The Detour

Jumoke stood there, arms folded, wearing a very worried frown. She had had a rough week and just needed a break. The transfer error case was yet to be resolved. The lady who had erroneously received the transfer and her mum’s lines were no longer ringing. Worse still, the customer was now sending strongly worded emails to the bank. 

On her way to midweek service, she had received a text from the irate customer saying she was coming to the bank to create chaos. Her heart skipped. Her boss’s email saying it would all be resolved before the end of the week had done little to assuage the angry customer. 

Once the midweek service ended, Jumoke waited her turn to speak to the resident pastor. The protocol officer had given her a sign that two other members were ahead of her. She sat a little distance away, waiting her turn as the church slowly started emptying. 

Pastor Jimi laughed out loud, making light of Jumoke’s belief that her ordeal was a result of her failure to pay her tithes the previous month. 

“You’re just being overtly religious, madam. God doesn’t operate that way.” 

So they prayed. 

“It’s done,” he assured her. “The rest of the week, lines fall to you in pleasant places.” 

She affirmed with a resounding “Amen”. 

Then he sent her on her way. 

That evening, when she got home, she met her live-in landlady stepping out of the car. It was too late to retreat. The landlady had already seen her. 

“My dear, how are you? I’m sure you saw my text message. Please let me know what your plans are so I can make the arrangements.” 

Where does this woman expect a young lady who recently relocated from Oyo State to Lagos, serving as a contract staff, to see two years’ rent upfront? She might as well ask me to start doing hook-up. Heartless woman, she thought to herself. 

“I saw it, ma. I’m working on it.” 

Then she left. 

The confidence she had gathered in church was already faltering, and that was less than two hours ago. She reminded herself of the prayers and powerful prophetic declarations. The next day was Thursday. 

She was at work, bracing herself for the day the customer had threatened to visit the bank and bring drama. Every female customer with a frown on her face made Jumoke’s heart skip. But everything went well. The customer never came and there were no further threat texts. The nicest and most polite customers came her way, no drama whatsoever, and no heavy traffic on her way back home. She slept that night like a baby, with a smile on her face that hadn’t appeared in days. Maybe, just maybe, the dark days were starting to end. 

Then came Friday, salary day at last. She had already made plans for the money yet to come. Just as she was about to settle down, her boss walked in. 

“Your error is proving more costly than expected. We will have to deduct from your salary in bits until you can repay the bank.” 

Jumoke was flabbergasted. 

What? 

She wanted to protest so badly, but as who? A contract staff? 

She swallowed hard. 

Dead broke, rent due, and now this? 

The curse wasn’t leaving her just yet, she thought. 

Her eyes watered as she sat and faced her screen. 

As she was attending to her customers, she left her desk to count stacks of cash. There, she saw her line manager talking to a man and a lady. The lady was very vocal and visibly irritated. 

“Can I at least see her?” she asked. 

From the look of things, it seemed like her boss was shielding her from the woman. That was the lady. She came the day after she said she would. “Great!” 

“Is that the Jumoke?” the lady asked out loud, pointing. 

Jumoke’s eyes were red and swollen. She had taken intermittent breaks to go to the convenience and shed tears whenever her situation overwhelmed her. 

As Jumoke’s boss continued to play the shielding game, the lady left the boss with the man beside her and walked up to Jumoke as she was counting the notes. 

“Are you Jumoke?” 

Jumoke looked up, her face sullen. She nodded. 

By this time, Jumoke’s boss had caught up. 

“Ma’am, we have dealt with this decisively internally. There will be no need for this interrogation.” 

She completely ignored Jumoke’s boss. She started speaking in a very hushed tone. 

“So tell me, what happened?” 

Jumoke would have looked at her boss for approval to speak, but something in her shifted. Almost like she didn’t care anymore. An unusual boldness. So she narrated her side of the story. By this time, the man, who turned out to be her husband, was there to listen to the story. Once she was done narrating her ordeal, they thanked her and left. Her boss, too, went indoors. 

As the couple reached the entrance, the man stopped and came back. 

“What did you study?” 

She answered. 

He followed up with another question about her experience. 

Then he joined his wife and left. 

After closing accounts, Jumoke lazily strolled out of the bank. They had deducted 50% of her salary. She had no more tears to shed. She slipped her phone back into her jeans and left for the bus stop. She sat at the extreme end by the window, just staring at nothing in particular, deep in thought. She flirted with the idea of calling Pastor Jimi, but held back. Perhaps when she got home. Ears plugged, hands beneath her nose, covering her mouth, she just sat there. When her stop was close, she started getting ready. She noticed a text from the lady. 

“What could she want?” she thought out loud. 

“I will call her when I get home. What’s the worst that could happen if it hasn’t happened already?” 

Once she was home and dry, she picked up her phone. 

“Hello, ma. I got your text message ma. So I’m calling back” 

Jumoke did not know what to anticipate. 

To her surprise, the lady was pleasant and mentioned that her husband would like to speak with her. 

“My company is opening another branch in Lagos. We are into manufacturing, packaging for FMCGs. This time around, the Ilupeju area. You say you studied accounting and also have experience in that area? Why not come in for an interview this weekend? I would be inspecting the building with my team tomorrow as we plan to launch next week.” 

On the phone on her way back home, Jumoke started narrating her story to Pastor Jimi. 

“I almost called them to say I couldn’t make it. But then again, I thought to myself, I live in Shomolu, quite close to me. What would I lose other than transport fare?” 

She was so excited that she was mumbling her words together. 

“Calm down and finish your story, Jumoke,” the clergyman interjected. 

“I got there. He introduced me to his partners; the company head of HR was also present. They interviewed me and gave me the offer there and then. The pay is four times my current salary. The lady said her husband just couldn’t rest after seeing my face and kept getting the nudge to reach out. They said the man they hired for the role had been relocated and left them in a limbo. 

“Pastor Jimi, I went from being a church rat stuck in a contract job for two years, eyeing eviction, to someone working in a fast-growing FMCG with local and international clientele. 

“Isn’t God just awesome?”