Happily Ever After

by Jenn Faulk

~David~

  It had been enough of an affirmation to David when God had opened the door for them to get another worker in Namibia. It had very nearly felt like God giving him a big thumbs up, confirming that he was right where he needed to be.

  And now? Now, that he knew it was Camille Evans that God had sent? David could very nearly imagine the Lord giving him a giant wink along with that big thumbs up.

  Praise You, Jesus, David thought, grinning, even as they gathered around the living room of the mission house thirty minutes later, with Kait filling Camille in on more details and Piet shooting David questioning glances.

  They’d been expecting a guy, obviously. They’d already planned on the new guy living with David in the cottage that had belonged to Piet’s uncle and aunt, back before they relocated to the States. It had been a great home for David, and there was room for someone else. He’d been looking forward to the company, quite honestly.

  For an irrational moment, as the women kept chatting about all things Namibia, David thought about how great the company would be if Camille was living in the cottage with him.

  Which she couldn’t, of course.

  Didn’t stop him from grinning like a fool, though, just imagining it.

  “Why are you grinning like that, you domkop?” Piet said, laughing outright at him.

  “Domkop?” Camille asked, glancing over at them.

  She was so pretty. Prettier than she’d been even two weeks ago when she’d been wiping away tears during his presentation. How was it possible that she’d grown more beautiful in only –

  “It means idiot,” Kait said. “Or dumb head. First word I learned when I got here.”

  “And that,” Camille said, “was a while ago, right?”

  “Ja,” Piet answered. “About six months before David came here, actually.”

  “And you were working for the board?” Camille asked.

  David finally stopped staring at her and figured he should jump into the conversation. “She was,” he said. “Personnel.”

  “Oh,” Camille smiled. “I know a guy in personnel. Mark Jackson.”

  “Mark!” Piet laughed out loud. “That is a name I have not heard in a while!”

  Kait smiled over at him. “Mark and I worked together. Did you ever meet him, Camille?”

  “I did,” she said. “He came to Brazil when I was there. Worked out some issues with some misallocated funds with career missionaries. He wasn’t a very popular guy after that.”

  “I don’t imagine so,” Kait grinned. “I’m the female version of Mark. The angel of missionary death, so to speak. Or I was, David.” She looked over at him. “Not anymore, so don’t worry.”

  David had never heard as many details. He’d never cared to ask. The only important thing was the work he was doing now, and the past history?

  Well, who cared?

  Camille did, obviously.

  “David mentioned that the last missionaries retired before he came,” she said. “You were here when that happened.”

  “I was,” Kait said, glancing over at Piet. “And I turned in my resignation with the board just as soon as I got them back to the States.”

  “Why?” Camille asked. “I mean, not to pry, but...”

  But she was going to go ahead and pry. David looked at Kait, curious about the answer.

  “I wanted to stay and see the work here continue,” she said, very simply.

  “And she was madly in love with me,” Piet added, grinning at her, just as she grinned back at him.

  David barely refrained from rolling his eyes. This? The two of them like this? Had gotten old approximately ten minutes after he’d arrived in Namibia three years ago. He loved his work, of course, but signing onto an assignment on the field, a seven year commitment in his career capacity, had felt like signing himself up for loneliness and the guarantee that there would be no woman in his life for a long, long while.

  And so seeing these two, always flirting, was... well, it was annoying.

  Camille didn’t seem to think so, as she smiled.

  “In love? Really?” she said, and David swore he could hear dreaminess in her voice.

  “He thinks so,” Kait muttered. “But I wasn’t sure. He was just nice to look at. He’s still nice to look at.”

  “Baie dankie, Kaity,” Piet said, still grinning.

  “Yeah, shut up,” Kait said. “You keep interrupting the story.”

  “That’s the whole story, though,” Piet said. “You stayed because you love me, David came, and here we are, three years later.”

  “But that’s not the whole story,” Camille said, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes, her fingers just resting on her cheek for a moment. Wow. David would have given anything to know how that felt, to touch her like that.

  “Is it not?” Piet asked.

  Camille continued on, unaware of how David watched her, obviously. “Kait told me that she has permanent residence. That it was a God thing.”

  “I’m surprised you remember that,” Kait smiled. “Jet lag, and you’re already ten times more observant than David.”

  David barely caught this because he was still staring at Camille. He heard his name and blinked. “Yeah.”

  Kait frowned at him. “See?” she said to Camille. “Just like I said.”

  “But the permanent residence thing was a God thing,” Piet said. “Kait only had a short while on her visa, you see. And it’s not easy to get a visa here. We had to jump through many hoops to get David’s. And yours now, of course, though it was easier with David already here to secure that.”

  “Yeah, the government isn’t too liberal with their visas,” Kait clarified. “You have to really make it worth their while, make them see that you can benefit Namibia. David’s done a lot for the youth here, so it’s made the board more favorable in their eyes.”

  At this, Camille glanced over at him and smiled very faintly.

  That smile. It made him feel like he’d grown ten feet taller.

  “Well, I didn’t do much,” he said, self consciously.

  “Not as much as Kaity,” Piet agreed.

  “Yes, Kaity,” Kait said, her hand to her chest and her attention completely turned from David now, “went above and beyond to get a visa.”

  “Yes, Camille, the simple solution would have been for Kaity to marry me and get citizenship that way, instead of just a visa. I was certainly willing to make that happen,” Piet said. “Am still willing to make that happen.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Kait said dismissively. “But a woman has to stand on her own, just in case. Make her own way in the world and all, you know.”

  “Stand on her own,” David said sarcastically, knowing this part of the story. “By creating a job for herself with Piet’s government job.”

  “Hey, he needed help,” Kait said defensively. Then, to Camille, “Medical clinics up north, so much paperwork, administrative details, totally my thing. I got him to raise a stink at the government office about how he needed an assistant, as I was learning Afrikaans so that I would be the perfect applicant – job experience, past career experience, and language skills. Moved in with Piet’s mother and told her to not speak another word of English to me until I was speaking Afrikaans just as well as she does.”

  “Ja, insisted that I do the same for three whole months,” Piet grinned. “Then, she got angry with us for doing it.”

  “It was so annoying,” Kait groaned. “Like being in a foreign film without subtitles.”

  “She’d screech at us, I don’t understand! Didn’t make us switch to English, though,” he said. “There were a few times that she was mad enough that she wouldn’t even kiss me goodnight. Told me once,” and here, he used a very good American accent, “I hate you, Piet! And your language is STUPID!”

  “Nearly punched you in the throat a few times,” she muttered.

  “But it paid off,” Piet laughed. “Camille, she walked into the interview for the job the government finally created, speak
ing better than I do.”

  “Baie dankie, P Dawg,” Kait grinned.

  David laughed at the name, but Cammie was still caught up on the obvious improbability.

  “And you’re still not married?” she asked. “Three years later?”

  Piet looked at Kait rather pointedly.

  “Nope,” she said, unaware of the looks being exchanged all around her. “They granted me permanent residence when they gave me the job, which is unheard of. So, there was no need to get married to keep me here. I had permission to stay.”

  “But you...” And Camille shut her mouth, not finishing her thought. David could see all the questions still racing through her mind.

  He remembered that about her, always asking questions in small group Bible study, always wanting to know more than the other students there, always digging deeper, always wanting to go farther and farther.

  It had been endearing to him. Still was, as it made him look at Kait and Piet and wonder at some things he’d never thought of before.

  “You’re probably starving, huh, Camille?” Kait asked, something that sounded a little like uncertainty in her voice as she looked back at Piet... who still watched her with expectation. “We should have your welcome dinner.”

  “Oh, well, I’m okay,” Camille said. “No need to make a big fuss or anything.”

  “No, we want to,” Piet said, standing, finally looking away from Kait. “If not for you, then for poor David, who still has an entire kilometer of brush to clear out from the back part of the property tonight.”

  “Hooray,” David muttered. “Will I have some help?”

  “Ja, you always do,” Piet answered.

  “But dinner first,” Kait said.

  “Well, let me help,” Camille said, making a move to get up.

  “You sit here,” Piet said, grinning, “and Kait and I will serve you both. A welcome meal, from the Namibians and all.”

  “Thank you,” Camille murmured, as she and David watched them both go into the kitchen, right across the hall.

  Camille watched them, all the unanswered questions still in her eyes.

  “So, that’s part of the story,” David whispered, scooting over closer to her so that she’d be able to hear his lowered voice.

  “Hmm,” she said, turning and giving him that beautiful, incredible smile again. Had she always been this beautiful?

  “I didn’t mean to be nosy,” she said, biting her lip. “Was I too nosy?”

  “Nah, you’re good,” he said. “I’ve asked some of the same questions.”

  “About why she’s still here and how the last missionaries left?” Camille asked.

  Nope. He hadn’t even thought about that, honestly.

  “No, more about why Piet puts up with her,” he said, barely concealing the laugh that came with this.

  Camille smiled wider at his words. “Is she hard to get along with?” she whispered.

  “She’s just really intense,” he said. “Always seems like she’s scheming. And then, you know, she’s been here for three years and won’t marry the guy.”

  Camille shook her head at this. “I can’t imagine,” she said. “I mean, obviously, they care about each other. Three years is a long time to be with someone and not...”

  David wondered at this. “Not what?”

  “Well, give your heart completely, of course,” she said, looking at him. “When clearly, he’s wanting her to. If it were me and I felt about him the way she does, I would’ve married him right away, promised him forever without any hesitation at all. Life is too short to waste time. And you just get older and older...” She stopped talking and looked back at the kitchen.

  He got that. In a removed way, since he’d never felt anything deep in any sense for any woman, apart from the infatuation he’d always felt as a teenager for...

  ... well, for the woman sitting right here with him.

  This was almost as distracting as the thoughts of her moving in to be his roommate. Almost, but not quite.

  “I don’t know what her issues are specifically,” David murmured, shifting his attention away from the way Camille smelled (wonderful, actually) and the way it felt as some of her hair just barely brushed his shoulder (amazing, actually), “but she’s got some hang ups about marriage, obviously. Although with all the time they spend together and how interwoven their lives are, it’s like they’re married anyway. Well, as married as two people can be living in separate houses with separate bank accounts. And his mother always there as their constant chaperone.”

  Camille watched them, even as Kait raised a bite to Piet’s mouth, and he took it, kissing her fingers, as she smiled at him and turned around to keep preparing something on the stove.

  More of the same from them. But seeing them this time made him look at Camille... made him think again about how beautiful she was, about how it would feel to kiss her fingers just like that.

  “Piet is okay with waiting,” David spoke softly, glancing away again, chiding himself for thinking such crazy things. “Loves her enough that he’s said he’ll wait forever if he has to.”

  And they watched Kait and Piet continue to fix dinner, as the night sounds in Tsumeb could be heard just outside.

  “Something genuine and true is worth waiting for, I guess,” Camille murmured.

  David simply nodded, wondering at the truth of this.