Flora

Flora liked many things in life. The two that truly defined her were biscuits and working out. Something about those particulars always managed to fill her with endorphins worthy the status of demigod. It had become concrete fact in her life that one biscuit a day made for a fantastic one indeed. It was such a thoroughly ingrained trait that whenever she showed up to a new place filled with new and exciting people, she always carried a packet big enough to share around.

Of course, the one time that someone had not appreciated her gesture and shunned her to the annals of the socially unfit, it had been prissy and snobby Pendo Ototi.

She liked not thinking about her. Where biscuits and working out brought her to enviable heights of joy, Pendo brought her to the depths filled caves of despair and irreparable sadness. The unfortunate thing though was that Flora liked thinking. She liked thinking about things that worked and things that seldom ever did and key among them was how Pendo never seemed to work the way normal people did.

Pendo had been a sour little girl who had turned to be an angry teenager then morphed into an adult who was angrily sour all the time. Flora had a longstanding theory that Pendo had been brought to her life to teach her the virtue of patience and loyalty. To show the one lone person the light – whatever that meant. So, she chose not to completely give up on Pendo and instead observed her and tried to finagle into her life.

Pendo though, angry sour Pendo, took pleasure in doing the opposite of what was expected of her and excusing the forwardness of Flora, she thought she was a bit of a brat who needed better training. In what, she had no clue but she wanted to fix it. She wanted to get close enough and make it better.

Then they got to uni and she figured it out. How to tame the brattiness. The only problem was, the same time she figured it out, she stumbled upon such an absurdity she wanted to erase the moment and Pendo all together from her life.

Ten years had gone by without her ever seeing the thing that had become a constant in her life. Occasionally, she would remember Pendo and only occasionally, she would smile that big smile of melancholy. Most times though, she would shut down the memory of her as the memory of her felt like the worst betrayal and it tested her forgiving nature.

This then turned into a blue kind of surprise when she ended up, in the only bar in the smallest town, stumbling into Pendo who looked much the same as she did ten years before. Possibly angrier but still, much the same. Furrowed brows, shortness of limbs and a mouth that put potties to shame.

It should have been a silly little reunion as they were properly grown and seemed to have an affinity for beer, but it retained much the same air as their first meet in class four; charged with an emotion she hated she was all too familiar with.  

This was the only thing Flora could have said she hated. The hatred she had for Pendo. It was all consuming and it tested her bounds. It did things like make her say nasty things as she worked out the day’s sweat. It governed her so much she chose to drop out of dentistry school rather than face the fact of things. Half sent her to become a sister for the catholic church. Pendo was the creature who had decided to remain her nemesis instead of graduating to friend and when they had spoken for the first time in ten years, Flora had been shocked at just how easily she could say mean things right back at Pendo as though no time had passed at all.

She’d had the audacity to ask her if she was a sister of the freemason! That trifling woman had dared to ask such a thing and Flora could not even help how her patience had escaped her. How easily she had fallen into the role of enemy with Pendo. To think she’d asked all this as she’d struggled to get up to a freaking stool! That demon spawn thought she was better than everyone, yet she could not see eye to eye with anyone above the age of ten!

Flora had downed two more bottles after her encounter with Pendo and because an encounter with Pendo always wrought mayhem, she’d almost missed morning mass and her meeting with Sister Shibuna.

Yet she’d managed it and with the magic of biscuits, she had charmed the old Sister and convinced her that she would be the better choice for the bread tender. She’d had a successful bakery and she was planning to expand. She was also a Sister in the same order as Sister Shibuna and this brought them a kinship that being catholic couldn’t. Besides, she hadn’t been stealing anything. According to the old sister, the others she was interviewing had too new a business and they were not sure they could keep up with the demands for the expanding school.

Lo and behold, as she stepped out with Sister Shibuna, she came face to face with Pendo and discovered that the other business was hers. She was yet again, competing with her forced rival for something that she had obviously already won.

“Hello,” she’d said cordially as she stretched out her hand to greet the woman right next to Pendo. “Sister Michael,” she supplied, hopefully with a smile as she turned to Pendo who had snorted far too loudly. Flora couldn’t help the flexing of her jaw as she asked, “Do you have a problem with that?”

Challenged, Pendo had stretched out her hand and took Flora’s forcefully. The brat. “None at all, Sister Michael,” she’d said with the biggest fakest smile Flora had ever witnessed. “Why would I anyway?” Distantly, she heard someone ask if they knew each other and Flora knew she was supposed to speak but there was such loud ringing in her ears Pendo answered instead. “Not that much, no.”

How dare she! Flora had thought internally as she plastered an even bigger and faker smile of her own. She was not going to lie to Sister Shibuna because, unlike Pendo, she operated on a strict conduct of morals. “Actually, we do. School mates, wasn’t it?” If it were possible, she believed that fire would have been coming out of Pendo’s ears. “Small academic rivalry. I always seemed to be better than her and she has been holding that against me.” This time, Flora laughed a true laugh. “Childhood rivalry! We should talk about it sometime, Sister Shibuna. Probably right after the first order?”

Sister Shibuna hesitated on answering and this then prompted Flora to look at her. Her eyes were shifting between the two of them and Flora’s heart rate doubled almost immediately. She couldn’t… no she could not have been considering… “Oh,” said Sister Shibuna, “I still have to hear them out. I did like their proposal.” Flora was floored and Pendo possibly sniggered, but she wasn’t bothered to know. Sister Shibuna sighed, “I also liked your proposal, and I would like to consider it. For now, let’s meet for prayers this evening, yes?” She turned to face Pendo and her companion, a big smile on her face. “Come on in,” she instructed as she moved to the side.

Flora’s hand dropped, and she startled a bit. She had forgotten it had been in Pendo’s the whole time. A smirking and smug Pendo who was throwing her the middle finger as she stepped into the office and shut the door rather forcefully to her face.

Flora didn’t like the word but for Pendo, saying fuck her just didn’t suffice.