Episode 1
Carla and Clara had been friends since primary school. They practically grew up together and with each other. Carla has always been calm but with very strong opinions whereas Clara was more outspoken yet she never had those strong opinions on issues. She would rather avoid it than get involved in something controversial. She wouldn’t even think of it. Typical example of ‘opposites attract’. You could call them sisters. They had never been separated from when they became friends till now that they had become young business women.
Towards the end of their undergraduate days, Carla had told Clara that she didn’t feel like going for a white collar job after school. At first, Clara went, “what? So what happens to our degree in Law? Carla shrugged and said, “we would probably use it to protect our business legally”. It took a bit of convincing, Carla began to paint a picture of what she had in mind, the future of freedom she envisaged for both of them, and on and on, then suddenly as if awaking from a trance, with eyes lit up, and a rush of excitement, Clara shouted, “let’s get to work!” She had caught on. And that was the beginning of C & C Pastries.
However, despite their closeness, there was a secret that Clara didn’t know about Carla. It had happened before they met, and Carla had been trying to suppress that memory in her head, it wasn’t exactly something she could bring herself to say out loud to anybody. It remained buried inside of her, showing up in unexpected situations. No one, not even Carla’s parents knew, it was that deep. If only she could stop running away from it, she would have been able to say it out and gotten the needed help. It was one reason she initially wanted to be a lawyer along the line. But the struggle to erase that memory from her mind, and pretend it was a dream, made her develop cold feet at some point in the University. That bad memory made her react strongly to certain things (those reactions however, had never been witnessed by her family nor Clara) and it made her feel like she was losing her mind. She just couldn’t find it in her to practice law any longer. Starting a business was not a bad idea, but it was some sort of escape for Carla. The reason she had brought up the idea of starting a business was to run away from the past she wanted gone, she wanted so desperately to pretend that everything was a dream. She was really good at hiding everything whenever she was with Clara or her family, so nobody suspected a thing.
One Friday evening, after the day’s job was done, as was the usual custom, Carla packed up her things and went to get Clara from the adjacent office so they could go home(they lived in the same house). As they stepped out, Carla began to hear muffled sounds, and immediately alerted her friend who turned towards the direction of the sound and before Carla could say anything she was already being dragged by Clara towards that place. Carla had become scared, but Clara was having none of it(quite unusual for the nonconfrontational Clara, but she just couldn’t rest easy otherwise), they had to check what was happening, it was close to their office so they had to find out. They got to the back of the building and hid behind a wall, and what they saw shocked them to the bones. It was the most gruesome thing they’d come across. They gasped, putting their hands to their mouths, so their voices were not heard.
A girl was gagged, tied up, as she was gang-raped by a group of youngsters, there seemed to be up to 6 of them. She was in visible pain, lying there helplessly as they took their turns on her, she couldn’t even struggle. Carla began to have laboured breathing, with severe chest pain and began to break out in sweat, her trauma had just been triggered. Clara was torn between calling for help for the girl, and helping Carla. So she tried calming Carla down, trying not to make any noise that would alert the attackers. She picked up her phone, called some guys she knew, urging them to come quickly, and rescue the girl. They came within minutes with some women who had tagged along, apprehended the guys and saved the girl, who was now very weak, unable to stand up by herself. Now, Clara could fully focus on her friend. After what seemed like hours, she was finally able to take Carla to the car, tried contacting an NGO, to take up the girl’s case, before driving out of the office premises to their house. So much for one evening. She wanted to take Carla to see a doctor but Carla kept insisting that she was fine, so she just let her be, helped her shower, and put her to bed, sleeping next to her because she was worried.However, the night was going to be a really long one because Carla suddenly shouted in her sleep, waking Clara up with a start. She turned to see her best friend soaked in sweat, tears streaming down her cheeks while her eyes remained closed. So she cuddled her, whispering words of comfort, praying for her till she was able to sleep off. Even then, Clara couldn’t sleep soundly, she became even more alert. She was only able to fall asleep by 5:00am in the morning. Truth is she was already exhausted, but she couldn’t get herself to sleep seeing her best friend in that state. It truly surprised her to see Carla like this, she had never witnessed this side of her for as long as she could remember.As the sun rose, Clara woke up with a start, remembering the incidents of the previous evening. Top on her mind was her friend, she needed to make sure she was fine, so she rushed downstairs, and met her in the kitchen making breakfast. She stood by the kitchen door, watching this friend of hers who was very strange the previous night, but was now back to normal like nothing had happened, wondering if everything was a dream, but the memories were too vivid to have been a dream. “How come I never noticed that you could be up early on Saturday morning to cook?” Carla was startled by those words, and turned around to see her friend by the door. She hadn’t noticed that someone was there. In response, she smiled and said, “good morning to you too. I’m sorry about last night, maybe you should go get some more sleep, you have dark circles. I’m really sorry, it’s my fault.” Meanwhile, Clara was calculating in her mind when to start the conversation (about last night’s behaviour) with Carla because she needed answers, however, her mind went out to the girl that was rescued last night, so she decided to check on the girl first, then come back to Carla.
She excused herself, and went to make a phone call. She was told that the girl was taken to “Life hospital,” and two of the women that tagged along on the rescue mission were currently looking after her. She requested for the contact of one of the women, offered to foot the bills, and cut the call. It was time to face Carla now. She took in a deep breath, then exhaled and turned to go back to the kitchen. At this time, the food was ready and Carla was already setting the table. She joined Carla to set the table quietly. The quietness was unusual for friends that were always chatty around each other. Each of them were lost in thought – Clara was thinking about how to start the conversation, Carla was hoping the conversation would not happen. She knew her friend had questions, and she was thinking up ways to avoid the conversation. For years she had hidden this secret, she didn’t think she was ready to talk about it now. Soon they began helping themselves to little servings of jollof rice & beef, with fried plantains. None of them ate much, and they ate in silence. Something they never did before.