At sixteen, the world finally confirmed what Tule had always known; she was beautiful. It was almost frustrating, this waiting for the world to catch up with her innate assurance. Sometimes people treated her as though she was ordinary. It grated. She assumed it happened because she was not that high yellow Nigerians often prize above all else; that sickly bright complexion that made a woman look ripe and full even when her core femininity was bony.

Tule was dark. Not quite ebony but a deep coffee hue. Her skin almost luminous in its vivacity, had an alive quality all of its own. The liveliness was mirrored in her deep-set eyes. Tule’s was not a typical beauty; there was neither African nor European archetype to bounce and set her looks against. Her face was simply unicorn standard unique. Quite like the mythical beast, her crown was high and regal. Her eyes did not slant and were certainly not doe-like but deep set and small, seeming to hold at the base a deep pool of shifting laughter and an elusive glimpse of mischief even at her most serious. Tiny laugh lines at her eyes’ edges compounded this and drew men and women alike; she seemed like a woman with mysteries she might be willing to share one person at a time. Full, small lips and a framed, high nose delineated obvious cheekbones and a symmetrical forehead. Her face was arresting you had to admit. The features individually may not have worked but altogether on Tule, it was pure harmony.

Thank God… because her voice was cacophonous.

Tule was known around Town, the region in the city of Port Harcourt that was so popular with residents at the initial development of the city that no one thought to name it anything else. The young lady was popular for her looks, ambition and intellect in that order. As an Ijaw woman, it surprised no one that her figure gave the Coca Cola bottle a muse from which to draw inspiration, she commanded a heaving hive of men representing a cross section of society. She was friends with the poorer men who could do her bidding, close to the middle class men who could be relied on to provide serviceable needs, tight with the rich who seemed to do nothing but outdo one another in a fierce determination to spoil Tule. People who knew her said it was lucky she looked good because her mouth was poisonous.

The men never seemed to mind consuming poison.