Stan stood up from her chair and walked to the window with a lit cigarette between her full plump, red lips. She took a drag from then ashed it out the open window of the third floor of the residential building Aisha’s office was in.

Stan sat back down on her chair and Aisha resumed.

“So Stan, tell me, after what happened at the hospital, did that end your relationship with Lula?”

“No, it didn’t. I was actually mad at him at first, but then figured he must have seen me peacefully sleeping and didn’t want to bug me and wake me up. I did get the opportunity to apologise months later after his record deal fell through and his record label dropped him. When I found him he was sleeping on his friend’s couch. I took him in and gave him everything he could ever want. I even gave him some of my hard-earned money and three quarters of my life savings so he could start his own record company.”

It had started out slowly, but in six months Lula was making hard cash, signing artists left, right and centre. His music was at the top of the charts and it wasn’t long after that he moved out of Stan’s place. He bought a new house in Middleburg and another at Sea Point in Cape Town. He even bought an estate in Zimbali, Durban, where he built his studio.

He kept moving around the country, then around Africa. And finally he made it to the States and never looked back. He never contacted Stan or even gave her back the money she gave him to start his record company, which was now worth hundreds of millions. Yet somehow, Stan understood that if you love something then set if free, and if it doesn’t return when expected then go searching for it with a flash light and a rifle.

In Aisha’s office, Stan searched through her purse and produced a bottle medication. She poured some in the shot glass it comes with and drank it till there was none left. She poured another shot and offered it to the doctor, who refused. Stan informed her that what she just took was not cough syrup, but rather a more potent form of Allergex, designed to definitely screw you up and leave you for dead if you’re not cautious.

Stan then proceeded to chug the glass she had in her hand, closed the lid of the syrup and placed it back in her purse. She took out a cigarette and lit it. The entire time Aisha was just watching her, not saying a thing. Stan felt the need to describe to her doctor that her addiction to Lula made her do things she would never do in her wildest dreams. But she ended up knee deep in those things because she believed they would bring her closer to Lula.

She picked up smoking because she saw Lula smoke a cigarette and now she was stuck with a habit that she couldn’t quit. And then Stan had recently found out that Lula didn’t smoke cigarettes anymore and that all those stories she read on the tabloids were misleading. They depicted Lula as “an avid syrup user”, which she later found out was a complete lie. She heard the real story from a close friend of Lula’s, who told her Lula only tried it once and didn’t like it. He said it made him feel sleepy and he still wanted to stay up and have fun with his friends.

So yet again, Stan got the short end of the stick. Stan thought maybe she had been going at this the wrong way; if she tried something new, then maybe Lula might take a second look at her and they would be back together.

***

Tell us: What do think Stan did to get Lula’s attention?