The Fog (4.2)

You can catch up on The Fog (4.1) here.

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“NIMI”

“These suit types think they know everything” whispered Babs a little too loudly to someone whose voice Nimi couldn’t place.

“When they’re done with their nonsense restructuring, na we go still fix am” he continued, sniggering with the others as the new consultant stepped forward to the centre of the meeting room after a short introduction by Marie.

Nimi kept her eyes forward. Usually in major meetings like this, Nimi would proactively jot down notes to make sure she didn’t miss anything and to keep everything up to date but she had very little enthusiasm this morning. Between having to micromanage Tolani and still carrying the mental weight of her cancelled commission, she wasn’t in a generous or chatty mood. She stared at her handbag which she brought with her absentmindedly. A thought came to her and she brought out her drawing materials: a pencil and her sketchpad.

She began to draw, working from memory, letting the outline take shape while the consultant’s voice settled into the background of her mind like a radio left on in another room. She thought about her early mornings, the quiet before the rest of the world started making demands of her, when she felt most like herself or at least the version of herself she longed to inhabit permanently. Maybe now that she had started to put her foot down, her mornings could be hers again.

The advice had come from an unexpected place. A few days earlier, she had stumbled into the cafeteria a few minutes before the end of lunch break, grabbed the last meat pie and energy drink off the counter and was immediately intercepted by Marie, who needed an IT issue sorted that was, by any reasonable measure, now Tolani’s problem. Nimi had stood in the middle of the cafeteria, food in hand, paralysed, trying to calculate whether she had enough time to eat before dealing with it or whether she should abandon the meat pie entirely.

A tap on her shoulder interrupted the calculation.

“Miss Nimi, how are you doing?”

It was the man from accounting, the one who had worked there longer than anyone could reliably remember and whose surname Nimi had given up trying to pronounce. He watched the entire interaction with unhurried attention, sitting at a quiet corner in the cafeteria.

“Oh! I’m doing fine sir” she smiled softly, “How’s accounting?”

He cleared his throat and responded, “Fine, fine. Aren’t you doing something else in that office? Defunke submitted a promotion something for you, abi was it not you?” The old man insisted on calling Marie by her middle name, much to her displeasure but she never corrected him as he was known around the office for his short temper.

“Yes sir, I am now special projects coordi… I mean assistant”, Nimi replied.

“Toh, I was confused, anyway why don’t you do those transfer err….. folders to this new girl, I mean Defunke’s sister”.

“She’s Marie’s cousin actually,” Nimi offered.

“I have the onboarding document but Tolani isn’t really familiar with our tech setup”.

“Ah! After how many weeks? Woh listen to me, send her an email with the document link and put the instructions in the message. If you’re not around nko? Abi are you not doing that government contract work with the schools? You must not let your Oga relegate you permanent in this assistant job. Face your new work sotigbo?”

Nimi smiled and thanked him, unsure of what else to say. That afternoon, she drank the energy drink on an empty stomach and let the caffeine carry her through writing the email to Tolani. After that day, Tolani’s “tech confusion” disappeared.

As Nimi began to fill in the background of her sketch, a rousing applause erupted in the room and she looked around to see her colleagues standing up from their seats and cheering. Babs, who had been muttering behind her minutes ago, had moved forward with the small crowd gathering around the consultant. Nimi decided it was a good time to wrap up before anyone took notice, particularly Marie, who was already making her way out of the room with Tolani close behind, head bent as Marie whispered something to her.

Nimi packed up her things and joined the slow drift of colleagues making their way back to their desks. She looked around at her colleagues, their faces filled with enthusiasm, confident gaits as the atmosphere was a more relaxed one. The last time Nimi saw everyone this invigorated was before the board change. Was this new guy that good, she pondered.

Her phone vibrated, a message from Tolani. She glanced at it and kept walking. No putting out fires today, she was committed to what her older colleague had advised.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a new but somewhat familiar voice.

“Or do I call you miss Clark?”

She looked up to see him facing her, the man of the hour himself.

“Mr Lawson, good morning!” She said, recovering her tone.

“I just wanted to know whether you preferred Nimisola or Miss Clark.”

“Nimi is fine.” She steadied her voice. “How are you settling in? Is there anything you need?”

“Not for now, I have back-to-back meetings most of the morning.” He paused. “By the way, you seemed quite absorbed in your notepad during the presentation. I hope I wasn’t too much of a bore.”

“Oh, I apologise,” she said quickly.

“It’s fine, these meetings can drag on, I just teasing. I take it you’re a multitasker?” He asked.

“Not really, I was just taking notes,” she said.

Nimi figured it was better to lie than to let the new guy in charge of restructuring, decide that she was no longer part of the new plan.

“You mentioned wanting a meeting with Marie, should I check with her assistant about that? I’ll get her to set it all up” she offered.

“That’s fine, I can arrange it myself.” He shifted slightly. “I’m sure the Art for Schools project is a lot on your plate as it is. Speaking of which, let’s schedule a conference call with everyone involved before the end of the week. I’d like to know where things stand — timelines, progress, all of it.”

“Sounds good,” Nimi replied, nodding in agreement. “I’ll keep you posted.” She turned and walked back towards her desk.

It was only when she sat down that she realised something: it was the first time in a long time that someone at Ona had spoken to her about her work as though it actually mattered.

She wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that.

Maybe change, at least for her, was a good thing.

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