer to use the term intensive research to get useful information supported with evidence.

  I start with the queen bee Leah Adams whose modeling career is at its peak. She is currently in South Sudan. I see that she posted a picture five minutes ago clad in a white UNICEF T-shirt and a pair of fitting jungle green pants.

  The caption reads: An afternoon with these eleven year old kids whose thirst for education is unmatched. Studying under a tree and not enough books to read, they push on with the undying hope that they will become the doctors, engineers and politicians of our next generation. The schools in the area are only assigned with three teachers per institution and brighter students volunteer to teach the lower grades. Clearly, the youngsters' yearn for education runs deep. Thank you UNICEF for making me a part of this journey to touch a child's life.

  Hmm. Who knew Leah had a generous bone in her toned body, thanks UNICEF. Well, let’s check out her left finger if Ryan proposed. I zoom the picture but can't seem to get a better vision because she is holding a school bag possibly one of the many presents to the needy school children. Surely if she was engaged the internet would be in frenzy. I wouldn't miss congratulatory messages on her Insta and Face book posts.

  Even Jessica would call me in her shrill voice in the morning to inform me that my ex best friend is getting married on top of a successful career to ruin my day.

  She is pure evil.

  I type Celeste Njeri on the search section but I don't get to tap search because right then, I receive a new message. Who could be messaging me on Face book when I rarely post, to the point that one would think my account is inactive?

  It has to be one of those persistent Indian men who act as if they are paid to wish you good morning every fucking day .Or who knows, maybe they actually get paid. I am currently jobless and from the look of things, sending Mark Zuckeburg my resume would not be such a bad idea.

  With an attractive pay slip, I could wish the millions of users a good morning, good afternoon all the way to good night. Good everything.

  I tap on my inbox section and read the text , Kate Edwards, hello from a Christian Bradshaw. He is not someone I know so I do what any sane woman in my shoes would do, visit his profile and gather all the information I can find that would be sure to impress my former psychology professor should I present it in a PowerPoint format.

  According to my findings, Christian is a successful architect in Sidney, Australia and in 2017 he climbed Mt.Everest. He has a cute dog named Bruno and has posted a few pictures of him in a recent marathon race for a cancer campaign.

  He has added The Art of War as his favorite book and from his posts, I gather his list of friends cannot be more than a hundred. He gets a maximum of fifteen miserable likes for his pictures.

  There are no posts before 2017 but that is the least of my worries.

  What actually disturbs me is the fact that he is married and my calculator says he is fifty. So why the hell is a man, twenty seven years my senior sending me a message? He is obviously not inviting me to those charity events or offering me a deal to furnish my crummy flat, right?

  I suppose I could find out. It’s not like I have better things to do on a Friday night besides get drunk. And fight the urge to light a cigar.

  I type hello to you too, stranger.

  He is online so I should be getting a reply soon. He is ancient, he wouldn't know the first thing about today’s chatting rules that say that you should wait for at least five minutes before tapping send. He has approximately twenty five minutes to convince me he is not some creep.

  How are you today

  I'm doing fine thank you Mr. Bradshaw

  Can I get your number?

  Have a nice life Christian Bradshaw, your fifteen minutes of fame are officially over. I get back to Celeste's page and I am disappointed to find nothing new.

  About time I drowned this glass and went to bed, I think. It is eleven, just a few minutes past my bedtime. I take my glass to the kitchen, brush my teeth and change into a T-shirt and socks. I toss the jumpsuit into the overloaded laundry basket making a mental note to call the laundry lady first thing in the morning.
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br />   If I don’t happen to forget.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I wake up the next day with a killer headache and an urgent need to empty my bladder. I race to the bathroom and decide to take a hot shower .Like I predicted, I feel slightly better. I pop some painkillers in my mouth and unlock my phone for any texts or calls that I must have missed from my deep slumber. It's ten forty one.

  Its ten fucking forty one.

  Fuck, fuck. I missed my fucking interview at the clinic in Karen Shopping Center .I was supposed to be there at nine thirty and no one has even bothered to find out if I got lost on my way there. Or if I got ran over by a truck. Such things happen by the way.

  I should just call Annie with a fake emergency and request her to tell her people to reschedule. I am not sure she will buy it because unfortunately, she knows me like the back of her hand .She will see right through my lie.

  “Hey Katie, how was the interview?” she answers on the first ring.

  She must be in the office because she is whispering and I have to strain to hear her. I bet her tough boss is towering over her about reports. In an ideal social setting, my crazy sister Annie never whispers but she has a good voice unlike Jess so I suppose she can pull that off without sounding like an underfed parrot. What do such birds feed on, by the way? I should look that up to appear knowledgeable like Ollie's work friends.

  Stop. We are done thinking about Oliver motherfucking James. For eternity.

  “That's um, what I’m calling about. I woke up with a fever and threw up a lot. I think it must be something I ate last night.” I hope I don't sound too cheery for someone who has stomach flu.

  “I’m sorry honey. Are you feeling any better now?” She asks and I feel guilty for lying.

  She just swallowed my lie which means I don't have her full attention. Annie takes her role as the older sister quite seriously and always feels like it's her fault that my twin brother Alex and I turned out this way. Alex is a college dropout who flew to stay with my dad in Virginia.

  He studied Nursing but quit in his third year, saying his real passion was in photography. Mom was quite stern with him and gave me two alternatives; to finish college and would sponsor his second degree which would be of his choosing or quit school and she wouldn’t care. It was not much of a choice anyway but my twin brother is as stubborn as a mule. He packed all his bags in his dorm and appeared at dad’s doorstep a week later.

  Our parents divorced when Alex and I were five but have remained good friends since the separation. We are allowed to visit dad and his parents in America during the holidays but since mom got remarried to a Maasai, we schooled in Kenya. I have always been comfortable with the arrangement because I don’t know how I would fit in as an African American in the west.

  I wouldn't admit it to him but I admire Alex's guts. He has always teased me of being daddy's little girl who would never think of disappointing him.

  I might have confided in him under a stupid influence of whisky that I don't know what I am doing with my life but I am sure as fuck that my dream career is not to be a shrink. I am a psych major graduate and I am yet to master the basics of being a good employee. I quit several jobs in the past which is why I always turn down dad's offer to work for his company in the US.

  “Yes. It's not as bad. So, rain check?” I ask hopefully.

  “Let me find out and give you a call shortly”, Annie says and ends the call.

  I have nothing to do and for the first time in weeks, I feel lonely. My boyfriend since college broke up with me two months ago, in May. Well, technically I broke up with him but he started the fight. Since then, I have been drinking a lot and I have given up my efforts to stop smoking. Shirley says I have been on denial, that I am holding on to this silly fantasy that Oliver would reach out and apologize.

  “He is either giving me the silent treatment or he is just busy. He has not moved on, Shirley,” I told her one afternoon.

  “Don’t you think he would have given in already and given you a call? This is Ollie, he doesn’t hold grudges,” she retorted.

  “Well then, what do you suppose I do?”I asked her not expecting to follow through with whatever plan she had.

  “Dial his number and ask him out for a drink .You can solve whatever issues you have like grownups.” Shirley had to be on crack to suggest that but I promised to think about it just so as to end the discussion about my ex.

  Frankly, her theory is almost accurate because a part of me has always treated him as a permanent fixture in my life. He was supposed to be the backup plan should things not turn out in my favor in the hostile world after college.

  Needless to say, I was taken by surprise when he issued me an ultimatum saying that I should make a commitment to work on a healthier life style and maybe join rehab or it would be the end of us. Where did that come from? This was a first.

  Ollie did not issue ultimatums out of the blue and neither did he have a problem with my partying tendencies. Isn’t love supposed to be about accepting your partner for who they are?I thought he understood that.

  “College was another sweet chapter of our lives that is no longer relevant. Making it in this new life means that you slow down on the bottle and get a real job .You can even pursue your postgraduate.” Ollie had turned from the mirror where he was adjusting his tie to face me. “Katie, I care for you and I don’t want to see you waste your twenties.”

  I tried to understand where he was coming from, truly.

  I tried to understand that I had to face the harsh realities of life rather than choosing the easiest option; pretending that responsibilities can be avoided .However, I couldn't move past the implication that he was ashamed of me. Ollie had studied Economics and Statistics and landed a fancy position in Central Bank .I suppose he no longer wished to introduce a hangover thin girlfriend to his banker friends.

  I had then asked him if he was asking for a break so that he could date other uncomplicated women. I knew I was being childish, trying to push him to break up with me instead of admitting he was right. He had then tried to explain it to me gently, in his typical Ollie way.

  “Kate Sankale, I love you more than life itself. I love you even when you are being irritable in the morning because you have to get up for work, I love you when you are being stubborn and even when you are judging my work friends. But you have to understand that as long as I am dating you, I am building a future with you." I recall giving him a look to suggest he was being ridiculous.

  He ignored me and went on anyway. If I didn’t know better, I would say he had been practicing this speech for days.

  However, he is not one to dwell on things for long like the extrovert he is. It is one of the many things I like about him. Okay, liked about him. Past tense, Katie.

  “I am not twenty three anymore, I will one day want a family and I would want the mother of my children to be someone my kids can look up to. The woman who would show our daughter how to follow her wildest dreams, against all odds. That's why I am asking you to please consider making some adjustments to your lifestyle.”

  “You are not like planning to propose to me on my birthday, right? Because you just spoiled the surprise honey." I attempted to insert some humor because serious conversations tend to make me uncomfortable.

  I was half joking, of course .I reasoned that it had to be the only explanation why he was suddenly judging me. He wanted a proper fiancée whom he could introduce to his grandma in Kampala during the December holidays.

  “I am hurt that you would think I am that selfish. I not only want this for myself but also for your own good. It does not have to be right now, but promise you will think about it?”

  “Okaaay”, I dragged out the words. I no longer wanted to talk about it.

  He kissed me on the cheek and left for work. It then hit me that I was no longer looking at the same picture with him.

  I left a note on the fridge that I was leaving. I packed a few clothes in my suitcase and called an Uber to Shirley's apartment in Regan. I moved in to her gue
stroom and found a one bedroom apartment a few blocks from her the following week.

  In retrospect, I overestimated Ollie's love for me and even took him for granted. As fate would have it, Ollie called after three weeks to check on me.

  I recall my excitement and my heart literally skipping a beat when I saw the caller ID. The silent treatment crap was coming to an end. He wanted to make it up to me. So there is a God after all.

  But all Ollie wanted to know was whether I was okay, if I was taking good care of myself and whether I needed some funds to get by while I tried to get on both feet.

  During the first couple of weeks, I went through a rollercoaster of emotions; hurt , betrayal and mostly anger. Even when I went to collect the rest of my stuff in Ollie’s three bedroom apartment in Westlands, I did it in less than ten minutes not wanting to run into him. I wanted him to be surprised to find that I had packed everything without using it as an excuse to see him and beg him to take me back.

  I even packed all my toothbrushes to spite him.

  Hell would freeze before I give him the satisfaction that I am hurting and need him so much.

  It is like my life has taken a sharp U-turn and right now, this tiny flat suddenly feels enormous. I am in a desperate need for a smoke and you know what, fuck resolutions. I'll have the willpower later, just not now. Surely my lungs can survive today, they can't be that delicate.

  Don't judge me. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

  Annie calls later in the evening to say that she is sorry she couldn't have Fred, the HR, reschedule the meeting as they needed someone on a short notice. I tell her it is not a huge deal; I am still looking up for job openings around and updating my resume. Or in other words, filling in imaginary work experiences to fit advertised jobs. It is not like they run background checks anyway.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It is on a Saturday afternoon while streaming Netflix movies that I remember I have been indoors for three days straight. I also come to another embarrassing realization that I have not done grocery shopping in weeks, living on coffee and take outs.