Stitches and Styles
Ankara pieces lay on the floor like termites after a rainy night. Salome had upgraded; she no longer used the manual sewing machine that had an amber butterfly pasted all over it, the one that strengthened her calf muscles and made her turn handwheels and thread needles every five minutes. She was now a new-generation digital tailor. She made arrangements with Odinchezo, a graphic designer, before the machine arrived. She asked him to print posters for her. She was once a nameless roadside mender, but now, she must show everybody that she has rebranded. No one will call her ordinary Tailor again; it would be Sal's Digital Stitches. Mama SDS for short. She had gone on a sewing spree since her electric sewing machine landed from China. She made a dress from every material she could lay her hands on, including rags. She made everything apart from Mrs Eke's dress, which she forgot was due until she saw Mrs Eke's car driving speedily towards her shop.
Her cousin’s wedding was in less than twenty-four hours, and Mrs Eke's flight was booked. This was supposed to be a quick stop. She didn't have to fit the dress. Salome had been making clothes for her for over ten years. She understood her curves and knew exactly how to sew her FUPA into a perfect corset.
“Won't you sit down?” Salome asked as Mrs Eke stood unflinching at the entrance of her shop. Mrs Eke did not say a word. She gave Salome the material a month ago and sent her a reminder last week. To Mrs Eke, Salome's sweaty forehead and uneasiness meant she forgot her sewed dress at her house and came to the shop. She was going to simply drive Salome to her house, which was nearby, pick up her dress and be at the airport in no time. The flight from Enugu to Lagos was 50 minutes, and she planned to use it to sleep before she entered full Owambe mode. She was the wedding planner and was exhausted from the long weeks of organising a wedding in a big city, where she did not live. She did not have the energy or time for banter, but Salome was overbearing and insistent on feeding her ears.
“My husband has started his wahala again. That man will not hear me when I talk,” Salome said. “I told him to change the building plan. How will he build a duplex when we have only female children? How will they move to their husband's house if they become too comfortable in their father's house? Eh?” She continued, waiting for Mrs Eke to pick up the small talk as usual.
Mrs Eke did not respond. Her face was numb, and she was looking at Salome. Today was not the day, but Salome still did not get the memo. She sized Salome with her eyes and noticed the changes. From wearing cheap bubus and bootleg Crocs to a now fully beaded Jalabiya and platforms, she looked too regal for a busy tailor. Her skin was clear, and she just added a septum piercing to her face. It had been hard to keep up with Salome after her husband got the government appointment. Just last week, she had her eyebrows tattooed. The week before, she was going to get Botox injections for her armpits because sweating anyhow was not befitting for her new status. She was transitioning into a proper slay queen. Mrs Eke finished her assessment and hissed.
“Salome, there are many ways to joke with me, but hiding my dress when I have a flight to catch is far from it. Just give me the Asoebi I gave you last month, and let me go!”
Salome was transfixed. Mrs Eke shrugged and marched to Salome's show glass, where she kept finished dresses and started rummaging through the pile. Salome coiled to the side and watched her scatter everything. She somehow hoped Mrs Eke would find her dress, that she would raise a seamless corset and A-line skirt from the heap of clothes and say, “Oh, I found it!” But Salome always expected the impossible.
Like how she thought that her mother-in-law would survive after she silently removed her oxygen at the hospital and went away. Or how she slowly pushed Mildred, her husband's side chick, from a one-story building and didn't think she would bleed at all. She imagined that if Mildred was strong enough to sleep with Odinchezo, whom she had been married to for ten years, her brain must be abrasive enough to withstand anything. Salome stood eye to eye with Mrs Eke, whose strong palms now rested on her sewing machine. Salome was crazy, but even her craze understood that Mrs Eke was now stark raving mad.
"Salome, I will ask you only once, where the hell is my dress?"
Salome wanted to get on her knees to beg, but she had passed that stage. She only went on all fours when she and Odinchezo were trying for a male child. Besides, Mrs Eke carried herself like she was the only one who knew the smell of mint, which irritated her. Now that she had her own cash, she would just refund the money or rent her a dress to use for her rubbish wedding.
“This particular blue gown is the only gown in this shop that will enter you, and it is close to the colour of your material. It will be a bit tight in the belly area. Just make sure you don't eat too much because this material is not lycra and e fit tear for round table if you chop too much.” Salome said, sampling the dress on Mrs Eke's body.
Mrs Eke understood what Salome was trying to say by offering her another dress, but she still wanted her to say it. She wanted to hear it and be sure.
“You can enter inside the changing room and check it if you want, but it will enter you. I have your measurements, and you and the customer that has this gorgeous dress are almost the same size.”
“Salome, where is my dress?” Mrs Eke asked for what they both knew was the last time.
“I forgot to sew it, haba!” Salome made a mistake. She had become honest, and it was this new status that caused it. There is a kind of honesty that only money can give you. Wretched Salome would have lied that it was at home, boarded a bike and gone to hide till Mrs Eke got the memo and left. But she now had the type of money she thought could stop nonsense, so she told the truth with all the risk involved. She knew Mrs Eke set a mechanic's shop on fire when he duped her and put a fake engine in her Toyota. It was Mrs Eke who drove the pot-bellied road safety man on her bonnet at full speed on a highway after he sat on it and asked her to ‘find him something.’ It was this woman that she just casually told her Owanbe dress had not been cut or sewn.
People had started to gather around Salome's shop. They were divided. Some wanted Mrs Eke to finish Salome because they hated her attitude, and others begged on her behalf because the angrier woman always wins in these battles. Salome had already received three slaps on her right cheek.
Mrs Eke threw her sewing machine out the window once, and it dismembered. Before Salome could make her move, Mrs Eke brushed her to the ground and sat on her face. Unwilling to stand up till she was sure Salome was unconscious, but her phone started ringing nonstop. She pulled it from her back pocket to stop it from ringing, but it was Sade, the bride, who was calling, and she knew what it meant for Sade to call her multiple times, 24 hours before her big day. Something must be wrong somewhere; maybe the Amala woman had disappointed them, or the decor people were moving mad. She picked up the call, sprang up hastily from Salome's face, spat on it and zoomed off in her car. Sade was crying profusely on the line. Her husband, Eche, had been knocked down by a trailer load of beer. The wedding as she knew it was about to be cancelled.
