“You’re divorced?” I’m surprised, and I don’t know why. “How long ago?”
“Seven years.”
I look at him, trying to imagine him married, wondering what kind of husband he’d be. And having observed him in action here in Zambia, I think he would have been a good husband. A kind one. Patient, too. I’ve never once heard him raise his voice, and even when frustrated, he keeps his cool. “Did you like being married?”
Lines form on either side of his mouth as his lips compress. “No.”
“Why not?”
One of his eyebrows lifts. “Am I being interviewed?”
“I think so.”
He glances at me. “Turnabout is fair play. For every question you ask me, I get to ask one in return.”
“Fine. Later. After my turn.”
“Something tells me you could be ruthless as an interviewer.”
“Well, we can’t all be Yahtzee champions.”
He laughs, and the warm glow in me just grows.
“So why didn’t you like being married?” I repeat my question, as I know there’s more to the story and I want the real story.
“I’m a better doctor than husband. My former wife would agree with Alex on a number of things. I’m not good at communicating, sharing, or letting people in. Oh, and I work too much.”
I look at him for a long time, trying to see beneath the darkened jaw and shadowed eyes. There’s a very complex man beneath the thick hair and solid bone structure.
I like this man. Even if his wife said he worked too much.
He probably did.
But I still like him, and I liked Keith even though he worked too much.
Hell, I work too much.
“I imagine she was beautiful,” I say, my arm resting on the car door. Men are visual, and they sometimes fall with their eyes instead of their hearts.
“She was,” he agrees flatly.
“Another aspiring actress, or a model?”
The corner of his mouth tugs. “A model who aspired to be an actress.”
“The perfect combination.”
Michael’s eyes laugh, and little lines fan at the corners, deep creases that extend all the way to his temple.
I like his smile. And I like that his face isn’t as smooth and perfect as I first thought it was. “You don’t Botox, Dr. Hollywood?”
He reaches up to rub at his creases. “My nurses tell me I should. They say it’s bad for business not to.”
“I don’t think your business is suffering too badly if there’s a thirteen-month waiting list just to get in to see you.”
His eyes crease again, and as he glances at me there’s a light in them, as though he’s swallowed a beacon and it’s shining through him.
He’s kind of magical, isn’t he?
My heart turns over and I suddenly wish we could have a fresh start. That I was less banged up by life so that I could have met him with a young heart. I would have liked him sooner, faster.
“A penny for your thoughts,” he says.
The light is still in his eyes, and he makes sense to me in a way no other man has since Keith. I can’t help thinking that this is the man for me. That this is the man I want. This is the man I need.
My eyes suddenly burn, and the lump of emotion threatens to swallow me whole. “You make me wish I were younger,” I say honestly, tired of pretending all the time, tired of keeping the game face on.
“But we probably wouldn’t have gotten along if either of us were younger. You certainly wouldn’t have liked me ten years ago. Getting knocked around a bit has taught me humility and forgiveness.”
“You’re humble?”
He grimaces. “Compared to the old days? Yes.”
My eyes widen. I can’t even imagine how horrible he must have been, but before I can ask him about the “old days,” he changes the subject.
“Remember the little boy you were so worried about?” he asks. “Paul and I have been working on getting him the help he needs. The boy and his dad are already in Lusaka at the University Teaching Hospital— ”
“Paul’s hospital?” I interrupt.
He nods. “And if Paul and his team can’t help him, we’ll send him to Johannesburg.”
“He’s going to be okay?”
“Yes.”
“His care— ”
“It’s covered.”
“By whom?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
I know then it’s Michael who played angel. My throat burns and my chest aches and I can’t even articulate what I’m feeling. “Thank you,” I whisper.
Michael just nods.
* * *
We arrive at a squat concrete building with a rusting metal roof. Michael shifts into park and turns off the engine.
The restaurant doesn’t look much different from the center where I’m staying, and they, too, serve food. If we’d stayed there, we wouldn’t have had to bounce along a muddy, treacherous road for an hour; but then if we’d stayed there, we would probably have been joined by the doctors staying at the center.
The interior of the restaurant is marginally more inviting than the exterior, although back home it’d be called decrepit, and that’s relatively polite.
The restaurant’s empty except for two old men sitting by the door. I know why they’re by the door once we’re seated. They’re trying to get a breeze.
Perspiration beads on my skin, and I pick up my menu and use it to fan myself.
“The doctor who recommended the place said the food was good. He didn’t mention the heat,” Michael says with a glance at his menu.
“It’s fine,” I assure him. “I won’t melt.”
“That’s probably because you’re not wearing any makeup anymore.”
“I guess I should have put on something more than lip gloss and mascara.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. Your foundation hides your freckles.”
“I hate my freckles.”
“I don’t, and I’m the one looking at you.” He cocks his head, studies me. “Did you like being married?”
“Yes.”
“What was he like?”
I smile a little wistfully. “He was a good man. Smart, brave, creative, driven. And yes, I liked being married, but he died before our first anniversary, so I guess I don’t really know what marriage is like. I was still in the honeymoon stage.”
“Some people stay in the honeymoon stage.”
“You think?”
His shoulders shift. “My parents did. My father adored my mother to the very end.” Then he gets to his feet and heads to the very old jukebox in the corner.
I watch Michael drop in some coins and then p
unch his selections. The first song is “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson, and as Michael returns to the table, I’m smiling. “Is this your kind of music?” I tease.
“There’s not a lot to choose from.”
“Not complaining.”
I thought music signaled a change in mood, but Michael continues our rather serious conversation into dinner. As we eat, he asks about my mysterious past.
I take a sip from my glass of Zambian beer. The beer is warm. They don’t serve many drinks cold here, as electricity is too expensive. “Why do you call it mysterious?”
“Your bio always starts with you graduating from Stanford. There’s no mention of your life before. I now know your mom died when you were fourteen, but where did you grow up? What about the rest of your family? Where are they now?”
This is going to get depressing fast. “I didn’t have your normal American childhood. You like to call me Ms. America. Well, my mother was Miss South Africa. The real one.”
I concentrate on the broken lights of the jukebox as I collect my thoughts. “She was at Miss World in New Zealand when she met my dad. He was an American teacher, traveling. They fell in love and returned to the Cape, where he found a teaching job and she stayed home and had babies. Three babies, all girls. I was the middle one.”
“And I thought my childhood was idyllic.”
I smile at him, and then my smile fades as I wonder how to tell the next part, the not so idyllic part. “Just months before my fifteenth birthday there was an accident.” I stop. “Everybody died. Everybody but me.”
His brow creases. “How?”
“I was the only one not wearing a seat belt and I was thrown from the car. Everyone else, buckled safely, died.” I’m staring hard at the red letters on the bottle. “How ironic that my act of teenage rebellion— refusing to put on my seat belt— saved my life.” How ironic that everyone else who’d done the right thing perished.
“You lost everyone?” Michael’s voice is filled with disbelief. “Mother, father, sisters?”
“All four.”
“Where did you go?”
“For the first week after the accident I stayed with neighbors while people struggled to get funeral arrangements made. And then Grandmother, my mother’s mother, arrived from Pietermaritzburg. I didn’t even know she was my grandmother. She was tall and serious, rich and scary.” I look at Michael, make a face. “We took an instant dislike to each other, which didn’t help the grieving process.”