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HEARTS AT STAKE

Fiction

Written By Temba Magorimbo

© Copyright tmagorimbo 2014

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

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About The Author

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Temba Magorimbo was born on 9 August 1966, Tuesday at Gwelo [then now Gweru] General Hospital. He attended primary education [first term] at Bumburwi Primary, Old Mkoba before transferring to Senga Primary, Senka [then Senga] from 1973 to 1979. He went to Nashville High, Nashville [two weeks] in 1980 before transferring to Ascot Secondary, Ascot until 1983.

He is married and has two daughters.

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Disclaimer

All the characters, events and the story in this novel Hearts At Stake are all figments of my runaway imagination. The story, events and characters have no direct/indirect relationship to anyone living or dead. The pastors quoted therein are as non-existent as the Lochness monster. Should there by chance be such a relationship, it's regretted as being purely coincidental. It is as rare as an archer based in Borrowdale shooting a pheasant in Hudson Bay. However, should I have misrepresented facts, I stand to accept correction.

“Stephanie,” Sandra said on the cell phone. “How are you doing?”

“I was searching all over for you,” Stephanie had replied.

“My cell was in my hand bag. I was busy elsewhere. I had my hands all dirty doing baking,” she replied. “I saw seven missed calls from you alone.”

“I sent a message that you should see me soon.”

“Here I am calling back.”

“I have been asked to provide catering to a group of couples from a church in Borrowdale,” Stephanie replied on the other end of the line.

“How many?” she asked. “And when most probably Saturday?”

“The numbers are about sixty couples coming together in Amby, Greendale. They say there is strict time management. They have loads of activities to keep the marital fires burning. It must be somewhere close to Coronation Road where we hosted that surprise birthday party.”

“Wow, that is a dish,” she replied. “What is the time, duration and anything else I need to know?”

“It’s a mid-morning themed get together which may get right into the night. There is breakfast, snack lunch, snacks, mineral drinks with no beer, champagne and other wines etc. You have to be at my place this afternoon so we make some of the dishes. I will have to impress on your baking prowess. Last time I served ginger cakes compliments came to me. I forgot to pass them to where they belonged.”

“Don’t worry Stephanie I was born and raised inside a Gloria® flour packet. “

“Really?” Stephanie laughed.

Her laughter was like an SKM motorcycle being started without adequate battery and fuel power.

“So ______?”

“You said you have nothing to do on Saturday afternoon come in and join the teaching.”

“I am not a couple. Reminder, I am single with a daughter who is growing up with accolades of suitors galore. Who knows, maybe I will make it to be grandmother before the age of thirty-eight. I thought you said catering.”

“All the same it’s a church themed get-together,” Stephanie had replied. “Be at my place as soon as you finish lessons. We will start preparations around 0900hrs.”

“Need I board there seeing as it that when you start yodelling instructions on cooking we will be at it until around eleven thirty in the evening?”

“What male company would you need seeing that you don’t like gasping for breath?” Stephanie shot back. That was below the belt but true.

“What?” she asked as if she had not heard the meaning.

“You don’t like getting @#$#&*@!”

“Stephanie?” Sandra was beside herself with laughter. “There is a price to pay for being a woman always looking for male company. I have to accept that I am single. I am unmarried with a daughter to consider. I don’t accept bedroom reproaches. I was never a one night stand type of girl.”

“One day you will have to start dating again. Do you have any date? You may bring them to the convention. There are business links to be done for us as well.”

“Dates are not coming that easy. I will be there as soon as the lessons are through. I will be on the convention need be alone as I am.”

“I tried providing dates and you sneezed at them. I tried hooking you with a few here and there. It didn’t work.”

“Stephanie, few young men my age who are single want to date a single mother seriously. They did rather spread their wings, making two women pregnant before marrying the third not the other way round. The moment you say there is a daughter, he stands grabbing your behind and tits in expectation of @#$%^&*()_+, which isn’t what I was planning to dish out. Even those with children out of marriage expect to marry clean virgins.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to stop dating. You need to have a social life. You need a man friend with whom you establish a pattern of friendship and rules to follow. There is something bad about a daughter or son growing up without a father figure in the home.”

Stephanie was not to be thrown off balance easily. She was like a motherly honing pigeon or a KGB hit squad on the scent of an armed dissident. “

“Hear, hear. I guess I will have to form a single mothers support group seeing churches have Sunday school, young generation, youth, couples, men’s and ladies fellowship excluding us single mothers.”

“Most of your likes get married and change fellowships!”

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“Is there a party?” Martin asked.

He was crouching next to his maternal uncle‘s son and his wife who sat on plastic chairs. His mother had been the last born in a family where her brother had a son almost close to fifty.

“A couples meeting,” his uncle replied. “That is why I had specifically asked that you bring Tina along. We do things in twos like turtle doves that mate for life.”

“Tina does not meet time deadlines,” Martin had replied. “She had other more pressing fish to fry that coming here with me today.”