A Sauce Down the Pole

Chapter 33

When she woke up her eyes were puffy, she had a blocked nose, her mouth was dry, her throat was painful, and she felt like shit. She walked to the mirror and looked at her horrible face but the time to feel sorry was over, she had to pick herself up. Yesterday after her breakdown during her argument with Akwande, her friends took her to their ride and did not say one more thing about her job. They saw she was hurting and did not want to add to that but when she got to her room, she made a voice note of more than 30 minutes explaining herself. They were very supporting friends; they were good to each other in bad times.

She called her grandma to uplift her spirit, "Hey Granny how're you?" "Hello, I'm good, you don't sound good what's wrong?", she sounded concerned, "My day didn't end well yesterday but I will be fine.", she was always honest with her grandma because she gave the best advice. "What happened? Are you pregnant and you want me to tell your mother? Because if that's the case I will not be helping you, I don't want to get involved", her grandma had always jumped into worst-case scenarios, "You know I'd rather tell mama myself than asking you", that was the truth, her grandma made matters worse when it came to reporting them. 

She told her she was feeling a bit down and she needed her to uplift her mood. After complaining about how she was being used, her grandma comforted her and they laughed about a few memories, and she felt lighter by the time the call ended so she was ready to call her mama. "Hi baby", she smiled at her Mama's voice, "Hey Girl, how're you?", she put her phone on speaker as she started cleaning the room. Peace and her mother were a little bit more of friends than mother and daughter. "I just caught up with your mom, we went down a memory lane", she told her mama, "She told me you said you're going to bring her a gift when you come back", Peace paused, it was not even 5 minutes after their call, and she already called her mama? "Damn She's fast".

Knock! Knock!

Her friends did not even wait for response they filled the room, each carrying a food container, "Good morning, we brought breakfast", Azana said, "Aw! That's the first, what's the occasion?", she asked while her mother was still on hold, Omuhle went to sit on the bed, "My goodness they gave you the wrong name, you don't have peace at all. After what happened yesterday, my friend, we fully regret how we handled the situation, we should not have let him speak to you like that. We listened to your voice note and we must say we were quick to judge but we responded in a state of shock", she said all of that in one breath. She realized this was going to take longer so she ended the call with her mama. "Yes, Omu is right, friends should stand by each other", Mandy the most sensible added. "I also apologize for treating y'all like outsiders, friends do not keep secrets from each other", Peace also apologized. "And that was a whole grenade you should've seen our faces we all thought we were dreaming or something because those moves had nothing to do with the Peace we all know", Omuhle was back at being herself.

They had their breakfast which turned into a catch-up meeting as they asked about every detail of her job and how was it different from stripping. Omuhle was very interested, she vowed to practice and join her. "Did he say anything yet?", Ntando asked, "No and I do not care, he had no right talking to me like I'm his child. He should learn to treat people right I hate that I was vulnerable in front of him, he didn't deserve to see me like that", her friends just watched as she vented as if she had been waiting for that moment. Her phone vibrated and she checked, she had made over R16k tip and R50k for the performance than the R10k Santiago had promised her. 

One thing her Boss was doing right was her payments, she was always satisfied. "I just got paid ", she said when she realized they looked at her suspiciously because she was smiling, "It must be a lot of money to get you smiling like that", Azana commented, "From how much do y'all get paid?", Omuhle asked, she was uncomfortable with these questions because she thought if her friends truly knew how much she made they would think she kept her job a secret because she did not want them to have this kind of money. "Okay I see you don't want to talk about it, just tell us your highest and your lowest pay", Mandy tried to make it easier for her, "My lowest was R2500, when I started and I was terrible my Boss deducted from my salary to refund complaining customers ", she paused for a second, "My highest pay was when I had a gig for a music video Santiago produced. It was R100k". Their eyes and mouths almost touched the floor, "What?! You have R100k sitting in your account?", Ntando was purely shocked, "You're filthy rich, you should definitely hook us up", Omuhle added, "I used that to pay for my school fees ", she quickly tried to hold it down, and they seemed to calm down. They were still shocked that she had that kind of money in her account, they did not know she has way more than that.

Peace felt at ease now that her friends knew about her job, later that day her sister called, "Hi big Sis!" Everything about this call was wrong, Sasha had never considered that Peace was older than her because they were one year apart, she never called unless she needed something, and she was never this nice. Sasha was the middle child and a black sheep of the family. Peace and her always had something to fight about, she was inconsiderate unlike Peace, she just cared about herself, and she believed she deserved everything except that she wanted people to sponsor her luxurious life.

"Hi Sash, what can I do for you?", she wanted to get over and done with her, "Straight to business I see, can you please lend me R1k? I will return it next week it's super urgent", she rolled her eyes, "What are you doing with this money? Every week you need money. You have a bursary, and you stay on campus, but you borrow money every day, where do you think I get the money?", Sasha lowered her voice, "I know you got paid for last night, please I will return it this time, I promise you", she begged, "You must be on drugs". This is what would go down every time Sasha borrowed money, she would give her a lecture on how she was being financially irresponsible but would end up giving her the money and Sasha would never pay back. Every time she would give her money, she would put the same amount in the fixed account she opened for her younger sister, Skye, whom she planned to give her at the end of the year as a Christmas gift. "Sash: Got it, thank you", that's the last text she would receive from her until she is in need again.