by Raven, R. D.
Sandile: Go on, Jaz, don't be shy.
Jaz: (Silent).
Sandile: It seems Jaz is too modest. The sangoma said, and I quote, "Your life has meaning to others here. You are important. Your own actions will determine if the sun will again rise for those you love. Choose well. Listen to the ancestors."
Jaz: Yeah. (Raises eyebrows).
Sandile: It's OK for you to think it's all superstition, Jaz. No one will think you a racist for that.
(Both chuckle).
Sandile: Now, tell us about the obstacle course. How is it that you won that, really?
Jaz: I didn't win ... actually. Someone let me win.
Sandile: Ahhhh. Would that someone be a certain Miguel Pinto?
Jaz: (Silent)
Sandile: Come on then, no need to blush.
Jaz: He denies it, but if he was going to pretend to have sprained an ankle, then he should've kept it "sprained" for more than ten minutes!
Sandile: Ah, yes, some would say it was gentlemanly, others, presumptuous. Now ... speaking of this Miguel—
Jaz: No, you promised!
Sandile: Yes, speaking of—
Jaz: Not on camera!
Sandile: Relax woman! Sheesh (chuckles). I will keep my promise! Just, on that subject (Jaz crosses arms), I just want you to know that, on behalf of the rest of the IHRE class, we believe the two of you would make a great couple—now, if you would both just shut up and kiss already—
Jaz: Hey!
Sandile: You're right, that was coming awfully close to me breaking my promise of not asking you how you feel about him on camera, so I won't. To end off, what was your favorite part of the camp?
Jaz: No comment.
Sandile: Ahhh, I see. By the blush on your cheeks I can see that this is certainly a no comment area! Thank you, Jaz Curtis, for your time.
Jaz: Thank you, Mr. Mabuyo.
3 Comments:
Comment from: Jaz
Posted on: Mon, July 22nd, 2013 at 09:31pm, South African Standard Time
Nice work, Sandile.
Comment from: Maxine
Posted on: Tue, July 23rd, 2013 at 09:16pm, South African Standard Time
So, did you guys kiss already or what?
Comment from: Miguel
Posted on: Tue, July 24th, 2013 at 05:12pm, South African Standard Time
You're dead meat, boet. :)
TWELVE
Miguel liked Jaz way too much. That was the problem.
It had been four weeks—already the middle of August!—since they'd returned from the camp. The place to have made his move would have been there, at Inkululeko. That night—that first night by the bonfire—would've been perfect. And now, they were all back to their routine, the sound of traffic in their ears and students talking shit outside in the quad.
The romance … was gone.
Since getting back, Jaz had started hanging out with him and Sandile when they played ball. They'd regularly have lunch at The Matrix together (although, if he did plan on taking it further with her, he noted that he'd have to find some place less busy than The Matrix, which was more hectic than a Durban beach in the middle of summer). She was spending less and less time with her friends to be with them—no, to be with him.
But she would go back home in December. So why start something he couldn't finish?
And yet, despite this, Miguel never wanted to be without her. When he went home at night, he'd think of her. When he got to campus, she'd be the first person he'd want to see. Whenever he and Sandile played ball, his game would be off unless she was there watching him. Most of the time she just read his Kindle (Christ, it was adorable how many books this girl devoured) but that didn't matter. Just having her there was enough.
And that was the other thing: the comfort. Never had he felt so at ease, both in silence and in conversation, around a girl.
He even considered that, maybe, he might be falling … in love with her—in love with a girl he hadn't even kissed.
He hoped she felt the same. Although, the way he'd been acting all these weeks, it wouldn't have surprised him if the poor chick thought he was gay!
Surely, if what he felt was really … love … surely they'd find a way, wouldn't they? Besides, it was getting pretty ridiculous, acting like you're dating—knowing he'd miss her anyway if she were to leave now—and not at least getting some of the benefits of such a relationship.
Right now, as he saw it, they were lovers with no benefits.
Whether Miguel had planned it or not, kiss or no kiss, sex or no sex, Jaz leaving in December was going to kill him either way. So why not just put the façade aside and finally declare it: We're dating! It's official!
And who was he kidding, really? He and Jaz were dating, plain and simple, everyone aware of the fact except the two of them. What he needed to do, was make it official—finally. (He'd never held a reputation for being a slow mover, and the very thought of it made him cringe). So he decided to do something he hadn't done in over two years: he would ask a girl out on a date today—a real date. (And not a double-date either).
He'd ask Jaz out on a date.
It was after class and she was at her usual spot by the pond. He brought a mango and orange LiquiFruit (her favorite) with him.
"Oh, hi!" she said, his Kindle in her hand.
"Hey," said Miguel, suddenly feeling like a little boy of eleven. He hadn't had trouble talking to her before, but right now he could feel the sweat on his hands and neck, the lump in his throat. They stood in silence for a moment or two—their first moment ever of uncomfortable silence, at least for Miguel.
He gave her the juice.
"Thanks!" she said.
He nodded, swallowed. "So?" he said.
"So?"
Christ, could this be going any worse.
"Look," they both said.
"You first." Both again.
Miguel waited.
"Um, Miguel—"
"No, sorry, Jaz, I have to go first. I must." He would never live it down if she would be the one to ask him on a date first. How fucking unmanly would that be? And if she was about to tell him that she didn't like him instead, well, that was just a risk he was going to have to take.
He thought of giving some speech about why he hadn't asked her out before and how he was afraid of getting close to people and all that lame bullshit, but that would've just made him sound like a girl. And if she would be the one to finally find out all these things about him, then it would happen over time, and she would observe those things in him. He would never have to tell her directly about them.
So he just straight out asked her: "Jaz, um, would you like to go out on a ... date ... with me?"
She stood silent. They stared at each other for what seemed like forever and he finally cleared his throat to get her to talk.
Man, his heart was pounding.
"Uh—sure," she said, although she looked a little surprised.
"Great!" And it was great. It was fucking great. It was so damn great that Miguel—still with his hands in his pockets and arms as stiff as pool cues—took a deep breath of the dusty air and felt the tension ease off him like water evaporating from the Sahara.
"When?" she asked.
"Oh, right, um, tonight?" He was sick of waiting.
"Uh, yeah—sure!"
"I'll pick you up at, like, six?"
"It's a date."
And it was—a real date.
"And what did you want to ask me?" he said.
"Oh"—a touch of surprise in her voice and a blush on her cheeks. "N—nothing. It was nothing." She looked away, smiling.
She'd also wanted to ask him out on a date, hadn't she?
He sighed quietly in relief that he had gone first.
Miguel spruced up on the Paco Rabanne aftershave and dressed in a white button-up shirt and beige slacks, finishing it off with a suit jacket he hadn't worn in years but which luckily still fit. He wasn't going to look like a slob this time. He actually brushe
d his hair, but then scruffled it up again (but only slightly), not wanting to look too desperate.
When he picked her up, his heart went into his throat and her scent made his eyes go hazy. Her hair flowed like a shampoo advert and her dress—velvet blue—hugged her body as if it were her very own skin. Her coat went to just above her knees and Miguel's eyes lingered for a second down her dark tights, pausing briefly on the heeled mid calves caressing her legs, giving her just a bit more height than she normally had. For a moment, he forgot to open the car door as he stood there looking at her, but then quickly remembered.
He took her over to a cute little restaurant in Melville that he'd only been at once before. It was far from high-brow but it was just the cozy kind of place that he felt they needed—something romantic. There were no lights at this place, only candles, and the wooden tables were totally rustic, chipped with messages of love and whatever else people chose to write on there. It was actually encouraged by the owner. Some of the walls were even made of corrugated iron to add to the feel.
While they sat there, Miguel etched Jaz & Miguel, 2013 on their table. "So that a bit of you will always remain in Africa," he said. Her eyes flicked away for a moment when he said it, and he knew why, but he wouldn't bring up the subject of her leaving—not tonight.
"I'm really glad you asked me out ... officially … and finally," she said, her straight hair glistening in the flickering candlelight.
"I'm sorry it took so long. It's just—"
She grabbed his hand on the table. "You don't have to explain," she said.
"I know that you know already ... I mean, about ... my family and stuff. Because you've never asked about them."
"Thandie told me ... on the bus to the camp."
He nodded. He wanted to get past this subject quickly. "You mean a lot to me," he said. "I know I'm just coming out and saying it—presumptuously, even—but, I just want you to know."
"You mean a lot to me, too," she said.
He nodded, then swallowed. That was enough. That was enough serious talk. "So, tell me about yourself. All we've spoken about really has been random shit. And that's what people do on these official dates—they talk about themselves, right?" he said.
"An official date. Hmmmm. Sounds scary. Well, I haven't been on that many official—" She stopped. Miguel noticed her sudden embarrassment. He didn't want to make it any worse by pressing the point, so he just waited for her to continue when she was ready. "Um—never mind about that," she said, dropping the previous subject like a wet fish. "Well, what do you want to know?"
"I don't know. Anything."
She put her finger to her chin and gazed up pensively. The waitress brought the Nederburg Chardonnay which Miguel had ordered—a good wine. "Ah! I've never had wine before!"
"What?!"
They waited as the waitress uncorked the wine and poured some in a glass for Miguel to taste. He drank a bit and then smacked his lips and pretended to know what he was doing by gesturing to the waitress with a nod that it was good. He hated it when they poured wine like that for him. It's not like he knew anything about wine beyond the fact that he liked Chardonnay and that Merlot was always a bit strong; but he always played along. The waitress poured them each half a glass—first Jaz's, then his—then placed the wine back in the silver ice-bucket next to the table.
"Very fancy," said Jaz.
"It's pretty normal to find unique places like this down here—I mean in South Africa. Now, about this wine story."
"Yeah, I've had beer—and most of it here, actually! But this will be the first time I'll ever have wine."
"Well, I can't drink all of this by myself. And if you have three glasses of it, you'll be singing your way out of here!"
Jaz shrugged. "We'll just have to see!" And she swigged the glass down, then made a face. It didn't taste nearly as good as she'd expected it to! "Your turn—I mean, to tell me something about yourself."
"Ask me a question," he said.
"Why do you like basketball so much?"
"Because I'm good at it."
She waited for more. "That's it?" she asked incredulously.
"Yip, I'm good at it, that's it."
She then wanted to say, you're also pretty good at flirting. But she didn't.
"Your turn," she said.
"Who's your best friend in the whole world?"
"Why, Thandie of—" Jaz paused. She suddenly thought of Rae. Wow. Rae. Another life. "Actually," she said, "good fucking question."
"Good fucking question? Man, you've been around South Africans for too long."
They laughed, and Jaz was glad because she needed time to digest the previous question. She didn't know who her best friend was anymore. She'd always believed that she and Rae would become close again as soon as she got back home and joined her at college and they started hanging out again. But that all seemed so unlikely now. And what else had changed that she hadn't noticed? When she thought of going for coffee, she thought of The Full Stop Café in Randburg, not of Bauhaus in Seattle. When she thought of shopping for clothes, she immediately thought of Edgars or Mr. Price. When she thought of love ….
She cleared her throat. They sat in silence awhile, sipping their wine, looking around at the other candle-lit tables.
"I like how we can sit in such silence for so long without either of us ever having to say anything," she said.
"Me too." He smiled and raised his glass to her. Her hair sparkled. Her skin glowed. Miguel was going to kiss her tonight, but not in the car, not out on the street, but he would kiss her. He wanted to kiss her with every fiber inside of him.
There was, however, another question he had—a question since he'd first heard her name. Sure, he knew it was short for Jasmine. But could it really have been such a coincidence?
"Do you believe in fate? You know: destiny, signs, things meant to be, serendipity, whatever?"
Jaz pondered the question as she ran her index finger around the wine glass. "I think we all want to believe in it. Why?"
It was silly, he knew. "No reason, just asking."
The guttering candle's flame flickered in Miguel's hazel eyes, his golden skin radiating like pure Egoli gold as he sat across from her, smiling, poking at his food. Never had she felt so in harmony with someone. She thought of how she'd fallen asleep on his chest that night by the fire. She remembered his smile as he'd waited each morning for her outside her room, putting up with her complaining because she had always been the last one to get up and had never had a decent warm shower once in the whole time they'd been at that camp.
But sitting with him now, she suddenly felt ... shallow. She felt as if her life, up to this point, all eighteen years of it, had meant nothing. She ran through the memories in her mind and looked at all those afternoons in the mall—those afternoons wasted on sipping coffees—and what did she have to show for it?
"It changes you—this program, I mean," she said.
"Yeah? In what way?" he replied, chewing on the rump steak he'd ordered.
"I don't know. It just ... makes you think about things ... about life and who you are. What your purpose is."
He stared at her, his chewing paused for a second. Then he continued. "That's not the program, Jaz. That's Africa—the good and the bad."
She frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"
"You like this place?" He indicated the restaurant with his eyes.
She looked around. Never had she been to something so quaintly romantic. "Of course. It's ... adorable."
"So do I, but if we'd be sitting at another place about two houses up from here, we'd be accosted by about three beggars in ten minutes asking for a Rand or two. Do you know how much a Rand is in dollars?"
Jaz shook her head.
"Well, it's not much—it's hardly anything. You can't see this stuff day in and day out and think that all of life is just dandy because—I don't know—because Google invented the internet or something."
She laughed ... but only a little.
"Google didn't invent the internet."
"I know."
She smiled, but sadly, and shook her head. "You're right. It's not the program."
"So that's the bad part. Now the good part. Did you like seeing the sunrise at the kloof? Or hearing the baboons while we slept in Rustenburg? Or listening to that Sangoma talk about ancestors and things."
Jaz felt her cheeks go warm, feeling he was referring to her own experience now. "Yeah," she said, looking down.
"It's fucking breathtaking—all this stuff—isn't it? And you haven't even been on a safari yet. Imagine sitting on a truck, a lion about twenty meters away from you—"
Jazz frowned.
"—twenty meters, that's like sixty feet or something. Oh, and a kilometer is like zero-point-six miles. I googled it!"
"Ah!" she said.
"So, you're on this truck, lion there, a herd of zebras in the distance. And you wait, and wait, and bam! Once, we were all on safari—my family and I—and this lion killed a zebra—jaws right to the neck! It was so close to us that you could smell the stench—"
Jaz stopped chewing.
"Oh … sorry."
She waved her hands. "No, it's fine."
"Well you get the point, right?"
She nodded. Miguel's face had broken a smile, like there was nothing else in the world but the two of them and that story. "You really love this place, don't you? Africa, I mean," she asked.
"Don't you?"
"God!" Jaz exhaled in confusion. "It's so hard to tell, you know? I mean, it's beautiful—you know—all those things you say, and which we saw. I mean—cheetahs for God's sake! But then …."
"Then there's the ugly part. I know. "
A wave of negative emotion hit her like a fist, as if all the joy they'd called up had suddenly been washed out to sea.
"It's almost like," she said, trying to figure it out as she spoke, "like … I mean, all this beauty and then … all this pain."
"But the pain is not Africa. The pain is poverty. The Brazilian ghettos have the same problem. So does the US at the end of the day, doesn't it? Except they use guns there instead of machetes (actually, they use guns here as well). But you get the point."