My office was a one-storey wooden structure overlooking Mrs. Stella’s sugar plantation.

Mrs. Stella was confident that I had no interest in the new girl. And so, she allowed the new girl bring me coffee in the morning and she didn’t complain whenever the new girl spent her late afternoons in my office when she had nothing to do. And there, we exchanged lots of looks and smiles.

One late afternoon when work was over, I and Brenda still hang around the office, chatting while eating rice and beef stew from the same bowl, seated very close together, when Mrs. Stella bumped into us. Seemed she needed a document from my office and didn’t know we were still around.

“You are invited,” Brenda said to Mrs. Stella, smiling. I said in my mind, “You have no idea.” Mrs. Stella said, “Thank you.”

I noticed she deliberately did not look us in the face all the while she was in that office. She pretended to look away, busy searching for a document that seemed to have no name, giving me the impression she came there because she suspected something fishy about my claim to have no interest in such a young pretty girl at the workplace.

I feared I would be seeing Brenda less in my office after that incident. And true to my suspicions, the following day and the days that followed, Mrs. Stella kept her busy in her office all day, broadening her job description to include cleaning her home and taking her dog for a walk. Just anything to keep her out of my sight.

Even on days she was ill, Mrs. Stella forced herself to come to work. Her absence would be an occasion for me and Brenda to meet and chat all day and perhaps gossip about her jealousy and she seemed prepared to fight tooth and nail to prevent that from happening.

I found her pathetic. This Mrs. Stella. And I wondered if I would have done same if I were in her shoes.

From my office window I could see Brenda scrubbing and cleaning. She thinks Mrs. Stella is giving her tough training so she could acquire many useful skills for life.

But from where I stood, I saw everything as it was.

I had made one wrong move in the first place by letting Mrs. Stella see the friendship developing between me and the new girl and now, I was determined to recalculate my steps and outsmart this cunning Diva called Mrs. Stella…