The Restaurant She Recommended
My brother was bleeding, and the waiter asked if we wanted dessert.
pls do not alter any word/words just change the names of the persons[ nigerian names] to usa persons names [also, change the environment and locations to usa locations and environment[The Restaurant She Recommended
My brother was bleeding, and the waiter asked if we wanted dessert.
My brother’s phone was warm from his palm when he showed me the messages again, like repeating them would make them truer.
“See?” he said, zooming in on a heart emoji like it was evidence. “She’s real.”
The girl’s profile picture was a soft-filtered face, chin tilted, lashes like commas. Her name was Efe. She typed in long paragraphs. She used pet names early. She said she didn’t like video calls because she was shy, because her ex had traumatized her, because Lagos could be wicked, because trust was a slow thing.
My brother loved slow things. He loved proving himself.
Four months of chat. Two months of gifts. A small flood of money that he kept calling “support,” like he was sponsoring a scholarship.
When he finally asked to see her, she refused to come to us.
It’s our first time. I’m scred.*
Come to me instead. Please.
He asked me to go with him like it was the most normal request in the world.
“Just come,” he said. “You’re my sister. I don’t want to go alone.”
I did what sisters do. I warned him. I sighed. I went.
The address she sent was in Agege, mainland. The kind of location that is always “behind” something: behind the market, behind the bridge, behind the optimism of anyone who thinks a Google pin is a promise.
In the car, my brother kept checking his phone.
“She said she’ll meet us outside,” he said.
“Outside where?” I asked.
“Outside.”
That was the first time I noticed his new habit—answering questions with the same word, like the word itself should be enough. He’d developed it in the months he’d been talking to her. Outside. Soon. Don’t worry.
When we got there, the place looked like it had been built by accident. A crowd pressed itself into the street like the street was giving out free hope. People sold plastic phone covers and oranges and singlets and prayer. The air smelled like hot oil and impatience.
I tightened my grip on my bag.
My brother smiled, like a man arriving at a date.
Efe stepped out from between two kiosks as if she had been standing inside the wall the whole time.
She was… real, in the way a face can be real but still not match the life you’ve built around it. She looked younger than her pictures, or maybe the pictures looked older than her. Her dress was simple. Her hair was neat. Her smile came quickly, like she had practiced it.
“Hi,” she said, like we were colleagues arriving at an office.
My brother’s shoulders dropped with relief. He reached for her hands and she let him, but only lightly, as if she was holding a towel she didn’t want to wet.
“This is my sister,” he said.
“Oh.” She turned to me with the same smile. “You came too.”
It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a complaint. It was said the way you say, The rain followed you.
“I came,” I replied.
Efe nodded. “Okay.”
My brother cleared his throat, excited. “Let’s go somewhere nice. There’s a place—”
She cut in smoothly. “I know a better restaurant.”
Better. That word landed like a coin on a table. Final.
I opened my mouth to object, but my brother was already nodding, already grateful.
“Okay, babe,” he said. “Lead the way.”
Efe started walking.
We followed.
We passed the main road and slipped into a narrower street, then another. The crowd thinned but did not disappear. It changed shape—less shoppers, more watchers. People sat on plastic chairs beside shops that sold nothing particular. A man repaired a radio with the patience of someone defusing a bomb. A woman stirred something steaming and didn’t look up.
I whispered to my brother, “Where are we going?”
He whispered back, “It’s close. She knows.”
Efe walked ahead like she could not hear us.
The “restaurant” appeared suddenly, tucked between a pharmacy and a barbershop with a mirror cracked down the middle. The signboard read:
BLESSING & SONS
FOOD • DRINKS • EVENT
The door was open. Inside, the lights were too bright for the size of the place.
Efe stopped at the entrance and turned to us with a hostess smile. “Welcome.”
My brother stepped in first, like a man entering his future.
I stepped in after him, because I didn’t want to leave him alone with his optimism.
A waiter appeared immediately, wiping his hands on a cloth that looked like it had done too much labor and seen too much life.
“Three?” he asked.
“Yes,” my brother said.
The waiter guided us to a table near the center. The plastic chairs made a protesting sound when we sat. The menu was laminated and sticky around the edges, like it had survived rain.
Efe sat opposite my brother, not beside him.
She placed her phone face-down on the table.
My brother grinned. “So. Finally.”
Efe smiled politely.
“Waiter,” my brother called. “Bring us—”
“Hold on,” Efe said, raising a finger lightly, the way you pause a meeting. She turned her head toward the kitchen entrance. “They’re coming.”
My skin went cold in a neat, organized way, like my body knew the sequence before my mind did.
“Who’s coming?” I asked.
Efe looked at me as if I had asked where water comes from.
“Friends,” she said. “To greet you.”
Five boys walked in.
Not together exactly, but with the same timing—the same rhythm you see in men who don’t need to speak to coordinate. They were dressed casually. Jeans. T-shirts. One wore a cap. Their faces were soft with familiarity, like they had eaten here many times.
They didn’t look like movie villains. They looked like the kind of boys that laugh too loudly outside betting shops. The kind that call you “aunty” with disrespect hidden in the sweetness.
They came to our table and stood around it like they were the decor.
“Ah,” one of them said, smiling at Efe. “So na them?”
Efe nodded, still smiling.
My brother’s grin faltered, but he tried to keep it alive, like a dying candle.
“Hello,” he said, half-laughing. “What’s going on?”
One boy pulled a chair and sat without asking. Another leaned on the table. A third looked at my face with casual hunger, as if he was browsing.
I stood up. “We should go.”
The waiter appeared beside us again, holding three cups of water.
He set them down carefully.
“You’ll be okay,” he said, like he was reassuring us about the spice level.
I stared at him. “Do you see what’s happening?”
He blinked. “Yes, ma.”
“And you’re… bringing water?”
He smiled faintly. “Water is good.”
One of the boys laughed, a friendly sound. “Aunty, calm down. Everybody dey here.”
Everybody.
That was the second time the word became a weapon.
My brother stood too, forcing a smile. “I don’t understand. Efe, what is this?”
Efe looked at him with a face that stayed polite even as it emptied.
“We talked,” she said. “You said you wanted to see me. Now you have seen me.”
“That’s not—” My brother’s voice cracked. He tried again, more gently. “Why are they here?”
Efe shrugged. “They are here.”
One of the boys reached for my brother’s phone on the table like he was borrowing it. My brother snapped his hand back.
“Don’t touch—”
The boy’s smile didn’t move. “Oga, relax.”
I moved closer to my brother.
One boy stepped in front of me, still smiling.
“You’re standing too close,” he said, like I had broken a restaurant rule.
I pushed past him instinctively.
His hand shot out and grabbed my wrist—not violently, not yet. Casual. Possessive. Like we were old friends and he was guiding me to a seat.
My brother reacted fast. He shoved the boy’s shoulder.
“Leave her!”
Chairs scraped. Plastic complained. The restaurant’s bright lights hummed like nothing was happening.
A different boy reached across and slapped my brother—not hard, but sharp, like a teacher correcting a student. My brother’s head turned, then returned.
He didn’t even look shocked. He looked confused, like reality had made a typo.
“Why?” he asked. “Why are you doing this?”
The boy who slapped him sighed. “Why you dey talk plenty?”
A woman at another table spooned rice into her mouth and chewed slowly. A man near the wall watched with mild interest, like he was waiting for a football match to start.
Efe sat perfectly still, her hands folded.
My stomach flipped.
I tried to pull my wrist free. The boy holding me tightened his grip slightly, still smiling.
“Aunty,” he said, “no scene.”
No scene.
As if the scene hadn’t already been arranged.
I raised my free hand and slapped him.
The sound cracked the air.
For half a second, everything paused—the way sound pauses after a slap, giving the universe a chance to decide what it believes.
The boy’s smile disappeared.
He lifted his hand.
My brother swung first, punching him in the face. The punch had the desperation of someone punching fate.
The boys moved like a curtain falling. Hands grabbed my brother. He staggered. Someone hit him. Someone kicked him. Not in a wild frenzy, but with controlled irritation, like employees correcting a customer who refused to follow policy.
I screamed.
The waiter walked past us carrying a tray of food, stepping around my brother’s foot like it was a bag in the aisle.
“Sorry,” he murmured to the tray.
I ran.
I burst out of the restaurant into the street, gasping, looking for anyone who had eyes and a heart. People looked at me, but their faces did not change.
I grabbed a woman’s arm. “Please! They’re beating my brother!”
She frowned gently, like I had disturbed her day. “Why you follow man come here?”
A man selling recharge cards shook his head slowly, sympathetically. “This mainland, ehn.”
That was it. That was the help: a proverb.
I ran further until I saw two men standing beside a small bus, talking. They looked like strangers who still believed in their own strength.
I rushed to them. “Please! Help me! They’re attacking my brother in that restaurant!”
One of them glanced at the signboard as if checking business hours.
“What did he do?” he asked.
“He did nothing! We came to see a girl—”
The other man sighed, as if already tired. “Facebook girl?”
“Yes!”
The first man nodded slowly, as if the word “Facebook” explained the physics of violence.
He turned to his friend. “Let’s go and settle it.”
Settle it.
Not stop it. Not call police. Not save someone.
Settle it—like an unpaid bill.
We hurried back.
When we entered the restaurant, the boys were no longer surrounding my brother. They had moved back as if someone had told them time was up. My brother lay on the floor, curled on his side, breathing hard. His face was swelling. His shirt was dirty. His phone was gone.
Efe had shifted her chair slightly. She was now closer to the table, like someone who had just finished eating.
The waiter stood nearby holding a rag.
One of the boys was laughing softly, leaning against the wall as if nothing had happened. The others were adjusting their clothes.
The two men I brought stepped in with the confidence of people who thought confidence could bargain.
“Ah-ah,” one said loudly, forcing a smile. “What is this? Why una dey do like this?”
The boy who had lost his smile earlier pointed at my brother. “He insulted us.”
My brother tried to lift his head.
“He—” he started, then coughed.
One of the men I brought nodded, as if that sounded reasonable. “Okay. Okay. Everybody calm down.”
Calm down.
As if calm was the problem.
The man turned to Efe. “Sister, why you bring them come here?”
Efe blinked. “He said he wanted to see me.”
The man nodded again, satisfied by her logic.
He turned to the boys. “How we go do am now?”
The boy shrugged. “We don collect our own.”
My throat tightened. “Your own what?”
The boy looked at me like I was slow. “Our own.”
One of the men forced a laugh. “Okay. Okay. No more fight. Make everybody go.”
And just like that, it ended—not with justice, not with apology, not with shock. It ended with agreement. The same way normalcy always does.
The boys filed out calmly. One of them held the door open for the waiter. The waiter nodded thanks.
Efe stood up and straightened her dress. She looked at my brother one last time, then at me.
“I hope he’s fine,” she said, as if he had tripped.
Then she walked out, not quickly, not sneaking—just leaving like a customer done with lunch.
I knelt beside my brother. His eyes were wet but not from crying. From pain. From dust. From disbelief.
“We’re leaving,” I told him, trying to keep my voice steady, like I was the one acting normally now. “You’ll be okay.”
He grabbed my wrist weakly. “Why did she…”
I didn’t know how to answer without breaking something inside him.
Outside, the street continued. People sold oranges. People laughed. A bus honked like it was angry about traffic, not violence. The sun hung over mainland like an uninterested witness.
We half-carried my brother toward the road, looking for a taxi.
A woman passing by glanced at him, then at me.
“You people should be careful,” she said kindly.
As if we had spilled water.
We got him to a clinic. We paid. We waited. The nurse asked routine questions with routine boredom.
“What happened?” she asked, writing without looking up.
“He was attacked,” I said.
The nurse nodded. “Okay.”
No gasp. No widening eyes. No pause.
My brother stared at the wall as if he was waiting for it to explain itself.
After they cleaned him up and wrapped his bruises, he sat on the bed, holding his swollen face gently, like he was holding a fragile thing that could crack further.
“I thought she loved me,” he whispered.
I sat beside him. I wanted to say a thousand things. I wanted to name it: betrayal, scam, cruelty, evil.
But the words felt too loud in the world we had just been in. A world where people walked around wrongness like it was furniture.
So I did what everyone else had done all day. I adapted to the surface.
I patted his shoulder, softly.
“You’ll be fine,” I said, because it was the sentence that kept the ceiling from collapsing.
He nodded slowly, staring forward.
Outside the clinic, Lagos kept moving. Normal. Normal. Normal.
And somewhere in Agege, the restaurant lights stayed bright, the chairs stayed plastic, the menus stayed sticky.
The waiter probably wiped the table we sat at.
Efe probably opened her phone again.
Someone probably sent her money.
And the city—faithful to its own agreements—continued behaving like nothing had happened.
About the Creator
Edward Smith
Health,Relationship & make money coach.Subscibe to my Health Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkwTqTnKB1Zd2_M55Rxt_bw?sub_confirmation=1 and my Relationship https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCogePtFEB9_2zbhxktRg8JQ?sub_confirmation=1
Keep reading
More stories from Edward Smith and writers in Fiction and other communities.
Belle of the Bayou
Bad move, cher. Not just the slip of her kitten heel on the rainy February cobblestones in the Fourth Ward. She got caught snooping. Detective Deleon clucked and strutted like a rooster in his rush to clear her from the scene, waving cigar smoke to and fro as he gesticulated amid the thick air of the speak easy. An experienced crime reporter, Marie knew better than to let the coppers catch her on the wrong side of the line, but curiosity had gotten the better of her.
By Maia Gadwall the metAlchemist5 days ago in Fiction
Comments
There are no comments for this story
Be the first to respond and start the conversation.