by Leylah Attar
“That was . . .” He cleared his throat and pointed to the lift. “That was me, so floored by the sight of you, I forgot to get out.” His gaze roved over me again. “You look . . .” He shook his head and tried again. “Wow. You’re spectacular.”
“You look pretty hot yourself,” I replied. His hair was still wild and unruly, but he’d made concessions. He’d trimmed his beard. I could almost make out the outline of his jaw.
He was the kind of handsome that made your heart twist.
“Do I pass?” His eyes sparkled at my unabashed perusal.
“Not sure if the boots go with that fine ensemble, but you’ll do.”
“Hey, at least I wore shoes. My date showed up barefoot.” He crossed the floor and took the heels from my hands. “May I?” He knelt before me and slipped on one shoe, and then the other. My heart took a perilous leap as he brushed his fingers over my ankle before he straightened.
“Ready?” He offered his arm.
I linked my arm through his, and we turned to find every eye in the lobby on us. We’d forgotten there were people around, people who were watching us.
“I feel so overdressed,” I whispered.
“They’re not staring because you’re overdressed. They’re staring because they can’t help it. Because you’re breathtaking. I booked us a table at the restaurant, but now I’m not so sure I want all these people ogling you.” He led me across the lobby to the entrance of the restaurant.
“Deal with it,” I teased over my shoulder, as the maître d’ led us to our table. It was a beautiful dining room—safari-themed, with splashes of crimson and warm wood. Local art adorned the walls. Starched, white cloths covered candlelit tables. “I didn’t spend all that time getting ready, for room service.” I yelped as Jack gave me a sharp, discreet smack on my bum.
“Everything okay?” asked the maître d’. He was an older gentleman, with a thick, groomed mustache and deep lines on his forehead.
“Everything’s fine, Njoroge. Thank you.” Jack slid the chair out for me before seating himself.
“Good to see you, Mr. Warden. It’s been a while,” Njoroge replied, handing us the menus. “I’ll send someone over to take your order right away.”
We sat in silence after he left. I flipped the pages back and forth, not really reading the choices.
“What’s wrong?” Jack lowered my menu so he could see my face.
“Nothing, just . . .” I shook my head. I was being petty, and I didn’t want to spoil our evening. “It’s nothing.”
Jack took my menu away and pinned me down with his steely blues.
“Could we not . . .” I crossed my legs under the table. “Could we just . . .”
His expression didn’t waver.
“Fine.” I sighed. “You used to bring Sarah here.” I had forgotten all about it until Jack had addressed the maître d’ by name.
“I did.” His face was set in watchful dignity. “The last time I came here with my ex was six years ago. We sat at that table.” He tilted his head toward the window. “When we left, we both knew it was over. I haven’t been back since. It doesn’t exactly bring back good memories. But you know what, Rodel?” He reached across the table for my hand. “Everything is new when I’m with you. Food tastes better. Colors look brighter. Music is sweeter. I feel hungry for the world again. I want to go to the places I’ve skipped, I want to share them with you—show you who I am, who I was, who I can be.
“I’m here, Rodel, not because I like the sugar cookies they leave on my pillow, or the Steak freakin’ Diane on the menu. I’m here, in a restaurant full of people, with you, because I can’t afford to fall apart, because the thought of you leaving is killing me, so I’m focusing on creating as many beautiful, grand moments as I can for you. I can’t give you much else, but I can give you that. And I can’t fathom—not for an instant—why you’d be sitting across from me and thinking of my ex, because I sure as hell wasn’t. When I’m with you, Rodel, I’m all with you.”
He’d done it again—sent that ticker tape of emotions all over the place. I felt big and small all at once, like I was holding stars in one hand but sifting through gunk with the other.
“I’m sorry,” I said in a low, tormented voice. “I’m sorry I’m ruining our evening.” A stab of guilt lay buried in my breast, but there was something more, something I was stifling underneath it all. I wanted him to tell me he loved me. I wanted to hear the words. That was the real reason I was acting like a jerk, and I didn’t like the way it made me feel. “And just so we’re clear,” I teased him with my eyes, “I really like those sugar cookies. They’re shaped like tulips, and they taste like heaven.”
Jack seemed caught off guard by the quick turnaround, but he threw me an amused glance. His smile had the feeling of indefinable rightness.
“We’d like two dozen of your sugar cookies,” he said, when the waiter came to get our order. “To go.”
“Yes, sir. Anything else I can get for you?”
“No, that will be all.”
“That’s it?” I exclaimed, when the waiter was gone. “That’s what you’re going to feed me? Cookies, on my last night here?” I snatched my hand away from his and feigned outrage. “What about all the beautiful, grand moments? You can’t create those on an empty stomach. I think—”
He hushed me with a long, tapered finger on my lips. “Too many words. Too much talking. If I wanted to talk, I’d have invited Bahati instead.” He picked up the ribbon-adorned box of cookies that the waiter brought and came around to get my chair. “You ready to leave?”
My skin tingled where he touched it.
Hell, yes. Let’s go.
But I sniffed as he steered me out of the restaurant. “That was a cheap date.”
“Quit complaining. You didn’t want to eat there anyway.”
“Wait.” I said, when he handed the valet his parking ticket. “I thought we were going to our room. Where are you taking me?”
“On a cheap date.” He winked, seating me in the car when it came around.
We drove away from the hotel and merged into the chaotic traffic of Amosha. The sky was aflame with hues of red and orange from the setting sun. A truck with giant megaphones rattled by us, blaring advertisements in Swahili. Shopkeepers waved phone cards and colorful swathes of kangas as people walked by.
Jack parked outside a sorry looking food stall, off the main road. Its fluorescent light buzzed on and off under a rusty roof. “Kilimanjaro Premium Lager” logos hung from the ceiling, held together by clothes pegs on twine. A row of black woks hovered over flames in the front, hissing and bubbling with oil. Battered plastic chairs rested around plastic tables on an uneven floor—half dirt, half gravel.
“Come on.” Jack came around and held the car door open for me. “Best nyama choma in town.”
“What’s nyama choma?”
“Grilled meat.” He steadied me as my heel got stuck in the gravel.
“We are definitely overdressed for this place,” I said. Faint fumes of petroleum wafted in from the gas station next to the stall. Dala dalas raced by with abandon, and women in bright kangas strolled by, carrying all sorts of food on their heads.
“Jambo,” the waitress greeted us. She was so busy she wouldn’t have batted an eye if we’d shown up in burlap sacks. “What can I get for you?”
“Coca Cola, baridi,” said Jack.
“Umm . . .” I looked around when the waitress turned to me. “Is there a menu?”
“A Stoney Tangawizi for her,” said Jack. He reeled off a bunch of things in Swahili, before sitting back with a grin.
“I have no idea what I’m about to eat. And you’re enjoying it, aren’t you?”
“Having you totally at my mercy?” said Jack, when the waitress brought our drink order. “You bet. Tonight, you dine like a local. None of the touristy frills.” There was a mischievous glint in his eyes as he slid a brown glass bottle across the table, his fingers marking the droplets of condensation th
at clung to its surface. “Take it slow, baby.”
I turned the label toward me, but it didn’t give anything away. “What is Stoney Tangawizi?” I asked.
“Tanzanian ginger beer.”
“Ginger beer? Pfft.” I rolled my eyes and took a healthy swig, tilting my head back.
The burning sensation began while I was still swallowing. Hot, effervescent bubbles tickled my nose. My tongue started zinging. The back of my throat caught fire. I slammed the bottle down, tears streaming from my eyes. “The fuck!” I inhaled. Big mistake. It set me off on a coughing spree. More tears. More spluttering. It was ginger on steroids—sweet, bubbly, and fermented, with a pungent kick. And it was good, so good that I took another sip as soon as I’d caught my breath, but this time more slowly.
“Like it?” Jack leaned over and ran his thumb under my eye. It came away black and smudged.
“Great. My mascara is running. I must look like a raccoon.” I dabbed my eyes with a napkin to take it off.
“You look exactly the way I’d want you to look after I’ve made mad, passionate love to you. Except that dress would be on the floor and you’d be wearing nothing but a smile.”
It was a heady brand of foreplay, exchanged in the middle of all the noise, the people, the traffic around us. I blinked, flushed and a little lightheaded.
“Mishkaki wa kuku, samaki ndizi, mbuzi mbavu choma, ugali, maharagwe . . .” I didn’t catch the rest of what the waitress said as she placed heaping platters of food on our table. She held a kettle over a wash bin so we could rinse our hands with warm water before eating.
It was a feast fit for the gods, and it smelled just as incredible: crispy fried fish and plantain, boneless cubes of chicken on wooden skewers with pili-pili sauce, goat ribs so tender that the meat fell clean off the bone, leaving charred bits of salt and chili to savor, a polenta-like dish to counter the flavors exploding in my mouth; bean stew, tamarind sauce, and sips of ginger beer to wash it all down with.
“Leta chipsi,” said Jack to the waitress, as I mopped up the last of the plantain. There was no cutlery, so I had to lick the sauce off my fingers.
“So chipsi is chips?” I asked, when she brought us a plate of sizzling french fries.
“Yes, you just add the i at the end. A lot of English words get assimilated into the local dialect like that.”
I nodded, watching two school-aged boys rinse dirty plates by the side of the road before bringing them back to the kiosk. Somewhere across the busy streets, evening prayers blared from a nearby mosque.
“Ready to go?” asked Jack, summoning the waitress as I sat back, staring at the empty plates before us. We’d managed to demolish everything on the table.
“Wait. I’ve got this,” I said, turning to her. “Leta billi.”
If chips was chipsi, then bill must be billi. I held my breath, wondering if I’d gotten it right.
“Yes, madam,” she said. And off she went.
“I’m getting the hang of it.” I shot Jack a victorious grin. It didn’t last too long.
The waitress returned with a man by her side. He wiped his rough, wizened hands on his apron and looked at me expectantly.
“You asked for Billy,” the waitress prompted after a few awkward ticks, where I glanced from her to him and back again.
“I’m sorry. I meant the bill.”
Billy muttered something in Swahili and stomped off. He was clearly not pleased at having been called away from his grill.
“Would you like to practice your Swahili some more, or shall we get goingi?” Jack teased, as he paid our bill.
I exited as gracefully as I could, my heels getting stuck in the gravel just twice. I waved at Billy from the car. Billy did not wave back.
Jack and I kept a straight face as we waited for someone to let us merge back into the street. Then we burst out laughing. Around us, horns honked. Night markets passed by in a blur of kerosene lamps and bargaining. A canopy of stars materialized as we drove away from the heated haze of Amosha.
“Where are we going?” I asked, when Jack turned onto a moon-bleached path between silver cornfields.
“Right . . . here.” He stopped, backed the car up into a clearing, and turned the engine off. “Come on,” he said, grabbing the box of sugar cookies from the back seat and getting out.
The air was thick and warm with the fragrance of night jasmine. There was a gentle humming around us, like a swarm of bees.
“What’s that sound?” I asked, kicking off my heels and following Jack to the back of the car. The grass was suede soft and silent under my feet. “It reminds me of . . .” I trailed off as I followed his gaze.
We were parked by the edge of a stream. A small waterfall cascaded over the rocks on the other side. Silver threads fused and spilled over a gravelly bed in whirls of foam. The moon hung silently above, casting a honeyed sheen over the trees.
“It’s so beautiful here,” I said. The gurgling, the swishing, the sparkles of shimmering spray—it was like having front row tickets to an illusory concert.
“A beautiful place for a beautiful girl.” Jack caressed my cheek. His face held an irrefutable sensuality, but in the moonlight he positively slayed me.
He opened the rear door of his Land Rover and we sat there, my head on his shoulder, our legs dangling out of the trunk as we watched the silky fall of water break over the gleaming rocks. He fed me tulip-shaped cookies, and I breathed in his skin-warmed scent. For a while, it seemed like time had stopped forever. The stars marched across the sky, galaxies whirled around us, and yet we sat still and suspended, not wanting to shatter the magic. It was the kind of magic that comes after a lifetime of searching, when you stumble upon something so perfect, you stop looking, and you say: Yes. This. I know this. I feel this. I’ve heard its footsteps echo down the hallways of my soul.
We turned to each other with kisses that were soft and greedy, reverent and selfish—each one like a pressed daisy to be hidden between the pages of our story. Falling in love with something that can never be is like piercing yourself with a honey-dipped dagger. Over and over again. It’s sharp and sweet, beautiful and sad, and you don’t always know which when you cry.
“No.” Jack kissed the damp corner of my eye. “This is not how I want to remember you. It’s not how I want you to remember us.”
“Then how? How will you remember me when I’m gone?”
“Like this.” He slid the straps of my dress off, first one, then the other. “Your shoulders gleaming in the moonlight. Crystals of sugar on your lips.” He brushed his mouth against mine, his tongue tasting the remnants of the cookies he’d fed me. “Your hair, like ribbons of satin over my palms. The thrill of undressing you. Like this.” He slid the zip down my dress, exposing my flesh, goosebump by goosebump. “The feel of you in my arms, the way your lids drop over your eyes when I bite you here.” His teeth grazed a spot under my ear where my jaw met my neck. “I will remember the perfect oval of your face, the warmth of your throat, the way you hold a pen when you write. Most of all . . .” He cupped my chin, his eyes roving over my upturned face. “I will remember a strange, beautiful girl who liked the feel of old books and drank her coffee sweet. She snuck onto my porch on a gray day and taught me to see in color. She was a thief, my rainbow-haloed girl. When she left, she took my heart. And if I had another, I would give her that too”
It was the closest he would ever get to saying he loved me because those words would bind me, and he was setting me free—free to live out my life, my dreams, my aspirations. He wanted me to find my place in the sun instead of living in the shadow of his life. But in that moment, I didn’t want to be set free. I wanted him to ask me to stay. I wanted him to demand it, command it, to leave me with no choice. But he just held me with his eyes, and I learned the power of being all tied up, without ropes or chains.
“I want a clean break.” My voice cracked when I said it, but I meant it. “I don’t want to spend my days living for phone calls and texts. I don’t wa
nt to make do with your voice when what I really want is your arms around me. I don’t want eyes that can’t meet and feet that can’t touch. I think that would kill me.”
“I know. You’re my all or nothing girl. You’re grand and special, and so beautiful that my heart aches every time I look at you. I don’t want you to settle for anything less. But I don’t want to know when you’re out with some other guy—someone you meet in a quaint little coffee shop, someone you have brunch with on Sunday mornings, someone who can hold you and love you and fall asleep beside you. I think that would kill me.” A ragged breath escaped his lips as he claimed my mouth. He kissed me hard and hungry, like he wanted me to carry the taste of him forever.
“Jack,” I said it for no reason, except that it felt right. His name felt like it belonged in my mouth, like it had always belonged.
“I want you naked in the moonlight.” He tugged my dress, so it fell in a puddle around my feet. The rest of our clothes came off in a flurry, fingertips like matches, setting skin on fire.
We made love on a blanket by the stream, slow and gentle, rough and hard, riding the currents of our emotions like waves crashing on the shore. There were flashes of bright sensation—the look in Jack’s eyes when he slid inside me, his hands molding my curves, the midnight sky above us, trees swaying around us, the first moan escaping my lips, muscles and tendons dancing to a lover’s tango, the silver glow of constellations on our skin, the rush of the waterfall, Jack’s harsh, uneven breath, our bodies caught between the intoxication of climax and wanting to extend a moment we never wanted to end. My head rocked back as all the stars in the sky condensed to a single point. Jack stifled my cry with his lips, his fingers digging into my flesh as he hurtled over the edge of pleasure.
We weren’t ready to let go so we remained locked in the aftermath of passion. When our hearts calmed and our breaths settled, he smoothed the hair off my forehead and kissed my face. I traced the groove in the hollow of his back. His skin tasted sweet against my fingertips, like the last bits of sugar at the bottom of a cup of coffee. I wanted to savor it. I wanted to drain every last drop and make it a part of me forever.
