Embassy Wife

by Katie Crouch

  Amanda had garnered no expectations about college. It was Albert’s opinion that his good experience there was information enough for his daughter, so he did not see the point of spending the money on a college visit. Amanda arrived having never seen it. To her surprise, she loved the place on contact. The thrill of knowing that, for the next four years, it would be hers. She liked to walk around during the empty hours, categorizing her favorite pieces of it. The cold brick pressed against her knuckles. The dusty scars in the grass where the boys cut across the green to the dorm. The far-off echoes of shouted commands from the playing fields. The sight of soiled formal gowns in the morning. The way her ears burned in the New Hampshire wind.

  The work was harder than at her school in Charleston, but Amanda managed. Many students had trouble, she noticed, because of drinking. Alcohol held no novelty for Amanda; she’d been enjoying beer and wine with Albert since she was thirteen. As she had at home, she went to parties when she felt like it. She also slept with boys when she felt like it, then politely avoided them when they saw her on campus. Amanda was open to a college boyfriend, but she was the type of person who called things what they were, and the sex she was having seemed healthy but underwhelming. She was disappointed in these drunk fraternity brothers, with their grim dorm-bed techniques and fleeting attention spans.

  It quickly became apparent that she would need to get involved in a sport. Dartmouth was a sports school; Amanda had run track in Charleston, just to kill time, but here, not playing a sport was, if not a crime, an obvious missed opportunity. A boy who lived on her hall—another one-night, disappointing tryst, but at least he had a sense of humor—told her his crew boat was looking for a coxswain. He also knew, from his night with her, that Amanda was small, strong, and decisive, all crucial qualities for a woman in charge of directing eight rowers in a boat. He took her down to the boathouse and introduced her to Mark, the coach.

  Decades later, Amanda would muse that there were two or three moments in her life, tiny and crystalline as the tanzanite Mark would buy her in a jewelry shop, that caused her entire fate to pivot. One was her abandonment as an infant. The other was the death of her adopted mother. When Amanda Pruitt saw Mark Evans standing in front of the Dartmouth Boathouse by the Connecticut River, she knew right away that fate was turning monumentally once again.

  Mark Evans stood tall and alone on that wooden tongue of a floating dock, arms folded, his open flannel shirt fluttering behind. Crew boats streamed past, and the fall sun reflected silver off the usually mottled green river. Every once in a while he would raise an old megaphone to his red lips and call out directions; the words scudded out tinny and muddied over the water.

  “Pull. No … PULL,” he called. “And lean on the hammer!”

  How intoxicating it was, to see this beautiful boy-man controlling all those willing hands. He had an inherent possession of easy, Kennedy-like confidence. This sort of handsomeness was not rare at Dartmouth, but something else drew her, something deeper she could intuit from years of filling gaps and solving problems in her father’s house. Mark Evans would need her. Not yet, but soon.

  Amanda was born pragmatic. Waiting did not mean uselessness. It did not mean mooning over her coach or remaining idle until he gave a sign. That would be pathetic, and a waste of time. So she watched with detached interest while he wasted himself on blond Susannahs, Mary Beths, Whitneys. It didn’t bother her, and she made use of the time herself with a Bobby, a Shaheed, and a Graham—nice boys with crew bodies and bright futures. These boys liked Amanda, and their mothers loved her. Then, three years later, there Mark was, standing in front of a sandwich cooler in the town across the river, tears running down his face, fogging up a pair of glasses she had never seen before. Amanda loved those glasses instantly; they chipped away at the intimidating nature of his perfect looks. It was those glasses, in fact, that gave her the courage to offer dinner.

  “Sure,” he’d said. “Let’s go.” When he looked at her, she felt a stirring. The cinders in her chest were crackling into something dangerous. Life is starting, she’d thought as Mark Evans wrapped his big hand around hers. It’s time.

  And life had started, hadn’t it? Amanda thought now as she navigated toward the school. Life with Mark, at least for the first decade, had been exactly what she’d always wanted. There was travel, and sex, and shacking up in a Bernal Heights apartment. There was a wedding Albert was uncharacteristically generous over. It was hard to remember now all of the right things, because they had come so easily. Good-looking, athletic friends, progressive dinner parties, trips to Lake Tahoe. A move to the South Bay, the birth of Meg, Amanda’s new job, Mark’s teaching. More money had followed, just the way it was supposed to, right? She didn’t want to be flippant about it, but it was all part of the expected trajectory. As was success. As was happiness. The aging process was inevitable, but it would be softened by just enough Botox and the right schedule of relentless workouts. What wouldn’t change was her love for Mark. She had waited for him. She was his person.

  And yet. Something had been happening to her. It wasn’t just that she was pissed off because he’d made her give up her job and move to a sun-beaten African desert. Sometime in the last two or three years, she had begun fantasizing about his death. Not a murder, of course. Nor anything as painful and slow as cancer. A quick biking accident, perhaps, where he felt nothing. A freak sailing snafu.

  She didn’t know when it had started, exactly. Was it when he completely stopped giving a shit about his job? Or when it suddenly occurred to her that perhaps he’d never truly cared about history at all? No books around the house, no trips to France to track down the World War II families he was supposedly writing about … And then there was one evening when he’d missed dinner, and she hadn’t cared. Then it happened again, and she found she was actually relieved. No, glad.

  In fact, if they missed each other because he was out for a row or she had a late meeting, she found that she was grateful. His stories about the history department were narcissistic and mind-numbing, she started noticing. And everything he said to Meg was pretty much just wrong. No longer endearing to her was the way he was always late, or how he forgot his wallet when he was taking her to dinner, or his fits about finding his keys, only to discover sheepishly that they were in his pocket. In fact, these incidents were causing a curious reaction on her skin. Hives. She was becoming allergic to her husband.

  She knew she would never go as far as leaving. Amanda Evans, who had come very close to having no family, knew full well how invaluable it was to have managed to build one. But a painless, convenient death, leaving her and Meg free to live a cozy life of reading in bed and girl trips to Mexico and Europe? Not to mention freedom from Mark’s family and whatever was supposed to happen once he actually got his PhD and was able to find a job only in somewhere like Bumblefuck, Idaho? It intruded on her thoughts often enough to erode the very shame of it.

  Amanda, nothing if not a problem-solver, knew there was surely a way to get back to the old place again. There was a time when she’d lie in her room at Dartmouth, pressing her legs together as she thought about peeling Mark Evans down to the skin. It wasn’t a different person who did that. It was just a version of herself who needed some layers chipped away.

  So this wasn’t a burning problem, she’d told herself. She could get back to where she’d been. She could. It was part of the reason she’d said yes to Namibia in the first place. Only now everything was going wrong here, too, and here she was, sitting in the reception area of the International School, having pointedly left her husband behind because his competitive nature would inevitably fuck everything up.

  Amanda shifted nervously on the reception-area couch, which was not as cheap as one would have expected. She looked at her watch—10:29. Albert had taught her that successful people were always early. Not on time, not late, but early, and well prepared. “This gives you the advantage of intolerance,” he’d told her once. Albert’s tips were the most usef
ul of her life, more relevant than pretty much anything she’d learned in her online business school classes. Be early, and always call people back.

  At 10:30 on the dot, Headmaster Pierre popped his head out. That was another surprising aspect of Namibia: Unlike the adages she’d heard about “Africa time,” appointments in Windhoek were highly punctual. Perhaps it was a residual from the German colonial era, she thought. That, good beer, and weird-looking sausages.

  “Hello, there, Mrs. Evans,” he said. “Looks like Mrs. Shilongo isn’t here yet. Ha ha … we—ahem—can’t exactly start without her … so … do you mind waiting?”

  His face was flushed and round and lovable, like a Disney hound dog. She could hear her father telling her to feign intolerance, but scolding this man would have been like beating a kitten.

  “I suppose we’ll have to wait,” Amanda said, trying to sound stern. “If we’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

  The headmaster nodded and backed into his office. From the reception desk, Petra shot Amanda a reproachful look. Amanda was confused for a moment, before remembering one of Persephone’s nuggets of “non-gossip.”

  (“I’m not saying I know anything,” her new friend had said. “But the headmaster and Petra are most definitely having an affair.”)

  Suddenly Amanda heard a blast of sirens. Not one, but at least three of them. She shot up from the sofa and went to the door. As the wailing got louder and louder, Amanda gripped the counter and turned to Petra, who wasn’t even looking up from her desktop.

  “What’s happening?” she gasped. “Is there an emergency?” The receptionist didn’t answer, but simply shook her head, bored. Amanda watched, transfixed, as two screeching police cars, followed by a black Land Rover, tore into the parking lot, synchronized as fighter jets. When they screeched to a halt, still in formation, she could see children’s faces popping into the classroom windows.

  Headmaster Pierre appeared beside Amanda’s shoulder. “That’ll be Mrs. Shilongo,” he said brightly.

  The driver of a Land Rover jumped out—a Secret Service type with a not-so-secret pistol in his belt—then circled the vehicle and opened the passenger door. Amanda herself had dressed up for the occasion, wearing her very best Silicon Valley Prada armor. But when Mila Shilongo stepped out of her vehicle, the woman looked as though she were headed to St. George’s Chapel at Windsor as Meghan Markle’s personal wedding guest. Mrs. Shilongo had graduated from the short shift modeled the other day to an ankle-length dress of the most beautiful African material Amanda had ever seen—a kaleidoscope of blues and violets, shot through with what looked like real silver thread. Like the other dress Amanda had seen her wearing, this had clearly been tailored just for Mila, and—who knew?—had perhaps been sewn on her body that very morning. Though it didn’t matter what this woman wore. In dirty jeans and a flannel shirt, she’d still be the most astonishingly lovely thing Amanda would see that day. Or year, for that matter.

  Amanda wasn’t intimidated by beauty, as Persephone seemed to be. Instead, she was interested by it. Prettiness was an advantage Amanda would never have. She’d done well without it; indeed, at places like Dartmouth and Silicon Valley, it might have even gotten in her way. She’d always appreciated being average, if not forgettable. So it was fascinating to her how people seemed to physically melt as this woman came closer. The security guards seemed impervious behind their dark glasses, but she could feel the headmaster beginning to quiver, could sense the receptionist’s irate aura grow even heavier. As for Amanda, she continued to appreciate the works of natural art that were Mila’s perfectly symmetrical cheekbones, shoulders, and eyes.

  Mila didn’t bother to close the car door, as there were four men waiting to do it for her. As she strode up the cracked cement path, they stood aside, holding their weapons loosely. Six feet from the entrance, Mila paused and put her hand out. One of the guards stepped forward and she leaned down, her obsidian curls spilling over as she adjusted a delicate strap on her golden shoe.

  Jesus, Amanda thought. Or actually, once again, she must have thought it out loud, because Headmaster Pierre murmured in agreement.

  Both of them backed up as Mrs. Shilongo entered a few moments later, pressing neatly against the wall to allow her progress. She smelled of jasmine and sugar and everything in the world that was delicious.

  “Ladies!” the headmaster said, recovering. “Welcome! Please … step into my office.”

  Amanda could feel Petra’s withering gaze. Trying to gain some ground, she stepped forward and entered first, claiming the armchair closest to the headmaster’s desk—zebra hide. Mrs. Shilongo entered behind her, standing in the middle of the room. She didn’t sit immediately, choosing instead to tower over Amanda until the headmaster had himself settled.

  “I am Mila Shilongo,” she announced, offering her hand. The diamonds were massive. From Amanda’s awkward angle, the gesture might have suggested that Amanda should kiss her fingers, royalty-style. Instead she jumped up and gave her best American handshake.

  “We’ve met, actually. I’m Amanda. How are you?” Mila didn’t answer, but pressed her fingers in a series of complicated ways—the Oshiwambo hand greeting. Only then did she adjust her skirt to lower herself into the free chair.

  “Well,” Headmaster Pierre said. “Ladies! Obviously, this is not the most positive of pretexts for a meeting. But I am quite happy—quite happy—that you have both agreed to be here. To discuss … the incident.”

  “Yes,” Amanda said, sitting up as straight as she could. “I just wanted to clear up—”

  “Mrs. Evans,” Mila Shilongo interrupted. “I am here to say that I am very sorry.”

  Headmaster Pierre and Amanda looked at each other in surprise.

  “Amanda. May I call you that? Good. Yes. Amanda. Our children were playing. And you cannot help sometimes that your girl is overcome by sin. It happens to all children.”

  “Sin?”

  “Well,” the headmaster said. “Let’s—”

  “I am not saying only your daughter. Taimi is possessed by him, too. It’s sin. Satan in the play yard. He took our girls, and he played his tricks. The only way to defeat him is to catch him out.”

  Amanda tried to focus on the Big Five diorama on Pierre’s desk.

  “You know, Headmaster,” Mila continued, “it is silly to have a meeting without the girls here. We were not there, so how can we know what it was the devil made them do? I think they should come. Yes. Good, then. Bring them here.” Mila rose and pulled the door open. “You there! We need Taimi Shilongo! Go and get her. And bring the Evans girl, too!”

  Amanda sank down, listening to the slow, angry creak of Petra’s chair.

  “Excuse me?” the receptionist said incredulously. Petra was old-school Afrikaans, the type who grew up during apartheid and was perfectly happy going to the beach with only people of her skin color, thank you very much. Amanda guessed she had never received an order by a Black African in her life.

  “Taimi Shilongo and…” And with that, Mila turned and looked at Amanda, eyebrows raised.

  “Meg?” Amanda offered in a small voice.

  “Meg. Evans. Grade three. Now, not now-now. Thank you.” Mila spun around again and sank back into her throne, failing to notice as Headmaster Pierre sprinted out into the hallway to try to repair the damage. The door slammed behind him, and the two women sat quietly for several awkward moments. Then Mila turned her body toward Amanda, unleashing a mind-blowing smile.

  “You are from the United States?”

  “Yes.” Amanda nodded vigorously. “California.”

  “Very nice,” Mila confirmed. “We have been, of course. Two times. You live near Disneyland.”

  “Well, that’s Southern California. We’re—”

  “Do you like Namibia?”

  Amanda paused to consider the question in light of the day she was having so far. “Not very much,” she said.

  Mila stared at her, and Amanda braced herself, waiting
for the oncoming wrath. But then Taimi’s mother threw back her head and laughed. The sound was full-throated and generous. It felt like warm afternoon sunlight.

  “Yes. What’s to like? There are no trees. It is much too hot, then much too cold. There is nothing to do. There is no water.”

  “Well. I like the animals.”

  “Is it?” Mila said, raising her eyebrows. “Then you must come to our farm. It’s up north. We keep all of them there. Giraffes, lions. It is very famous. You’ll come.”

  I will? Amanda wondered.

  “Ah. But I hear the girls coming. Let’s not make too much of this, now. Let’s just clear this up and move on, yeah?”

  “Easier said than done,” grumbled Headmaster Pierre as he returned, his face still flushed from running to fetch the students. Taimi bounced in now, followed by Meg, who shuffled behind her, looking down at the floor. Amanda felt her heart twist in her chest as she took in Meg’s wilted hat, her downturned mouth, her sunburned arms.

  Fuck Mark, she thought, her breath growing short with fury. Fuck him for bringing us to this miserable place.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Petra stalk to the door and slam it shut on them all. There was nowhere for the girls to sit, so instead they stood in front of the headmaster, vulnerable as subjects on trial.

  “Well, girls,” Headmaster Pierre began, “I just wanted to get a sense of what might have happened yesterday.”

  “I said something that made her very angry,” Taimi said.

  “I thought you were playing Ministers,” Mila said. “What would make her angry about that?”

  “We were,” Taimi said. “But then I asked about other families.”

  “Other … families?” Amanda repeated.