Jaz & Miguel

by Raven, R. D.

  Right. Those people. The ones who killed that black kid (and his white girlfriend) only two weeks before Sandile and Elize had met each other. The ones who lived only a few houses away from Elize herself.

  Talk about timing.

  RACIST KILLINGS DARKEN THE RAINBOW NATION. That was one headline.

  BLACK ROMEO AND WHITE JULIET DEAD IN AFRICA. That one Miguel hated the most.

  Because the truth is, no one really knew what happened that night. And probably no one ever would. There'd been three bodies (the two lovers and the girl's father). Bullets from the lovers' bodies matched the father's gun, but the bullets in his own body had been fired from an unknown gun. A mysterious third person.

  Miguel had learned one thing about the foreign press in all his years of watching the Western World focus its kaleidoscope eyes on South Africa. News about racism in South Africa always sold because it was believable. It was like news about Nazis in Germany, or gangstas in South Central. Immediately, people assume that every person living in Germany is a Nazi, or that every African-American from the ghetto is a criminal.

  Why even bother naming sources? Just putting the words "racist" and "South Africa" was usually enough to sell papers. Ah, and there was another word: "alleged"—that's a staple in the industry, he'd noticed. By using the word "alleged" they could just about say anything they fucking wanted to.

  It was, after all, only allegedly so, sir.

  When Miguel had discovered that Sandile was seeing an Afrikaner girl from the very suburb in which those murders had occurred, he almost killed the guy himself! He didn't give a rat's ass (or arse) who Sandile dated—white, black or even a friggin Martian. But, man, for a chick? To put yourself in danger for a woman?!

  That was unheard of in Miguel's mind.

  There are plenty of fish in the sea, Miguel had told him. Heck, Sandile was a good looking man (or so Miguel had understood from the way Thandie always went on about him), and there were plenty of white chicks (if that's really what Sandile wanted) around in Rosebank or Bedfordview or even flipping Germiston (not the most liberal place, but better than Elize's neighborhood). But to pick a babe whose family lived in damn-near the most racist suburb in all of South Africa?!

  Fuck! Why not just put up a flag saying "I hate white people" in front of the AWB headquarters? It followed about the same level of intelligence.

  The AWB. He had to remind himself constantly that, even though a large concentration of them lived where Elize lived (although, he had also to admit, that that was only "allegedly" so and something he had read), perhaps he too had fallen for all the hype, all the bad news. Was it really the most racist neighborhood? Were the two of them really in danger after all?

  A few prejudiced words did not make people murderers. As inappropriate as their conversations had been, what would Elize's parents' reaction be if they found out that their daughter truly loved someone of the opposite race?

  It was, however, a risk that none of them were even willing to consider. Miguel most of all.

  But, as the months had rolled by, something else had also become clearer to Miguel: Sandile was smitten. That was the long and short of it. And so was Elize. Since that day they'd met in Pretoria, Sandile had become a friggin Romeo, dreaming and being all poetic and drifting off into the lala-land of wistful love while he and Miguel were supposed to be shooting hoops. It warmed Miguel's heart actually. Because the man deserved it at the end of the day, didn't he? Deserved to be in love? He'd been through enough.

  Both of them had.

  He knew this is why Sandile was trying to set him up. He'd found something, and wanted Miguel to find the same. But the idea was so foreign to Miguel. Since when could a woman ever understand what he had been through? Women were sappy, melodramatic and maudlin creatures, crying at the break of a nail or the drop of a baby-shower—he didn't need that. He didn't need any tears around him.

  Because tears around him only brought tears to his own eyes.

  And he'd stopped crying a long time ago.

  Tears in his own eyes meant he was remembering.

  And he didn't want to remember.

  So there had been Sandile's constant setups, the endless efforts to have Miguel meet up with some bimbo that couldn't stop fluttering her eyes or showing off her friggin cleavage.

  Holy mother of—

  At least this one—this Jaz girl—seemed interested in people, intelligent, kind—aaaaand, yes, a definite eight on the babe-scale. And he liked how she didn't flaunt her tits (they weren't huge or even that big, but she could've played the bimbo role with a wonder-bra like so many other airheaded chicks he'd met in the past). She was soft-spoken and answered all of Elize's questions fully. And she had guts, judging from the way she'd (hilariously) put herself in between him and Sandile the day before.

  Now that had been funny!

  But, this Jaz chick—she really did seem alright. If anything, at least Miguel would not be bored out of his skull while Elize and Sandile went and gave release to their hormonal urges (or whatever they did together when Miguel wasn't with them). Jaz seemed to know how to string more than two words together into a coherent and lucid sentence (oh the people Sandile had found for Miguel. God bless him for trying). Best of all, she didn't come all up in your face and act like a fucking "oh look at me I'm so goddamn hot" tramp.

  Jaz was far from the typical girl he would've normally gone for. She wasn't blonde; she wasn't curvaceous; she wasn't particularly muscular. In fact, today, Jaz looked almost plain, but only because she hadn't made herself up very much—just a bit of eyeshadow from what he could see. Which was another thing he liked: she wasn't trying to impress him in the slightest! She did have a nice figure—not hard, but soft in all the right places. She had a pleasantly curved face with a small pointed up nose. Her eyes were large and deep-set and dark and they swallowed you in whole when you looked at them. Her hair was straight and auburn-brown. Today she'd brushed it so that it was floating loosely above her shoulders. Yesterday it had been tied up.

  Yeah, he'd noticed. He'd noticed everything about her the moment she put out her hand in that classic move so as to be the intervening force in all that was evil in the world.

  God bless these Americans.

  He'd almost cracked up after seeing it. Almost—he'd forced himself not to laugh so as to keep up appearances.

  It was … endearing.

  In a way, Sandile had gotten Miguel's hopes up. And that made him a bit nervous. Sure Sandile played it down, saying that she was nice to talk to (according to Thandie—Miguel should've known that Thandie had been involved!) Sandile had told him that, in the worst case, he would get to spend the day with a decent looking girl. What was there to lose? She read a lot, which Miguel also liked to do, and she was interested in Johannesburg and South Africa so there wouldn't be any of those awkward moments of silence because, if they cropped up, then Miguel could simply tell her some tidbit about South Africa and they'd have something to talk about all day.

  He had a point and Miguel did get bored whenever he spent the day out here waiting for Sandile and Elize.

  Miguel didn't like getting his hopes up—not for anything. So he took the middle road: he dressed in noncommittal clothes, but reserved tickets at the Barnyard for the four of them to see a play called African Footprint which was all about Soweto and Jozi and had lots of singing and dancing. Depending on how this first meeting over drinks went down, he would then decide whether or not he'd actually pay for the tickets and see if the rest of them would like to go.

  So far, he was having a good time.

  "Um, guys, before you head off," he said, "I reserved some tickets for African Footprint for tonight. I just wanted to see if you wanted to watch it—before I paid for them, I mean."

  He noted the glint in Sandile's eyes and the casual look he threw at Jaz, a look so subtle that only Miguel would've ever spotted it. Sandile knew that Miguel was starting to like her.

  After some explanation to Jaz of what t
he Barnyard Theater was, and to Elize about the African Footprint play, they all agreed that it would be a great idea, so Miguel said he'd treat them and they'd meet up at the theater just before six p.m. He called Computicket to finalize the payment, and Elize and Sandile left (probably to go find a room somewhere—Miguel never really asked).

  Miguel liked paying for things for his friends—it was the least he could do. He respected that people like Sandile and Elize had gone straight to university after school. Miguel, however, had been working even before he'd finished high school. He'd just needed to keep busy. It's not even that his dad paid him that much (he didn't). But, with a traditional Portuguese father who wouldn't consider taking rent from his child even if someone threatened to cut his leg off, and over two years of working and saving, Miguel had more saved up than he knew what to do with—far from loaded, but buying a few drinks and paying for a few theater tickets barely even dented his pocketbook.

  In the ensuing minutes that followed after Elize and Sandile had left, he and Jaz talked about the most god-awful boring shit like what Seattle was like and he, in turn, told her what Johannesburg was like (he knew there was more to this chick which is what bothered him most about these kinds of topics). The conversation eventually deteriorated into a boring zero of sipping at his straw and Jaz nursing her second Amstel. It didn't make him uncomfortable (he'd never particularly had a problem getting a girl to talk), but he just wasn't interested in chit-chatting about crap, so he sort of let the moment carry them to see where it would go. Jaz sipped her beer nervously and looked around, not really asking him much about anything. He didn't feel awkward. He felt a little mischievous actually, and a smirk began to cross his face.

  "What's so funny?" she asked, now looking at him.

  He let out an involuntary laugh.

  "N—nothing." He was smiling now.

  "Bullshit. What is it?"

  My, how he loved her accent. "No, it's—well, it's not the first time Sandile has ... you know ... tried to set me up and ...."

  "Well, it's a little awkward isn't it?" She smiled.

  Ahwkworrd. How cute.

  "Nah, it's fine. Look, I'm ... sorry about yesterday." Jaz's eyebrows lifted a fraction, the only explanation being that she was amazed at his apology. He let it slide, understanding himself that it was amazing that she'd even arrived here despite the magnanimous ass he'd made of himself the day before. "It's just ... well, now you know." He gestured to Sandile and Elize's empty seats. "He's never told anyone about Elize. I thought he was being crazy .... That and—" He stopped.

  "That and what?"

  And then he smiled again—but not on purpose.

  And Jaz smiled as well, and he could see her smile was not on purpose either, because her cheeks had gone slightly pink, the hue mostly concentrated at her cheekbones.

  "No, that's all," he said, an imaginary wire just incessantly tugging away at the corners of his mouth, pulling his lips upward.

  "You lie!" And she punched him.

  It took him by surprise. "Hey!"

  But he didn't punch her back. He knew this part—he'd punch her back and then she'd punch him and then the whole thing would be about how cute and funny it was that they were punching each other. And it was cute; it just wasn't what he needed right now. (Although he appreciated her easygoing attitude).

  She waited as he settled back into his chair. He was still smiling, but out of choice this time.

  "What I wanted to say," he continued, "was that I was"—he rolled his eyes—"rude ... because ... well"—he couldn't fucking believe he was about to say this—"I was ... glad ... that Sandile had not picked some bimbo, but someone who"—he cleared his throat—"looked half-decent as a person." There, he said it.

  He looked away. God that was hard!

  He saw her smiling, and her cheeks going even more pink, her light complexion being to her distinct disadvantage now.

  "Oh," she said, clearly embarrassed, gulping another mouthful of beer.

  For your run-of-the-mill date (which this wasn't) he knew this was going well—he'd flirted with many a babe before. He knew he was saying the right things at the right times (probably out of habit), so he stopped himself. If this had been years ago, he would've turned and gazed into her eyes and asked her some lame question that all chicks dug and which would make her feel like he was completely interested in her.

  But this was not a few years ago. And he wasn't going to take fate and destiny in his own hands for this one. This one—or, the one—would play out as the gods (or whoever) chose. Miguel was not interested in a fling. The next girl he'd be with would either be the one or would come damn near close to being the one. And finding that one would mean he'd have to be as "unflirtatious" as ever (was that even a word?) He'd have to put all that charming crap he and Sandile had used all those years before, aside.

  So he wiped the smile off his face, and became cool—not cool like L. L., but cool like reserved.

  "Let's get out of here," he said.

  Jaz was light-headed from the beer when she got up, and tripped slightly over the wooden chair. She giggled and Miguel held her up. She was more than light-headed. She was downright tipsy. Alcohol had never really been her thing, and she made a mental note that it probably never would be (legal drinking age of twenty-one or not).

  The unsteady floor was what gave it away: the charming smile and twinkling glint in Miguel's eyes were, probably, more the result of her altered perception of reality rather than an actuality. She excused herself and went to the bathroom and splashed some water on her face, noticing that she hadn't plucked one hair of her right eyebrow and hoping that Miguel hadn't noticed. Do boys ever notice these things anyway?

  She wondered if she should have put on more make-up, but it was clear in her mind when she'd gotten ready that morning that she wasn't going to do anything with this Miguel guy, even if that clarity had begun to fade after the two beers. Although, a touch of lipstick would've maybe gone a long way. However, to put it on now would've made her only look like—what had he called it?—some bimbo.

  In a way, she was a little uneasy about the rest of the day. What would they do now? And now that he'd proven that he wasn't a total ass (and, in fact, quite sweet), had she lost her chance by having dressed like a complete prude?

  Jaz turned to look at her boobs in the mirror, first from the right, then the left. She faced forward and pressed on either side of them, then gave a disappointed sigh. They'd never been her best asset—and what good was a push-up for a 34B anyway?

  You're just a late bloomer, honey. It's normal! That's what her mom had always said. A more irritating statement there could've never been. She wondered if they'd grown since she'd been in South Africa, but she knew that was only wishful thinking. Whereas Rae had sprouted pretty much overnight from ironing board to damn near blow-up doll, Jaz's progress had been much slower. She'd first started noticing their growth when she'd been about fourteen, although they stayed at bud-stage for all of that year. At sixteen, she finally made it up to 32A. Rae usually measured them for her, although she'd learned to do it by herself because her paranoia made her measure them almost daily for a while, and she didn't want Rae to know that. She remembered when she finally made it up to 34B (an eternity of waiting) at seventeen. She called Rae and they partied all night. But Jaz just told her that she was in a good mood, the whole subject of breast size having been long since gone for Rae by that time. Although, she recalled, Rae had seemed like she'd grown a bit herself when Jaz saw her that night. Always a step (or a cup) behind the other girls—that was how Jaz felt about herself most of the time.

  It was on that night that she gave up on the push-up (she'd immediately gone out and bought one on discovering her new measurements and worn it all night). A push-up on Rae made her look desirable, but on Jaz, it had only made her look young and desperate. So, she came to discover the simple padded bra, bought herself a few, and left it at that, measuring herself maybe once a month now—but not sinc
e she'd gotten to South Africa. Her main measuring instrument had since become the mirror. And the mirror was not smiling at her today. Especially as she'd somehow convinced herself to not even wear a padded bra to this encounter.

  Idiot!

  It had dawned already on Jaz (perhaps when she'd seen herself in the mirror, perhaps when she'd seen Miguel with Elize at their table) that, as much as she'd tried to convince herself that she was here to "meet Elize" or "discover the bond between these two guys" (what crap, now that she thought about it) the Occam's Razor of it all was that Miguel was, simply, hot. He was, like, drop-down-on-the-ground-and-fan-me hot.

  So now she just felt stupid for tagging along, because that friggin line about looking "half-decent" was— Urgh! She'd blown it.

  First of all, had that been a compliment or an insult? And, second of all, if it had been a compliment, did he just expect her to melt and swoon from such a lame line? She looked herself in the mirror once more (wondering if he'd seen that tiny blackhead forming on her left temple), straightened her dress and headed out.

  Miguel was leaning on a railing—Mr. Cool. She gathered by the way he stood there—and also by the way he'd spoken to her earlier (smiling at all the right times, gazing deeply at her eyes for just long enough to raise her heartbeat, and then looking away)—that he knew how to act and talk around girls and knew how to get their blood rate going with just with a few words (or just a few breaths) so that they'd need to sit down and exhale slowly to relax.

  And now it was obvious why he didn't have "a" girlfriend: he probably had several of them!

  She wouldn't be one of those girls. No ways. She needed to put a stop to this.

  "Uh, Miguel, look ... I really appreciate what you're doing for Sandile and everything ... but ... I mean, I'm just not ready for a relationship with someone and ... I mean, I would just need to get to know—"