by Raven, R. D.
"Well, my garage needs cleaning. And if I had only asked Sandile to do it, I might be accused of being a racist. But if all four of you do it, I will be accused only of being a genius."
Miguel smiled. "You want us to clean ... your garage?"
"Do you have a better idea?" asked Mr. Van Zyl.
Miguel shook his head.
"And then our fence needs painting, and our garden needs a few flowers—which I believe you have decided to give to us as a gift. Is that not correct, Mr. Pinto?"
That was clearly a hint.
"Uh—right—of course."
"Yes, that's what my wife told me." He smiled. Mrs. Van Zyl just sat next to him, saying nothing, her arm interlinked in his. "As for our neighborhood. Well, people are murdered every day in Johannesburg, isn't that so? If my daughter truly loves this Sandile, then no one will even dream of trying anything with us. I would like to think that we have some respect from our community. I don't know what happened with that boy and his girlfriend any more than you do. For all we know, it could've been an interrupted robbery."
"R—right," choked Miguel.
There were no smiles when they left, but a mutual respect. For moments of the drive back, Jaz wanted to attack Miguel and Sandile for having been so ... racist. That was the only word to describe it.
A Nickelback CD played on the radio—an old song written when she was only a kid. She turned the sound up, hoping the heavy rock guitar would push the tumult of thoughts out of her mind. Miguel eyed her briefly as she did it.
She could tell something was on his mind—just as it had been for the last few days.
After dropping Sandile off at home and giving each other a handshake and a half-hug (something Jaz never understood about men), Jaz tried to make small-talk. "So it went pretty well, don't you think?"
Miguel said nothing, just shrugged.
Jaz looked away from him and back to the road. "Wanna tell me what's on your mind?"
Miguel heaved in a deep breath, like he was getting ready to say something important—or arguing with himself as to whether or not he should say it. "It's nothing," he finally uttered.
Another few seconds.
Jaz played with her cuticles.
"It's not nothing. What is it? You can tell me."
The track changed—a despicable song about having something in someone's mouth. Jaz shook her head and crossed her arms. She didn't know if she'd been aggravated by the lyrics or by the silence.
Finally, Miguel spoke. "Where are we going with this, Jaz? I mean, you and me."
Her heart stopped.
Suddenly, all the sound she could hear was the sound of the whirring hum of wheels turning on the road below her, and the wind through her slightly open window. It was as if the music had disappeared out to nowhere and all that was left was the yellow light of the highway, Miguel's face lightening and darkening with each lamppost as they drove past it.
"What ... do you mean?" she asked.
"You're leaving soon. Why should we put ourselves through this? If it's going to end, why not end it now?"
Jaz felt the world begin to spin. The lampposts in the median laughed at her, looking down at the inevitability of what was being said inside Miguel's Toyota.
"Jaz?"
But she wasn't listening any more. Not really. She was just looking out the window now, her chin beginning to tremble.
"Jaz."
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm here. I just ... don't know what you're trying to say to ... me." The words felt like clotted blood trying to get out of a cholesterol-filled artery.
Miguel sighed and she felt the back of her seat push against her as he pressed down on the gas.
Why hadn't she seen this coming?
Or had she?
"Just like that? You're breaking up with me ... in the car?"
"You know my ... history. I just can't bear to lose you if—"
"Fuck your history! This is about me and you—now!" She regretted it the moment she said it.
He sighed and looked away.
She had no defense. She had nothing to say that would make him confident they'd stay together—that would make her confident.
Had it been the threat of what had happened with Sandile and Elize? Had the whole thing been too strong a reminder for Miguel of what had happened to his mother and sister?
And, in truth, was Jaz really willing to live in a country where these things happened—and where they happened all the time?
She knew her answer.
She wasn't.
If anything, Miguel was doing her a favor. Ending it later would be worse than ending it now. He was right about that.
Silent tears rolled down her cheeks, not a single gasp or sound accompanying them.
Another ten minutes of silence.
Then Miguel said, "Jaz, it's for the best. You just have to trust me on this."
His voice sounded like the sound of a seagull in the distance. Yes, a seagull: Durban, Mozambique, just another bunch of dreams.
But already she was starting to miss the dreams. Already she was feeling the wrenching of Miguel away from her like one of her own limbs, life without an arm or leg or … a heart. His heart.
She couldn't let him go. Like the crashing Durban waves, she started to think of ways out of this. They could push it to the end and—who knew—work something out for Christ's sake!
"Miguel, we can work something out. Maybe—maybe I could live here. I don't know—"
"No, Jaz. No. It's … not going to work out."
What. The. Fuck?
It was something else. It wasn't about where they were going to live, was it?
He'd played her.
He'd fucking played her! Oh, my God. And to think she'd been almost ready to sleep with him this last week!
He was a liar. A goddamn liar!
"You make me sick," she said. "You fucking played me."
Miguel, as always, remained silent.
So this was it. This was ... the end.
She saw her landmark of a half-torn poster on a wall saying, ANC MEET— One more minute and they'd be at the International House. She only thanked her lucky stars that Thandie would be there. At least one thing was going right.
Because she couldn't be alone tonight. Her lungs had started pushing against her rib-cage as if the grief was a ton of TNT within them and the fuse had been lit.
One more minute ... and Miguel would be gone from her life forever. Only worse—he wouldn't be gone. She'd see him every day, at school, but she would never again feel his hand on the small of her back, or twiddle the hairs on his tanned chest as he dozed off to sleep as if there were nothing else in the world but the two of them and the rumbling ocean outside in Xai-Xai.
"We're here," he finally said.
Jaz lifted her head and looked out the window. That they were. They really were there. Home. The end.
Her arm felt like lead as she opened her door, her entire body resisting any effort to move.
Miguel motioned to open his door.
"No," she whispered to him. And then she shook her head. She couldn't say any more. Surely he'd seen her tears. He'd embarrassed her enough for the night, and she hoped that her simple No had told him all that her larynx could not.
She hoped it told him that he'd hurt her more than she'd ever been hurt by anyone, ever. She hoped it told him that, in her mind, she hated him more than the worst possible scum of the worst possible place that could be found anywhere on earth. She hoped her No had told him that there was no thing, no animal, no insect, no vermin more loathsome than he at this moment.
These were all the things she felt about him. These, and one other:
Despite all of it, despite all his betrayal and what she could tell now had merely been a lie and a dream—despite all of that—she still … loved him.
Damn it, how did this all go so wrong?
Jaz lumbered over to the trunk, feeling seasick and steadying herself on the body of the car as she walked. Sh
e grabbed her suitcase.
She needed to tell him one more thing.
Just. One. More. Thing.
He had to know it.
She knocked on his window. He rolled it down, still looking forward.
His eyes were red. He was crying.
Why? What the fuck is going on here?!
She didn't ask.
"Miguel," she whispered, forcing the words from her mouth, "I still … love you. And I always will."
He swallowed and tightened his lips, giving a tight nod.
He drove away.
TWENTY
Jaz climbed up the stairs to the first floor, turned left by the HIV poster but, instead of heading two doors down, went to the end and turned right, knocking on door number 72A. When Thandie opened, it didn't take even a second for her to know what had happened from the look on Jaz's face. Thandie pulled her in and held her. She hugged her with such force that Jaz could not help but explode with tears. Then she felt another set of hands around her and recognized the voice as it told her everything would be OK.
It was Nita Kapur. She was also there! Thandie must've changed roommates! For a very brief moment Jaz smiled at having both of them there but the momentary uplift in joy suddenly had the opposite effect, throwing her back down the well of tears and bringing up gasps so loud that they prompted the arrival of Maxine and Candy from all the way down the hall (as well as a "Shut up we're trying to fucking sleep in here!" from somewhere else).
Thandie's floor was strewn with papers and magazines and posters of men with bodies that, for just a moment, made Jaz stop thinking of Miguel—but the moment was brief. Two pin-ups were stuck to her wall: Lunga Shabalala (wearing Calvin Klein boxers) and someone called Tazz Nginda (with his name and the words Soul City imprinted at the bottom). Thandie was in her underwear and a shirt that said (across her well-endowed breasts), My face is there and then an arrow pointing up.
Thandie made a phone call and spoke irately to someone on the line in Xhosa (Jaz assumed).
To Jaz it still all seemed like a dream. She thought back to when she'd sat with Miguel at the beach and watched the sun go down, a glass of rosé in both their hands.
"What the hell happened?" asked Maxine.
"Can't you see Miguel broke up with her, stupid!" retorted Thandie.
"Oh, God! Sweetie!" Candy went over to Jaz and hugged her, but it only had the effect of making her sob even more. Jaz sank her head into a pillow and lay down while Candy rubbed her shoulders.
The girls talked amongst themselves while Jaz's mind drifted into thoughts of the previous week, as if holding onto them would somehow keep Miguel there with her. An unknown amount of time went by when a knock at the door made her wonder in a half dreamy state if it was him.
"I got one of my slaves to go and get us ice cream," said Thandie.
Jaz turned to face the door. An attractive boy with short hair and a smooth look on his face was on the other side of it. Thandie spoke to him in the same irate manner that Jaz had heard her use on the phone earlier. The boy's eyes twinkled with some sort of hope or joy that was unmatched in Thandie's stance. He started to say something but Thandie closed the door in his face and turned to the girls with a plastic bag in her hands. The boy shouted from outside and Thandie's smile turned, momentarily, to a look of haughtiness and she said in the direction of the door, "Hai!
Voetsek!" and then said a bunch of other things that Jaz didn't understand. Whatever she said, the boy disappeared.
Thandie dug her hand in the bag and pulled out a tub of Nestlé Chocolate ice cream, followed by two more of Häagen-Dazs. "Ach, idiot, I asked him for a tub of Connoisseur!"
The girls chuckled and Thandie pulled out some orange plastic spoons from the bag as well and threw them at them. Nita didn't want any and Candy hesitated for a bit, but eventually gave in. Jaz noticed that Candy's face seemed a little rounder than two weeks ago, and she wondered if she simply hadn't noticed before, or if Candy had picked up weight and was now trying to lose it. Nita, however, hadn't gained an ounce and Jaz wondered if she had one of those genetic traits that allowed you to eat what you wanted and never put on any weight.
Jaz's eyes burned from all the crying. Nita got up off the floor and sat next to her, putting her arm around her and saying, "It'll be fine. You'll figure things out."
Jaz's hand went cold from holding the Häagen-Dazs tub and she gave it to Thandie who was sitting on the other bed. "I don't know if I will," said Jaz, the ice cream seeming to have had the effect of allowing her to speak again. "All I know is ... that I haven't got a clue who I am or where I belong or what I even want. I came here because, basically, I hadn't figured out what to do with my life. And now I'm even more confused than before. And in love on top of it."
As Jaz said it all, she remembered something. "Oh, no." She went to her bag, ruffled through her clothes and saw it, pulling it out.
"Oh, is that a Kindle?" asked Nita enthusiastically.
"Yeah, it's Miguel's." She threw it next to Nita, dreading the moment she'd have to give it back to him. But maybe it would give her an excuse to talk to him. Nita picked it up quickly and started looking through the books.
Three ice cream tubs later the only person still sitting up straight was Nita who'd hardly had any, preferring to get lost in some of the fantasy books Miguel had on his Kindle. Candy and Maxine had pretty much passed out on the floor, and Jaz and Thandie each lay on a bed, a hand to their stomachs, the other forearm to their heads—each a mirror image of the other.
As they'd spoken about Elize and Sandile and the lies and Mozambique and Durban and everything that had happened in the last ten days (the cat was out of the bag now so why bother keeping it a secret from the other girls), Jaz had started to feel minutely better about it all, as if the lies had borne their own weight down on her and, getting them out, had finally alleviated it.
"Has that British reporter come to you yet, Thandie?" asked Nita, putting the Kindle aside. "The one with the squeaky voice."
"What reporter?" groaned Thandie.
"Some reporter from The Daily. He said he's doing a story on racism in South Africa."
"Ach, old news. It seems the only people who haven't realized we had free elections in 1994 are those who don't live in this country," said Thandie.
Nita snickered.
"Did he come to you?" asked Thandie. Jaz simply listened, a small pain from the ice cream having formed at the top of her stomach now.
"Yes, this morning. He was lurking around by the quad, asking students questions. He's got this unmistakable high-pitched voice that sounds like his vocal cords are wrapped around someone's finger."
Thandie: "Isn't The Daily a tabloid? I thought they only did stories about who's screwing who and the size of J. Lo's ass."
Nita: "I know. It's a bit weird. And he acts weird as well."
"What do you mean he 'acts' weird?" asked Jaz, her interest now perking up.
"It just seemed like he was fishing for a story, instead of just reporting on one."
"You said he was doing a story on what again?" asked Jaz, helping herself up onto her elbows so she could look at Nita at the end of the bed. How the girl kept such a straight posture was beyond her.
"Racism ... in South Africa."
Jaz: "Yeah, sounds like something some westerner would want."
Thandie cracked up laughing. "A 'westerner'? And, Miss America, what would you call yourself?"
Jaz rolled her eyes and lay down again. "Well, I wouldn't call myself 'Miss America' that's for sure." She smiled, thinking of how Maxine might actually be one for the pageant.
"Who's going to carry these two to bed?" asked Nita, motioning to the near corpses of Jaz's compatriots on the ground. Maxine was sleeping on Candy, a drop of spittle falling from Candy's open mouth onto the rug below her.
"Classic," said Jaz. "We should take a photo and put it online." She paused and thought for a moment. "You know what, guys? I'm gonna miss all of you when I go home."
Silence fell in the room.
"You don't have to leave, you know?" said Nita, as if it were some academic problem that would immediately surrender itself to reason.
But it was not academic. It was emotional.
She thought again of Miguel. Already she sensed the need to call him, to be with him. Maybe they could work something out. Maybe he'd thought about it a bit now and changed his mind.
She forced herself up, feeling like the insides of her stomach were wielding pompoms and singing: Gimme an I. Gimme a C. Gimme an E! Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiice Cream!
She dug in her bag for her phone and almost hoped it was out of charge when she pulled it out. But it wasn't. And she had full reception. She hit two for speed-dial. Her hand was shaking. As the phone rang, flickering images of their drive home and the yellow lights that had bathed Miguel's face struck her. A pressure formed at her forehead.
His phone rang for a fourth time.
Hi, you've reached Miguel. I'm—
She hung up.
"Not there?" asked Thandie, who Jaz saw, now, had been watching her all along.
Jaz shook her head.
She tried one more time.
Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Hi, you've reached—
Jaz put the phone to her knees and stared at its display, as if Miguel would somehow come through it and into this room and say, Hey, forget all that shit. Just pretend it never happened! But the cheap feature phone's screen was only green from its backlight, and then, moments later, not even that.
TWENTY-ONE
Miguel drove and drove and drove. He'd been driving for eleven hours, but all he could do now was drive some more. It's what he did when he needed to think—and the wide open Jozi highways were the best possible place to do that.
He knew the relationship with Jaz had been over before it had even begun. It was interesting, he thought, how these old, hackneyed sayings had a way of coming back over and over again simply because they spoke so much truth.
Over before it had begun.
Who'd he been kidding? A rich girl from the fucking USA, daddy making big