Jackie

                                                

“Wash your feet before you come into bed.”

I never wash my feet before bed at home. All I do is shower in the evening, play hard till it is dark, sit on the couch and wait for dinner, and doze off ignoring any pleas to wake up and eat. My mum carries me to bed. Whenever I find out that they had meat for supper and I missed it, I promise myself to stay up next time. However, today I am not at home. I am in a sleepover. I love girl sleepovers. My mom lets me sleep at other people's homes. She has faith in the good of mankind. 

This time around, I am at Jackie's. I met Jackie when I was 6 years old; I am now 10. We became friends through my mum. At that time, she was working at a Shell petrol station. She was working at a petrol station owned by wooriyah,  some Muslim folks who loved spaghetti. At that time my mom was their chef. They taught her to make spaghetti their way. You had to wash it in cold water before serving it in a big stainless steel tray. 

Jackie is currently at Nairobi Polytechnic, studying Art and design. She draws portraits of people and animals too. She’s a model too. Tall, brown-skinned, with a button nose. She’s so beautiful.

When we moved to a new city, Jackie happened to come finish her studies here. And we reconnected. She lives on the third floor of an apartment next to our home. I like visiting her, though my 1-year-old nephew and I hate the caretaker of the building; she’s always seated outside her house watching people come in and out and asks too many questions about why we are in the building. Jackie's room is a bedsitter. But being a design student, she has partitioned it so well with white curtains and has made a bedroom, a kitchen, and a space for her art stuff. 

Whenever we drop by her house, she treats us to maandazis or her signature carrot rice. I also get to keep HB pencils from her art supplies when she plucks blank pages from her sketchbooks and allows me to draw beside her. I copy some of her work, but she’s too good. Oh, Jackie is also deaf and wears cool cream hearing aids. My mum says she got them through an initiative by Safaricom. I wonder how they make her hear. 

Jackie is too clean. Coming in, she’s just made me wash my feet. Now before bed, she’s making me wash my feet again. She says I can’t sleep with my dark, deep-blue corduroy dress on; the room is too hot. She insists I change into pajamas, but I didn’t carry any. Thankfully, I had my white vest on and black tights. I remove my dress and leave my inner clothes on as pajamas. 

I know she makes people dress lightly in her house. I paid her a visit some time back and found a dude sitting on the edge of her mattress shirtless. She also says I have to pee before bed. She makes me carry a piece of tissue to the bathroom even if it's just peeing.

Today for supper she made scrambled eggs with tomatoes, sukuma wiki, and ugali. She asked if I’d clear my plate, and although I said yes. I didn’t finish everything. I was scared she would get angry. But I don't like eating.

We lay in her clean bed with her clean sheets. I stare at the ceiling. Her cheetah-print bra is dangling from the edge of the curtain that serves as bedroom walls.

I close my eyes and pray that I do not wet the bed. I hope I didn’t drink too much water today.