So last week I decided to go to Frankie’s with this young chick who fits my magic rule – half my age plus five years.

I wanted to park right in front of Frankie’s because it allowed me to do a quick recon of the place to inform myself about whether to go in or go elsewhere.

I waited patiently for a cretin in a Toyota Corolla to do a six point turn after which I coolly took his slot.

The young girl got out of my car and slammed her door like my car was a Merc…I silently cursed her and her mother.

We climbed the flight of stairs to the restaurant and on the way I got body blocked by an amorphous middle aged woman who for lack of a better description, reminded me of an amoeba.

The ‘thing’ had three kids in tow heading back towards the car park.

To my surprise ‘it’ actually turned round seconds later and called me by my name…it knew me!

I blankly stared at her. I was certain I did not know her…I didn’t know this woman!

She mentioned her name –  Tracy Adjavon. Still didn’t ring a bell.

“I was Tracy Simpson back then” she added,  glancing at the lithe young girl waiting for me with a look of boredom, up the stairs.

“We were in Primary school together…?”

My jaws dropped as I looked for anything on this imposter that had a semblance to a Tracy Simpson I knew a life time ago.

Now about two and half decades ago, I knew this scrawny and beautiful girl called Tracy Simpson. She was a head taller than all the guys and had a sexy, husky voice. She happened to be in my class and I had a mad ass crush on her.

I was not one to keep my feelings and doodle all day on my paper and day dream.

I was quick to let Tracy know how I felt about her in the only way a nine year old boy can tell a girl half a foot taller than him, that he was in love with her….I did her homework and gave her my lunch. She appreciated that gesture and took to me immediately. I remember her quickly gobbling up my paltry lunch offerings. In hindsight I should have realized that with the way  her eyes lit up when she chomped on my food and downed my drinks, that her trim figure would not last forever

Our love session usually ended with her burping up my lunch, playfully pulling my cheeks and saying “Oh, and thanks for helping me out with my homework today”.

Unfortunately for me, Tracy was in love with the class bully, Eric Tetteh.

Eric also happened to be the dumbest kid in class. He was a big galoot who didn’t speak much except with his fists. It was a sick love triangle – I gave her my lunch, she in turn gave half of it to the class bully who subsequently beat me up. Not only that. Since I was quite good at algebra, I ended up doing his homework too, to avoid being used as a punching bag during break time.

I quickly realized I was pretty much the class bully’s bitch.

One day, deciding to add a little spice to my sick love life, I took a bold step and wrote a totally cringe worthy love poem to Tracy, which I slipped into her backpack as she headed home one Friday.

I was too scared to write my name – What if she didn’t like the poem? What if she didn’t like me any more after reading it?

On Monday morning I glanced over at Tracy, who was totally ignoring me. Maybe I should have signed off with my name?

During break time she walked straight to me, took half my lunch and as she munched on my bread and garlic sausage said:  “I really  loved your poem. That was so sweet” and promptly pulled my cheeks hard.

She knew! I was so happy I didn’t protest as she took the other half of my lunch and headed in the direction of Eric Tetteh.

I sat down smiling like a fat kid in a candy store for a good five minutes.

The next day at lunch I overheard Tracy reading my poem to Eric Tetteh. The clueless dumdum had his usual blank expression. This however, was my first lesson in plagiarism and I decided then and there that the love triangle had to end.

Tracy, as usual  did not even attempt to do the next algebra homework we were given.

She came to me with Eric in tow. Without even acknowledging me, the lunkhead growled in my general direction:  “Do my homework or ‘cheecha’ will beat me and I will beat you” He was getting smarter…actually managing to string whole sentences together.

“Please, please do this hard maths for me” Tracy purred.

I nodded like the faithful minion I was and got to work for my wicked bosses. I finished the assignment in record time.

“Wow, you are soooo smart, you didn’t even look on your book” Tracy remarked with admiration.

If she were smarter she would have noticed that was not the usual way I did her homework.

I had written very wrong answers to the maths problems for both of them.

The next time we had maths, Mr. Quist our teacher (God bless his soul) came to the class and gave out our marked maths assignment.

He announced what we all knew, that copying of other people’s homework was forbidden. Mr. Quist was old school and carried a cane which he never hesitated to use.

He called out Tracy and Eric to the front of the class where they were given five exquisite lashes of the cane.

That day at break, Tracy didn’t ask me for my lunch and Eric did not pick on me either.

In one beautiful stroke I had gotten rid of my cheating sweetheart and her bully boyfriend.

That was two decades ago and now I looked at the whale before me…I could vaguely recognize the old Tracy in her.

“You haven’t changed at all” she said

My response to that was silence and a grin. After the awkward pause, I ventured to ask:

“Whatever happened to Eric Tetteh?”

“Eric who?” Tracy asked.

“That big guy who was with us up to class 6” I said

“Oh, right.Him. You haven’t heard? He died in the States five, six years ago. He was mixed up with some gang there and was shot”

“Oh no “ I said, turning to check on the young lithe girl I came with. She was  looking totally bored and irritated with my inadvertent reunion with Tracy.

I quickly said goodbye to Tracy .

“Was that like an aunt of yours?”  the girl  asked as we went into Frankie’s

“uh huh” I said. My mind somewhere else

Tracy: humongous and fugly. Eric: shot and dead. Karma was a cold, cold biatch. I love happily ever after stories.