MINA
THE GOOD LIFE
I can’t believe Amaka stayed back with that guy, Joshua or Jeffrey or whatever his name is! She can be so stupid. She barely even knows that man and she is probably going to sleep with him. How can she be so naïve? She’ll probably fall for the first line he throws out. The truth is that men that good looking don’t go for women like Amaka. He can only be interested in the sex for one night. And anyway even if he were interested in more, she wouldn’t know how to handle him. If it were me, I would have that man going in so many circles he wouldn’t know which way was up unless I told him. I would never put myself out there like that, with men you have got to take control immediately or else you are finished. I guess I can’t be too hard on her; it must be hard being a single African cosmopolitan woman over thirty, because the pickings are slim and you are competing with the young fresh ones.
As to be expected, I don’t have to worry about that anymore. I am successfully married. People envy me, married to a handsome, successful man. I live in a sought-after Atlanta neighborhood and my home can be called a mansion by any standards. I don’t have to work for a living, so I have time for my other interests. Yes, indeed, I am living the life I chose for myself.
People usually ask me how I got so lucky and I tell them luck has nothing to do with it. My life is good because I made the right choices. So many women out there make unintelligent decisions for stupid reasons. As for me, I wanted this life and so I knew what I had to do. Take for instance, my husband, Obinna. When I met him, I was being chased by so many men but they were all the typical African professional man with an ego to boot. Obinna was a quiet and unassuming guy, but I already could see that he was going to make it. He was at medical school when I met him, brilliant but terribly unsophisticated. He was dreadfully uncultured. On my first visit to his apartment, he served me wine in a champagne glass, how gauche is that?
But I endured his lack of couth, why? Because I knew what tomorrow could bring. When I announced our engagement, Amaka gave me this whole lecture on passion and love. What has love got to do with it really? Frankly I am looking for security. Amaka who is so focused on love and romance, where is she now? Single at 31 and still hoping for Mr. Right! Meanwhile I am married to a very successful surgeon who has been featured in Who’s Who in black Atlanta and quoted in Atlanta magazine.
I know I sound cold but that’s the way the world works. After all it’s not as if I don’t do my part for him. Like on the night of the Nouveau Africana Gala. He got to walk in with a woman like me: beautiful, slim, elegant. He could have been single and looking desperately to mingle, like that poor Dan Okoli. Or even worse he could have ended up with someone as crass and overweight like that Tigi Simpson. Furthermore, later on that night I let him make love to me.
