PRICELESS DREAMS by Edwin Oko Lamptey. Episode17

Rejoice waited for several days to pass before
trying to call Frank. She didn’t want it to be too
obvious that she was making passes at Frank
considering his ‘loss’. The first time she tried
calling Frank, he was hostile and hang up. She
decided to give Frank another call and was once
again greeted with hostility, “What is the matter
again, Rejoice?”, Frank asked sternly as he
answered her call. “I was just calling to check up
on you and see if you needed some company”,
Rejoice said softly. “I am a changed person,
Frank”. “I don’t know why you are being so cold
towards me when all I have ever wanted was to
be with you and love you like no other woman
will”, Rejoice added. “Rejoice, all the trouble and
disgrace that you have caused me, do you think
they can ever be erased?”, Frank asked her. “I
know I treated you unfairly in the past, that is
why I am asking you for this opportunity to make
the past errors go away with my tender loving
care”, Rejoice said. “A snake will always be a
snake, Rejoice”, Frank told her. “I don’t mean to
be rude but I don’t see a future or anything
materializing between us”, Frank said. “Are you
acting up because of that nurse?”, Rejoice asked.
“If you try any of your silly games with her, I will
kill you”. “This is not a threat dear, it is an
advice”. “And yes, she is the reason for my
behaviour”. “Have a lovely day, Rejoice”, Frank
said and hang up the phone. He did not want to
have anything to do with her even if they had to
be just friends. Frank never thought of going out
with Rita considering the fact that Rita knew
Leticia and he could not see himself falling in love
with any one else. Soon, he decided to give love
another chance and he wanted to give it a try
with Rita. With the passage of time, he began to
fall deeply in love with Rita. He had soon
forgotten about the hurt he had to go through
because of Leticia. On one of their many nights
out, he confessed to Rita, “If I ever told you that I
could have imagined myself falling so much in
love with you, it would have been a lie”. “Every
other woman appeared like Leticia to me”. “I love
you so much, Rita”, Frank added. Falling in love
with Frank was so easy for Rita. She had already
been in love with him from the get go. Gabriel and
Leticia were also having good times together.
They spent most of the time together either in the
office or at Gabriel’s plush apartment. Gabriel had
used his connections to get Leticia into Law
school and she was doing well. Soon, the calls
Leticia made to Frank reduced to the barest
minimum. Deep down, Leticia missed Frank
because he had a beautiful soul and was selfless,
unlike Gabriel who was strict and wanted the best
for himself first before anyone else. There were
certain times that she felt like going back to
Frank but it was too late. On one of her nights
out at Gabriel’s apartment, Leticia had to go to
the taxi terminal to pick a taxi home because
Gabriel had to attend to a family emergency that
night so he could not take her home. When she
got to the terminal, there were two people seated
in the commercial taxi that was supposed to take
her home. She sat in the back seat of the car and
greeted the occupants politely. Soon, the last
passenger boarded the taxi and the driver sped
off out of the terminal. Halfway through the
journey, Leticia, who was sitting by the right side
door was asked by the driver to close her side of
the door because it was not closed properly. She
tried hard but all attempts to open the door and
shut it properly proved futile so the lady sitting
next to her offered her assistance. With a few
cranks, the woman opened the door and shut it
firmly. A few minutes after this incident, the driver
complained of experiencing a fault and asked
that Leticia to get down from the car for him to
get his tools from under the seat since they were
at her side of the back seat. As Leticia stepped
unto the road, the driver, who had parked the car
in an alley quickly sped off and Leticia became
alarmed. She had heard that people got robbed at
night in that part of town so she wanted to fetch
her phone from her handbag and call her dad.
She dipped her hand in her bag but her phone
was not in it. She was confused. It then dawned
on her that she had been robbed by the people in
the taxi. A neighbour once recounted how she
was robbed the same way. She had been robbed
by a taxi syndicate where unsuspecting
passengers are robbed of their belongings with
the “Close the door trick” and surprisingly, it
works most of the time. She was far off from her
house and had no money too. She walked for a
while and stopped by a communication’s centre
to make a phone call. She did not want to scare
her dad and also did not want to let Gabriel cut
short attending to his family emergency to come
and pick her up so she decided to call Frank. It
had been a while since she saw or heard from
him and she knew Frank will always come to her
rescue no matter what. Frank had almost dozed
off when he heard his phone ringing. He
wondered who could be calling him at that time
of the night. He did not want to answer at first
but when the call came through the second time,
he lazily reached for his phone and saw an
unknown number. “Who could this be?”, he asked
himself and answered the call. “Doctor Frank
here, may I know who I am speaking with?”,
Frank asked in a professional tone. “Frank, it is
me”, Leticia said. When Frank heard the voice
coming from the other end of the phone, he
quickly sat up and all the sleep miraculously
vanished because he knew who that voice
belonged to. “Leticia, where are you?” “Are you
alright?” “Whose number is this?”,Frank asked all
at once. “Frank, I got robbed and I am stranded, I
am calling you from a communication centre and
if you don’t come and pick me up, I will not be
able to even pay for this phone call”, Leticia
explained. In about half an hour, Frank parked his
car in front of the communication’s centre, paid
for Leticia’s call and ushered her into the car.
There was silence as he drove towards Leticia’s
house. Leticia suddenly broke the silence, “It’s
been a while, Frank and I miss you”. “I miss you
too, Tish but now we are both seeing other
people so I don’t think we should complicate
matters any further”, Frank said with a straight
face. Leticia looked disappointed but still, in the
softest voice possible, she struggled to let out the
words, “Thank you so much for always being
there for me, Frank”. Frank looked at her and
suddenly, like a rush of water, all the feelings he
had painstakingly learnt to let go started coming
back to him. He held her neck and they shared a
passionate kiss. She asked him to park the car.
They squeezed themselves in the backseat of
Frank’s car and for the first time, they made love.
It was a brief moment of unmeasurable pleasure
because they both enjoyed it. After they made
love, Frank took her home and they promised not
to tell either Gabriel or Rita what had happened
between them. Weeks had passed and Frank had
not mentioned a word of his escapade with
Leticia to Rita. Frank had been planning on
asking Rita to marry him so he planned a
romantic dinner to make the announcement. Rita
was running late on the day of the date so Frank
had to wait on her a while longer. Soon, his
phone vibrated and he knew it was Rita who was
probably sending a message to explain why she
was late. When he picked the phone, the message
was from Leticia instead and it read, “Frank, I
think I am pregnant” “Call me”….
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