09/10/2024
There's this family friend who enjoys making me look bad in front of my parents.
The worst thing is that she has three spoilt children, but seems to think that they're the best thing since sliced bread.
She has often said things in front of my parents that got me in trouble.
Last week, for instance, she came to borrow salt from our house. As I handed her the salt, she made a remark that seemed genuine.
"Desmond, this your shirt is fine ooo," she said with a smile, pointing at the floral shirt I was wearing.
"Oh," I said, returning her smile. "Thank you."
"It's that same shirt you wore on Monday afternoon when that girl came and you both went into your house, right?" she asked.
The smile vanished from my face. I couldn't answer. I just stood there, frozen in shock. This woman knew my father was around. She greeted him when she arrived, and could still see him sitting behind me in the parlour, eyes on a newspaper.
Since my parents work every Monday, she knew I must have snuck the girl in while they were away. There was no doubt that my father overheard her.
An awkward silence hovered between us for a while, which was split when I handed the salt and she thanked me. As she left, my father called and asked me what she was talking about.
"I don't know what she's saying," I insisted.
My father spent the next several days reprimanding me because of this, and even collected our house keys from me for a while.
This evening, the woman came to our house to relay something to my mom. My mom had missed a meeting in their church, so the woman came to fill her in. Both my mom and father were outside.
As I came out to give my father the drink he had requested before the woman's arrival, she turned away from my mother and, facing me, she said, "Desmond, I was calling and calling you last night, but you didn't answer."
"Where?" I asked.
"In town. You were coming out of a hotel," she said much to my parents' shock.
"That must have been when I went there to collect my power bank from your daughter," I said.
The woman:
