The waitress stops by our table and asks if we’d like anything else. Michael orders another Zambian beer. I’m good with the one I’ve got.
“She hauled you home with her?” Michael guesses as the waitress walks away.
“Yes. Talk about culture shock. One day I’m being home-schooled in the Cape and weeks later I’m in a boarding school in the Natal province— ” I break off. “But you know what culture shock is. You went from Bolivia to Los Angeles.”
“Never had to go to boarding school, though. What was it like?”
“Awful. I knew my dad had taught at boarding schools, but I hated having to live, eat, sleep at school. There were so many bells and rules and impossible standards for behavior. I celebrated my fifteenth birthday seven weeks after I arrived at Epworth, and it was the strangest, loneliest birthday.”
“Your grandmother must have come to see you.”
“She sent a card— ”
“Just a card?”
“We were strangers. She’d only just met me, and in her defense, I probably reminded her too much of my mom.”
I look at Michael then, and his expression is so serious and so concerned that I can’t bear it. I can’t have anyone feel anything for me because it just makes it hurt worse. “Don’t look at me like that. You’ll make me cry.”
He reaches out across the table, brushes hair from my cheek. “Tell me the story gets better.”
“I eventually landed in a California boarding school where I met two of my best friends, Marta and Shey. They made it better.”
“I imagine they’re good people,” he says.
I nod. “The best.”
The next song on the jukebox is Journey’s “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’.” I haven’t heard this one in so long, and I kind of smile.
Michael stands, extends his hand. “Let’s dance.”
I look around the restaurant of plain wood tables and metal chairs. A fabric wall hanging is tacked to the wall. It’d be cool if it were tribal art, but it’s an ugly black velvet painting of a horse pawing at the moon. “Here?”
He takes my hand and pulls me to my feet. “And now.” And that’s how we end up dancing for the next half hour.
Journey, Cher, Stevie Nicks, and Elvis Presley. We dance like we’re kids and it’s our senior prom, my arms around his neck, his arms around my lower back, and our feet barely moving.
The only difference between now and high school is that Michael doesn’t have a boy’s body and I’m very aware as we dance that he’s attracted to me.
It’s not until we’re in the car driving home that I remember that Howard and I leave for home tomorrow. I can’t believe I’ve forgotten until now, especially as earlier, when I was dressing, it was the only thing on my mind.
I feel a flicker of panic. What if this is the end of everything? I know Michael’s attracted to me. I know he enjoys my company. He also works just miles from my office. But that doesn’t mean this will continue back home. That doesn’t mean this is anything.
To be honest, I don’t know what this is. What if I’ve fallen for him and he’s just killing time with me? Isn’t that what he said about Alexis? She was just supposed to be fun, but then things got serious and he doesn’t do serious.
As if able to read my thoughts, Michael reaches out and touches the back of my head as he drives, his fingers tangling in my windblown curls before sliding to my cheek. He strokes my skin and then drops his hand. “I enjoyed tonight.”
I shiver at how sensitive he makes me feel. “I did, too.”
“You made this week special, Tiana. Thank you.”
I dart him a quick glance. He almost sounds as if he were the one leaving tomorrow. “Is this a good-bye?” I ask, and my voice suddenly trembles.
“I have a symposium in Cairo tomorrow night. I leave in the morning, and then it’s back to L.A. for me.” He glances at me. “How about you?”
“Lubwe tomorrow— if the weather’s good— and then on to Livingstone for a day, and then it’s home after that.”
“So we’re both leaving in the morning.”
Neither of us continues the conversation, and the silence stretches, engulfing us and the dark night. It’s still hot, and the Renault’s weak head beams barely make out the muddy, bumpy road in front of us. Driving to dinner, I felt so excited and optimistic. Everything had seemed magical. Now I’m just sad. What if this is good-bye?
I don’t want to think about it. I want to enjoy these last thirty, forty minutes together. Make this everything, I tell myself, make this drive everything you want it to be.
I focus on the moonlight and the wild dog that runs across the road. I breathe in the smell of the warm humid air and the warmer fragrant earth. I glance at Michael as he drives, and he catches my gaze and smiles crookedly back at me. And just like that, my heart hurts and my stomach does a somersault.
I’ve fallen for him so hard. I’ve fallen for him in a way I never expected to fall for anyone again.
We arrive at the community center sooner than I’d like. He turns off the engine. I smile brightly, inject a cheerful note into my voice as I swing open the car door. “Here we are, safe and sound.”
He’s come around to walk me to the door. “I wouldn’t use safe and sound to describe you,” he answers, taking my hand and assisting me out. “Ever.”
I take a step around a puddle, and then I’m not sure how it happens or who makes the first move, but suddenly there’s no distance between us, and his hands are in my hair, and I’m lifting my face to his, desperate to be kissed.
I have wanted him to kiss me since I arrived in Katete, and now I can think of nothing else. As his head dips, his gaze meets mine, and in the yellow light of the center, his blue eyes look stormy like the sea. I lean all the way in, press my lips to his, and feel his warm breath, and his firm skin, and nothing has felt this right in so long.
We kissed at the lodge in Big Bear, but that was different from this. That was liquor and adrenaline and nerves. This is need and emotion, and as his body presses against mine, his arm around my back holding me to him, I think, This is where I belong. This is where I should always be.
With his hand tangled in my hair, and I can’t seem to get enough of him or his mouth or tongue. I can’t remember when a man felt like this, can’t remember when a kiss and touch and taste made me want to curl up, hang on, and just give in.
Home. Kissing him is home.
I need you.
He deepens the kiss and the heat flares and I feel so much everywhere. My lips, my body, my heart. I want you.
No one since Keith has made me feel this way. I don’t even know if Keith made me feel this way. All I know is that I want to wrap my arms around him and hold tight, hold hard, hold forever, if only forever were true. If only forever could be.
The kiss ends eventually, and Michael lifts his head and looks down at me. He strokes my cheek with his thumb, and I can see the dark splinters against the blue of his eyes. The creases in his skin. The exhausted shadows beneath his eyes. The grooves at his mouth. The texture of his lips.
“Come inside,” I whisper. “Come to my room with me.”
Our eyes lock, and there is a universe there, an entire universe of communication. He cares for me, he wants me, but he’s not where I am. He doesn’t feel what I feel. The warmth in me goes.
“I can’t,” he says. “Not that I don’t want to— ”
“Understood. You don’t have to say more.”
He stands there, watching me run away. “I have feelings for you, very real, very strong feelings—”
“No. Don’t.” I shake my head, unwilling to let him continue. He told me twice in two days that the women in his life say he’s not there, not present, not communicative. The women in his life leave because he can’t make them a priority. He works too much. He’s too self-absorbed, too busy with his work and patients and career. “Let’s not go there. I don’t want to go there. I didn’t mean to start this in the first place
.”
He just looks at me, and I close my eyes at the hot, livid stab of pain. The hurt is so sharp and deep, I think he’s cut me. I was so close to falling in love again. So close to feeling safe again.
I take another step back, careful to avoid the next puddle. “Good-bye, Michael. Have a safe trip.”
His jaw shifts ever so slightly, and then his dark head inclines and he’s walking back to his car.
I go inside the guesthouse to my room and shut the door. I lean against the door for what seems like forever. But I don’t cry.