Le Voyage_3

Part 1     Part 2

As far as starting your life over again goes, I was having the time of my life. I’d spent almost three months in Edmonton, I had 90 credits to make up for in course work and I was bordering on broke. But all in all, life was beautiful and I’d never felt better!

The first week I was here, I’d stayed in one of the bedrooms in the main house until some furniture had been moved into my - what do I call it? Apartment? Whatever. Then I’d decorated it just the way I’d dreamed of it being, right down to my potted plants. Small wonder I was broke, at least until I sorted out the paperwork for my grant. My landlady was the sweetest person in the world and I love her to bits! And mind you, that’s not just cos she happens to be Grandma to the most gorgeous man alive. She kinda reminds me of Mrs Weasley from the Harry Porter movies, fussing and scolding and watching out for me to the point of distraction. Most nights, I would go downstairs and have dinner with her and sometimes, Liam would join us. Somehow, he seemed closer to her than he was to his parents or his sister. I’d never met any other member of the family but I picked up on it, more like intuition or something. Dunno what you call it, I’m doing a Ph.D. in Engineering not psychology! I loved watching them together, they sort of clicked in a way I’d never been able to click with the adults in my life, especially my parents. I doubt they both knew how much it meant to me that they let me into their “circle”. After all, I was just some student from a little town in Manchester they had probably never even heard of. Don’t even bother mentioning my native hometown, Ejisu. Accra is about the only thing they know about Ghana. And maybe Malaria!

So, here I was, without two cents to rub together literally, but I was happier than I'd been in a long, long time. And that also had nothing whatsoever to go with a certain gorgeous Grand-landlord. Honest!

There was a knock on my door and William poked his head in. Talk of the devil. More like think of!

            "Hi!" I said. "Your shift ended early today."

            "Actually, was on the night shift and I’m not on call today."

Well, my sexy grand-landlord was no Hollywood star, he was a doctor. He was an attending physician at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. The man sure was full of surprises.

            "Ok. Care for a coffee?" I asked.

            "Yeah sure."

            "How do you take your coffee? Hope it's black cos I haven't got any milk." I said going to fill the kettle.

            "Really?!" he said sounding like he thought I was kidding. I could imagine what he was thinking. He'd walked in on me unpacking my very large shopping and it must have looked like I was having a laugh.

            "Well don't look at me, blame the cheerios!" I exclaimed defensively.

            "Errr I’m not sure I follow..." he said taking a seat at one of the high stools in my little kitchenette/dining area.

            "Well," I said grabbing the boxes of cheerios and stuffing them out of sight in the shelf above the sink. “They were going at three for the price of two, I couldn't resist!"

            "O-Kay" he said looking like it was far from okay.

            "You still don't get it do you?" I asked and he laughed.

            "Nope!"

I continued to stack my shelves as I explained.

            "Well, by the time I got to the checkout, my shopping came to $25.60 and my budget was $25. So you see, something had to go!"

He continued to give me the look that said he was trying hard not to look at me like I was bonkers!

            "Well, the cheerios were an irresistible bargain!"

He laughed again. "Of course they were!"

            "Alright, just say it! I'm an idiot who doesn't even have any milk to eat the cheerios with, but what does it matter!"

            "No you're not. I think you would make a shrewd business woman in another life."

            “Yeah right!" I retorted and we both laughed.

            "Coffee is served!" I announced pouring the boiling water into two of my mis-matched set of mugs. I’d found them at a garage sale and even though they were old and chipped and one of them was missing its handle, I loved them cos they were mine.

"Hope you got a bargain on the sugar." he said and my hands flew to my mouth.

 Damn! I knew I had missed something! He simply laughed at me.

            "Come on, I’m sure Nan won't mind if we nick a bit of milk from her." he said getting up.

            "And sugar." I said feeling like the world’s biggest idiot.

            “Yeah and sugar.” He chimed in.

            “And maybe coffee too.” I muttered.

            “Yep. Coffee too.” He said. “You really would make a good business woman!"

            “Yeah right!” I scoffed.

            "What are you doing Saturday?" he asked as we finally drank our coffees. "I'm off and I'll be hanging out with Adele and the rest of the gang.”

Even though I’d found out that he wasn't married like I’d thought, my darling Mark Petersburg look-alike wasn't up for grabs. I’d heard quite a lot about this Adele and my intuition told me she was the one. Oh well, a girl can't have it all! It was good enough just to see the guy every other day, plus I had a picture of me and him on Facebook which was still garnering comments and likes. What more could a girl ask for eh?

            "We’re going to see The Buddy Holly Story. It will be fun, it’s a dinner theatre.” He said.

            “Huh?” dinner what?

            “Trust me, you’ll love it.” he said smiling.

            "Sure!" I said.

It really would be good to make friends and let my hair down for a change like Ama had been banging on about. I’d found out the hard way that being a research student was way different from being an under grad and that I wasn’t going to have friends within a week of being at Uni. For starters, there were very few research students in my department and we were all working on different things with different professors and our paths didn’t cross often or long enough to really make any bonds of any kind. I missed my friends from back home, especially my best friend, Ama. We’d both grown up together first in Kumasi and then my family had moved to Manchester a year and half after hers’ had. She was the only one I’d told about applying to Alberta and she had understood the need to breakaway even before I really did. For all her eccentricities, and she has a lot of them, she has her head screwed on tight and she was usually the grown-up of the two of us.

            "Great! I'll pick you up at four on Saturday then."

            "Rightio!" whatever this dinner-thingy was, it was sure to be better than spending the night on my own.