by Katie Crouch
“Do you have a business plan?” he asked her. What a fraud he was. As if he’d know a business plan if it landed in his beer.
“Sure,” Anna said. “People give me money, then I give them back more.”
“If you give me proof that I’ll make money, I have money to invest,” Mark said. His chest swelled with … was it elation? Hope? Was he just trying to distract himself from the fact that he’d finally found out that Esther really was dead? He couldn’t think about that. Amanda. How happy his wife would be when she found out he was making them money in Namibia, as well as working on his career.
“I can prove it, boomer,” Anna said. “Just try me.”
Mark gave Anna his credit card—well, Amanda’s, actually—and paid for the necklace. The girl handed him the package. It was an exquisite thing. His very future, one might say. Wrapped in gold paper, tied with a silver bow.
Fall
’N Aap wat ’n boom klim, sal jou dadelik van sy hoër posisie misbruik.
A monkey who climbs a tree will immediately abuse you from his higher position.
—Oshiwambo proverb
/ 11 /
Hi
Hi who are you with
Uni
Your unicorn???
Yeah. I line all my stuffies up in a row like they are a crowd and I talk to them.
Perhaps you need a pet
Yeah I want a dog but when you take them back to America they have to be cornitined.
My aunt Selma had a dog in Katutura and the neighbors ate it
????????
I found the things I was talking about this weekend at the farm. This will certainly work.
Why would anyone want them?
I do not know but according to google people do very very much
Wow. OK.
And the website is organised
Cool.
So you willC arrange the mailing Meg?
Yeah. Super easy. This is so great Mom will be so happy
I am glad your mom is pretty and kind
Your mom looks like a movie star
Yes she does she has been a model before in fashion shows
!!!!!
your mom is not pretty like that but she has a nice face and that is what we see first when we look at white people
?????
Its true my grandmother says so
What about my face
Girls all have meerkat faces. We don’t get our real faces until we bleed
?????
My grandmother again
Where is she?
North. Let’s talk behind the trampoline tmrw morning
Hearts and stars!!!!!!!!!!!!
Unicorn rainbows!!!!!!
/ 12 /
The thing was, Amanda was just not taking the embassy Leprechaun’s Leap seriously. And though Persephone was really coming to adore her new friend, her nonchalance toward embassy events bordered on … well … rude.
Kayla, who was unofficially in charge of all the children’s events, had questioned inviting little Meg at all. After all, it was at the ambassador’s residence. And Mark Evans was not officially with the embassy. Kayla had a point, of course. And there was still an open question, in Persephone’s mind, as to what had motivated Mark Evans to come to this country. The possibilities were endless. Just last month, a little Brazilian girl Lucy adored had to leave abruptly when her parents were extradited for fraud. And then there were the hundreds of thousands of (American!) dollars embezzled from the school by the brand-new Afrikaans accountant last year. Though Mark Evans had a nice face, and in Persephone’s experience, people with nice faces were generally not fraudulent.
In the end, Persephone had convinced Kayla that it would be cruel to deny little Meg the chance at new friends. It seemed that lately she was absolutely glued to the hip of that Taimi, which simply could not be in the embassy’s best interests. No one wanted the Americans mixed up in some sort of corruption scheme. Even though, Persephone supposed, Taimi herself could hardly be involved in her parents’ affairs. (Probably not, anyway.)
But when she asked Amanda at pickup what she was wearing to “the Leap” (the invite called for green or gold), Amanda said she hadn’t thought about it. Hadn’t thought about it! The event was in two hours. And when Persephone—ever calm!—had asked if little Meg wanted to borrow one of Lucy’s old leprechaun outfits (she had two from previous years) the answer was: “That’s okay, Meg’s got a green T-shirt, I think.”
At which point Persephone had given up.
What she had been trying to get at, albeit indirectly, was that she had gleaned some information from the other Trailing Spouses about Amanda’s husband and the job he was doing. Persephone wasn’t the only one onto him. Word was that the ambassador, Ms. Julia Spier, appointee by the White House under the Great Orange Oompa Loompa, was not impressed with Mark Evans’s work on the Nama situation so far.
It would make the Evanses’ heads spin, Persephone thought smugly as she carefully lined her own eyes with greenish-gold eye shadow, how quickly State Department privileges could be rescinded. No more red diplomatic license plates (though, honestly, Persephone had never been sure of the advantages of those), no more diplomatic passports (ditto, as State Department employees were discouraged from using them during recreational travel), and no more diplomatic pouch. (That was huge. Amazon Prime!)
In the name of her new friendship investment (Amanda!), Persephone herself had been trying to help the Evans family in a subtle fashion. The last thing she wanted was Mark getting fired; Amanda would hightail it back to California faster than you could say biltong. Therefore, during the last couple of days, she’d been dropping these little hints that Mr. and Mrs. Evans should kiss the ambo’s bottom just a teeny bit. As in, maybe little Meg might want to consider wearing something other than a “green T-shirt.”
But no. Amanda was not taking these indirect hints. Fine. It was what it was. Her family (minus Adam, who said he was “interviewing scholarship students in the north” but was obviously on some CIA trip) was now ready to roll at 4:45. The twins, dressed in green jackets and shorts complete with hats and boots—adorable!—and Lucy, glittering in gold, just like the pot at the end of the rainbow. Doni would cry if she saw how sharply her protégé was nailing it.
Without Adam (again! But she supposed she was serving her country), she loaded the girls into the 4Runner. It was just four blocks to the OR (Official Residence), so she didn’t bother with seat belts any more than she worried about the one to three glasses of champagne she’d had as dressing drinks. The children adored the lack of seat belt rules in Africa; once Persephone had made the huge Instagram mistake of showing them all frolicking in the back in the corner of a selfie, which had drawn a backhanded “like” from her sister (Soooo cute but the car seat thing is killing me!!xxx), as well as a light slap on the wrist from the ambo’s assistant and protocol advisor. But four diddling blocks! She could make it.
The street was already clogged with red-plated SUVs. Two security guards stood out front, waving their arms at the self-entitled diplomats in futile attempts to direct their parking. Persephone gave them a wave and a smile (she always treated car guards to tips, though not as outrageous as Amanda’s) and parked in her usual spot around the corner, where no one would admonish her for leaving her car on the sidewalk. She glossed her lips one last time and led her little green gnomes (wait, were gnomes different from leprechauns?) through the gate, again smiling at the inside guards who flanked the door wearing AK-47s.
The Big A. was at her usual station, by the door, greeting the guests.
“Miss Ambassador!” Persephone said, kissing both cheeks.
Sadly, Persephone and the ambassador were still not on a first-name basis. The ambassador was single, so Persephone obviously had to say Miss. Which made her feel like she was in a Little Miss Important storybook. She had met the Big A. a few times now, and was still waiting for her to say, Just call me Julia! After all, the Big A. called her Pers
ephone. It was the Frida problem, only backward.
The Big A. now granted what Persephone hoped was a warm handshake.
“Persephone. Don’t your little ones look lovely.”
The ambassador had no children herself. She was fifty-five, African American, spoke with a European accent no one could place, and had never been seen in anything but Armani suits, even on safaris and during outdoor events in the 120-degree Namibian heat. She wasn’t a career State Department employee. In fact, no one knew how she had been appointed to her post, though the question was so bandied about at informal gatherings that the very topic, in Persephone’s opinion, had become as tired as an over-sucked lollipop stick. All the embassy employees knew was that the Oompa Loompa had plopped her in there the year before, no questions answered or asked.
People liked the Big A. well enough, as she asked very little of her staff. She was often traveling with her assistant. No one knew where she went, and though there was much conjecture, no one really cared. She never fraternized, and if she did engage in conversation, it was rarely about Africa. What she really loved was food trivia, which meant all of the bum-nuzzlers were studying up on taste bud chemistry and the origin of pink salt.
Yet, for all of that trying, the Big A. seemed to have no real friends or anything resembling a partner. Her companions were two stunning Rhodesian ridgebacks, flown in from their previous post in Switzerland on their own plane. Naturally, it was discussed among the embassy community that perhaps a Rhodesian breed was inappropriate given their proximity to former Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. But the dogs had been acquired three years ago. How was she to know her choice of breed might be an international faux pas? As for kids, the ambassador always stared at them as if she’d forgotten such creatures existed, and that their very appearance in her vicinity was an unpleasant surprise. Which made things quite awkward when one went to a children’s party at her residence.
“Thank you for hosting,” said Persephone.
“Tradition!” the Big A. said. “Did you know, I didn’t even know why we did this instead of the Easter egg hunt? Just found out this year. I never even put together that Easter eggs had any religious significance themselves. But it turns out the eggs have some sort of ancient reference to the Christ figure.”
Persephone smiled politely.
“Whereas, St. Patrick’s Day is absolutely derived from a religious holiday. Saint Patrick, after all, drove the snakes out of Ireland and then was sainted for it, obviously. But the church never took ownership. This is a completely commercialized version. Important to have something for the children, I’ve been told. Now, where is Adam?”
Persephone, ever the pro, kept her game face. Obviously, the ambassador knew very well that Adam was on a secret mission. But hell’s bells if she couldn’t play this game.
“Oh, around!” she said loudly. The children were squirming behind her. “Thanks again for giving our little ones something fabulous to do!”
She pushed her leprechauns through the sitting rooms filled with breakable furniture and art, then herded them into the courtyard. The previous ambassador—Obama appointee, bird lover, and universally adored for serving very good wine—had opted to cover over the pool during one of Windhoek’s more serious droughts. The result was an enormous Olympic-sized patio that sizzled like the worlds’ largest grill-pan. From December to February, any event out there was lethal, but autumn had arrived, and from the steps to the house, Persephone could observe the embassy community as blatantly as if they had been on a stage.
There was Kayla in a green pantsuit. Shoshana wore gold exercise tights tucked into boots with a green jacket. Margo had on a dowdy little green dress and had fashioned some sort of crafty hat of green feathers. It did not look Irish or becoming, yet did indicate how she’d spent her free time today.
“Perse!” Shoshana crowed. “No white! For once! I like it.” Her voice dropped. “So, how are you guys surviving bidding season?”
One of two times of year when one could apply for open jobs, bidding season was a fraught period in the embassy community. It was stressful, and competitive, and the more graceful Trailers knew not to talk about it. Shoshana was not one of them.
“Oh, surviving just fine, thank you.”
“Adam put in for … what? Morocco? Paris?”
Persephone tried not to look annoyed, though Shoshana knew perfectly well Adam had applied for posts in South Africa, Germany, and Bermuda.
“We’re just waiting to see.”
“Me, dying over Brussels. Just dying. The I-School is ah-maz-ing there. Though the kids already speak French, so … maybe we’ll go local?”
“If you get it,” Persephone couldn’t help saying. No one was to hear about their posts until May.
“Yeah, well. I’m feeling pretty confident,” Shoshana said.
“Why? Did you hear something?”
Shoshana shrugged, suddenly maddeningly vague. Persephone spotted Mark and Amanda near the bird feeder, looking marooned. After all her worry, the pair looked perfectly respectable, she in a short green flowy dress, he in a tie with clovers.
“Well, I should—”
“I mean, I might have a back channel,” Shoshana said. “I can put in a word.”
Persephone had to physically restrain herself from rolling her eyes. What kind of back channel would Shoshana have that Persephone didn’t? Shoshana, who had a part-time job in the Facilities office, whose husband was in Public Affairs, for heaven’s sake? Especially as everyone knew the Big A. had no friends?
“Did I tell you I’ve been running with the ambo?” Shoshana cooed.
Wait. Running?
“Julia wants to run the Two Oceans…”
Julia?
“… but she has no idea how to train. Something about being able to try whatever food she wants. So I offered to help her,” Shoshana said. “We have an eight-week plan. I mean, it’s coming up, so she’s lucky she said something. She hadn’t even signed up.”
Every State Department member exercised. It was practically part of the job. As a way to socialize with someone who had no friends, it was perfect.
“Isn’t the marathon booked?” Persephone asked hopefully.
“She just had someone make a call,” Shoshana said. “And she got me a place, too, of course. It’s good to be friends with the queen!”
Thankfully, Amanda was waving now.
“I’ll see you in a bit, dear.” Persephone attempted to sail across the patio, but something caught her heel and at the end of her traverse she lurched into Mark. Over her shoulder, she thought she heard Shoshana giggle.
“Hello, there,” said Mark, righting her.
“Oh, hi,” said Persephone, taking the opportunity to get another good long look at Mark, the mysterious fake scholar. Amanda’s husband was tall and gangly, almost giraffe-like. A bit too good-looking to be a convincing historian, really. Too thin for her taste, but she’d always liked larger men. Beefy, even. Like Petrus, the Namibian IT manager from up north who serviced the embassy … Persephone had befriended Petrus because every Embassy Wife worth her salt knew that getting to know the IT man was key. Yes. Petrus, now, he was her real type. Such a large, strong man, and his voice boomed so. Being around him always made Persephone feel like a tiny, delicate doll …
Suddenly Persephone had quite a clear picture of climbing on top of Petrus’s mountainous form in her very own Garnet Hill–swathed bed.
Hold on. Petrus? Where did that thought come from? Because Adam, of course, was her ideal! Adam, with his chiseled pecs, his maddening abstinence from alcohol, his imported protein shakes. For some reason, she shuddered.
“Cold?” Mark asked.
“Spritzer went down the wrong way.”
“Huh.”
“Meg having a good time?”
“I think so. She’s over there.” Persephone looked in the direction where Amanda was pointing and spotted the gaggle of little girls, who were lounging with alarming ease on barstools. Meg was, i
ndeed, wearing a green T-shirt, but her manner was so offhand, Persephone had to admit she looked pretty cool next to the other fur-lined, trying-too-hard kids.
“I’ll get us some more wine,” Persephone said as she sailed to the bar, pretending to peruse the Big A.’s art choices (the administration had switched the paintings out as soon as she took up residence) while eavesdropping on the children. Which was hard to pull off, because Miss Ambassador favored very dull western landscapes.
“You should come to my house for a playdate,” Ali, Kayla’s daughter, was saying. “The nannies barely check on us at all and we have the awesomest pool because my dad’s, like, in charge of who gets the biggest house.”
“Yeah, but my house has a tennis court,” Alec, Shoshana’s son, said. “We totally did not have that in Turkey.”
“You have a pool, right, Meg?” Ali said.
“Yes,” Meg said.
“That’s pretty sweet, that you have a pool,” Lucy said.
Persephone felt the warmth of pride. Her girl was being nice!
“Though it’s sort of weird, because your dad isn’t really with the State Department. Right? I mean, he’s just, like, temporary.”
Oh dear. That was not as nice.
“We get to go somewhere new every three years,” Ali said. “Every house is better than the last.”
Persephone frowned. What the State Department trainings did not tell you about moving your family abroad, she mused, was that while you thought you were doing your children a great favor by exposing them to different cultures, they would also inevitably be steeped in an international Mean Girls-like reality show.
“I’m moving to France,” Alec said. “Everyone wants to be posted there.”
“Nah-uh. I heard you have to live in, like, an apartment.”
“What?”
“My best friend Abbie’s in Thailand. I wanna move there.”
“I’d just like to go home,” Meg said, soliciting hostile, awkward silence. Persephone turned away. Maybe little Taimi wasn’t such a bad match for her after all. Meg, like her mother, seemed determined not to be an embassy child. But then, if you had no State Department ambitions, why would you?