Paa Kwasi had driven to Kumasi the night before and was visibly tired so when his phone rang, he was hesitant in looking at the screen but when he reluctantly did, he answered with the speed of light.
It is not normal for Janet to call at such odd hours.
Two days before Paa Kwasi travelled to Kumasi with the new taxi which had just been offered to him on a work-and-pay basis, he invited Janet over for a treat. The two lovebirds visited the plush Lodge Tavern Bar and Grill on the hills of Aburi.
Aburi was where Janet had hashed her plan unbeknown to Paa Kwasi whose only intention was to celebrate his imminent economic liberation with her.
Janet and Paa were mates at the University of Cape Coast where their love affair started and continued until after their university education.
But, as the love between them grew, their economic situation worsened as a result of a multiplicity of factors – the support they both received from family ceased even as joblessness, the giant monster that greeted most Ghanaian graduates, combined with the former to make their situation a very dire one.
Paa Kwasi is an ardent listener of Adom FM so when he heard the station’s morning show, Dwaso Nsem, advertise the work-and-pay vehicle arrangement that fateful morning, it took him less than a second to make a decision – he will go into cab-driving.
Janet belongs to a circle of girls that look down on guys who engage in what they consider to be not-too-glamourous jobs and Paa was aware of this situation hence his decision not to inform her about his decision.
So even at Aburi, the brand-new work-and-pay Toyota Yaris vehicle that he had just taken delivery of had still not been converted into a taxi.
Janet was elated on knowing that Paa Kwasi was on the path of economic liberation but her elation gave way to a plan that will later have implications for the 6-year-old relationship she has had with Paa.
It was unusual for Jane to demand sex from her man but on the night of that meeting at Aburi, Jane was the initiator-general of everything carnal, much to the surprise of Paa.
When Paa Kwasi received that call from Janet upon his return from the Kumasi trip, it was exactly two weeks after their Aburi affair.
Janet sounded desperate when she spoke to him. She was pregnant for Paa Kwasi but wouldn’t give Paa a choice in determining the fate of the baby. She opted for an abortion.
Confusion spun Paa’s head as his tiredness immediately departed him, causing his soul to leave his body momentarily.
“How am I supposed to raise money from my one-week sale to finance an abortion that Janet says will cost us GHC 3,200,” he questioned himself.
Janet had found out that Paa had used the car for a taxi and told her friends about it. They then advised her to leave him immediately but she must do so with some benefit accruing to her from Paa’s daily taxi sales.
It was that conversation that concluded that Janet fakes pregnancy for Paa as the only way of getting some money off him.
Paa spent the whole of that night thinking but the harder he thought, the more apparent it became that he wasn’t going to be able to convince Janet to back down on her decision to abort.
But, when he finally made the decision to agree to Janet’s plan for the abortion to happen, he did so on one condition – he was going to take her to a doctor of his choice and they needed to also do a pregnancy test a precondition to the abortion.
Janet panicked on hearing the condition for obvious reasons. As has been the case with her and her friends, she asked for their advice.
Rose, one of Janet’s friends whose stock-in-trade was using many means to extort money from men, then threw in one of her many plans.
She advised Janet to involve an already-pregnant woman in the deal.
“It will take about just GHC 200 to get a urine sample from Adwoa, the pregnant woman who lives near my house. All you need to do is keep that sample with you when you and Paa are visiting his doctor. Return with that sample in any test tube the doctor gives you and your test will be positive,” Rose advised, much to the admiration of the few uninitiated minds in the team.
Paa Kwasi picked up a very moody Janet on the morning of the operation and as part of her plan to make things look real, Janet faked many things including a sudden abdominal pain. Fear, also faked, appeared to be written all over her face as they meandered their way through the Newtown traffic jam in Accra.
“You need to eat something and drink some water; that way, it will be easy for you to get a urine sample for the test,” Paa Kwasi suggested to her, and she agreed immediately.
Paa pulled up at a popular restaurant at Osu and gave Janet a GHC 100 note for the purchase of a meal of her choice as well as a bottle of water.
While Janet was in the restaurant waiting for her order, Kwame spotted a small bottle through the opening of her handbag which she had left on the passenger’s seat of Paa’s car. He became immediately alarmed and reached out for the bottle to check its content.
Paa’s suspicion was confirmed when he found that the bottle contained urine. He picked and kept the pocket-size bottle in the pocket of the pair of jeans trousers he wore without telling Janet anything.
As expected, Janet was given a test tube to fill with a sample of her urine, a tube she gladly took before reaching for her bag to head for the washroom.
It was an unusually long time spent in the washroom but Paa and the doctor used the intervening period to catch up on their university days’ activities amid a lot of occasional laughter.
When Janet finally returned with her sample, she did so with a sweat-filled face.
The result of the test was negative and so was Paa Kwasi’s response to her subsequent attempts to have him in bed.
He did not mention anything concerning what he saw and till date, Janet has been unable to tell the whereabouts of her pre-pregnancy-urine-filled bottle.
Paa Kwasi currently manages a garage of his own, a garage he put up from the proceeds of his humble work-and-pay business.
ALL PERSONS FICTITIOUS DISCLAIMER
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.