Julie Iromuanya - Mr. and Mrs. Doctor

Job didn’t understand. Not right away. All he saw were the blinding lights of the SUV swerving at him, the passenger door flapping. Job pitched over the side of the shoulder into an embankment. His heart raced. Blood pumped in his ears. It’s impossible, he thought in astonishment. Is this a joke? Like the two of them wrestling in the snow that day. So he laughed with Emeka.

The truck slid down the embankment toward Job. As he scrambled away from it, all he could hear was the grumble of the engine, the traction of the tires on the dirt. This is a joke, he told himself again. Still laughing, a laughter like a rattle, bound up in his nerves and fear, Job blindly crawled and backpedaled.

“I knew, my friend,” Emeka shouted out the window. “From the beginning, I had a feeling,” he sang, pushing the tires through the dirt. “Me, I was okay with it. My wife needed a son.” He paused. “But now, I am not okay with it.”

A deafening blare of the horn cut the calm night air. Job clamped his hands over his ears until the blare stopped. He could see nothing but the glare of the lights. “You’re talking silly. Too much to drink,” he called back. He remembered that day with Gladys. Just one time. It only happened one time. It was a mistake, he thought. “What are you saying?” he called to Emeka. “You are drunk.”

“ I had a feeling .” Drunk with laughter, drunk with pain, Emeka sang in his beautiful, husky voice.

The truck skidded.

Out of breath. Nothing but plains for miles. Job’s heart ached. He had nowhere to hide. No trees. No brush. No scrubs. Nothing. Surrounded by fence posts and wire, Job was in a pen of sorts, and the headlights of Emeka’s truck formed the barrel of a cocked pistol. Bile filled his throat as he thought of that goat and the three shots it had taken to extinguish its life. He chuckled. Will I die such a pitiful death today? Soon he was falling to his knees, laughing and choking and spewing the bile from his mouth. The bile of Emeka, and Gladys, and Cheryl, and Samuel, and America, and Mr. Doctor.

His face was shiny and slick with his tears, because suddenly, all he could think of were the good things, like Victor crashing his Big Wheel into walls, and his father clasping his shoulder in pride, and Ifi. And the curl of her lips in a smile, and the way she moved her hips to Fela. And his breath. And because of this, he wept and gasped for air. Because of this, he thought of that house and decided that Emeka was right. Whatever makes her happy. And because of this, a sudden sense of gratitude overwhelmed him. Samuel, Emeka, America — all of it had brought him to Ifi, and that was all that mattered.

Emeka blared the horn and revved the engine.

The truck lurched forward but suddenly jammed in the embankment.

As Job watched in astonishment, Emeka put the truck in reverse, then forward, rocking it, but the tires only dug deeper. Finally, he laughed out the window at Job. “You are right, my friend. I am silly and drunk, no?” Emeka’s wheels spun. “Come, my friend. Let us stop playing our games. Help me free my vehicle.” As he stepped out of the SUV, he laughed again, but the laughter was without the vigor of pain. “Come, my man. We are both Igbos.” Emeka shrugged and reached out his hand.

Job hesitated. Black sky wavered under the glare of the lights. He gazed up and down the long stretch of empty highway. He felt gratitude. I am alive, he thought. Ifi is alive. He took the hand and warily shook off the dirt that had gathered around his good slacks, his tie, and his good shirt. They worked together, rocking the truck with their backs and teeth and sweat, until it was free. All the while, Emeka’s beautiful voice sang, “Zombie o, zombie.”

JOB HELD OUT A DAMP, CRUMPLED BOUQUET OF FLOWERS. “FOR YOU.” His dark suit was covered in dirt and twigs. Scrapes stained his anxious smile. He smelled strongly of liquor.

Ifi snatched the flowers from him, looking anxiously about the room at the burgundy curtains that ended with a simple golden tassel, just the flourish a low-budget motel lobby could furnish. “Why are you here?” She looked again, but the front desk was still empty. The night manager had stepped away, and Ifi could breathe for just a moment. “You must go before someone sees you.”

“We need to talk,” Job said. He hesitated. “I want to talk.”

Having stepped away from his desk for just a moment, the night manager, an elderly man with a slight limp, returned. He considered the two. “Hello, sir,” he said. “Ifi.” His eyes fell on the flowers in her hand.

Ifi quickly threw the flowers on the one round table propped in front of the chairs. “He is going.”

“We must talk,” Job said.

“What are you thinking, coming here?” she asked as she made her way to the sliding glass doors. “You need to go.”

Job’s brows furrowed, but he didn’t follow. Without taking his eyes off her, he strode past Ifi to the night manager, slipped a credit card across the counter, and booked a room for the night. He swiveled his whole body to face her, his lips a tease, a sad tilt to his eyes. “I am a paying customer. I have as much right to be here as you.” Only once did he break her gaze to look at the manager. “Is that not right?”

“Looks like your fellow got you there.” The night manager chuckled and smiled encouragingly at Ifi and then Job.

Room 123. Ifi snatched the keys from Job and pushed past him up the worn carpeted floors to the room. She couldn’t risk any further disgrace. It was the farthest room on the floor. Once inside, she pushed the door shut behind her. Her heart raced, and she experienced, for the first time, something like a plea. This is all I have left, she thought. The motel. The steady paycheck. There was no home, no family, nothing to return to. So this must do. This must do until she could sort it all. “You cannot come here,” she said. “This is my workplace.”

“Ndo, sorry. I did not come for trouble. I beg of you, listen to me.” Job took out a slip of paper from his pocket. He cleared his throat.

Before he could read from it, Ifi snatched the letter. She read the first line to herself. I have come to ask for your hand in marriage. She crumpled it into a ball and threw it as hard as she could at the wastebasket in the rear of the room. She made it. “Ngwa, go.”

“I have come,” he said anyway, “to say the things I should have said when I met you.”

He stepped toward her, but all she could smell was the liquor. It angered her. “This is not Nigeria,” she said, remembering the fancy Presidential Hotel honeymoon suite. She recalled the elegant walls, the stylish drapery. Now, as she looked around the room, she could just make out the yellowed stains on the sheets that she would replace at the end of her shift, the frayed edges of the landscape portraits on each wall. How far they had fallen. “This is not Nigeria. And we are not young.”

“I have come to tell you about my life in America,” he began. “In plain English. And if you are happy with my life in America, then come and be my wife.”

“I do not care about your life in America.”

Instead of the lies he courted her with, he began to speak the truth. “I live a simple life in America. I am not a big doctor. I am not a big man. I am not a big man, but I will care for you.” His voice faltered. “I am not a big man. I am a humble man, but I will buy you a fur coat to keep you warm in winter. I will paint your walls, I will buy you a big-screen TV, and I will buy you your first home.”

Ifi swallowed. Yes, she recalled the paint on the walls and in his hair on the snowy day of her arrival. She remembered the fur coat of false pines. She remembered the big-screen TV with the crooked line splitting the rainy pictures. With a shiver, she even thought of the house. But it only angered her. In a way, he had usurped all of her dreams. An elegant coat, a large TV, a beautiful home. These were the things she had always hoped for. But Job had taken her dreams hostage and ransomed her future. “You lied,” she said.