Mists of the Serengeti(41)
My lashes spiked from unspilled tears, though I didn’t know exactly why I wanted to cry. It could have been from seeing the mall, or the possibility that I might have totally misjudged Gabriel. But a part of it was also because of this. This sense of fitting so easily into the curve of Jack’s palm, the rightness of it, the ripeness of it, like a fruit—sweet and heavy—waiting to be plucked. I knew I would have to leave it hanging—untainted, untasted—like a perfectly round echo of what could have been.
I don’t know how to say goodbye to a sister, and then to a lover, all in one breath.
And so I stepped back, and Jack withdrew his hand. He rolled up the window and got out of the car.
“You missed a spot,” I said, pointing out the smudges on the glass.
“They’re not smudges,” he said. “They’re Lily’s fingerprints. She was eating chocolate that day. When we got to the mall, my phone rang. She came around to my side and put her hand here. Like this . . .” He hovered his fingertips over the marks. “One, two, three, four, five. See? Five perfect little chocolate prints. I haven’t washed them since. Every time I look out of the window, I see Lily there, holding her palm to the glass, making faces at me.”
Whenever Jack spoke of Lily, his entire profile softened. In those moments, his innately captivating presence was like a flame, kindled from within. For a second, I was completely jealous, because I had never lived in someone’s heart like that. And I wanted to. I wanted to make someone, someday, glow like that when they thought of me.
As Jack put the hose away, I realized that it wasn’t true. I didn’t want someone, someday. I wanted now. Today. And I wanted it with Jack.
No matter how many reasons I gave myself not to, I was falling for Jack Warden, more and more, with each passing day.
THE DAY STARTED early at the farm. The best time to pick coffee was before it got too hot. It had to be done by hand because coffee cherries on the same branch ripen at different stages, so the harvesters pluck only the mature cherries and place them into their baskets, one by one.
“It takes around seventy cherries to make one cup of coffee,” said Goma, when I asked her.
“Wow.” I cradled my cup with a new sense of appreciation.
“Hapana, Scholastica. Not for you,” said Goma, as Scholastica swiped her coffee. “Watoto wana kunywa maziwa.” She pointed to the glass of milk on the table.
“Sitaki maziwa.” Scholastica pushed it away and stared at us sullenly.
The back door creaked open, followed by two heavy clunks as Jack removed his boots.
“What’s going on here?” He eyed Scholastic and then Goma.
“A standoff,” said Goma. “She’s acting up, refusing to drink her milk. She wants coffee.”
“Of course she wants coffee. She’s on a coffee farm. It’s all around her. You’re all having it. It’s only natural that she wants to try it. I suspect she’s also looking for a reason to piss you off. She’s probably thinking it’ll get her sent back to Rutema. It’s the only home she’s known.”
He circled the table, stirring up the smell of green leaves and dark earth in his wake. “You want kahawa? Coffee?”
Scholastica nodded. “Harufu nzuri sana.”
“Yes, it does smell good, doesn’t it? How about you finish everything on your plate, and I’ll show you how to make your own cup of coffee?” Jack repeated his offer in Swahili and got an even more enthusiastic nod.
“Take Rodel with you, too,” said Goma. “I’d like the place to myself for a while. I can only take so many people for so long.”
I had the sneaking suspicion that Goma was trying to play matchmaker, but I kept my mouth shut. I slathered sunscreen on Scholastica before we went outside. She squirmed and giggled as I applied the cool lotion to her skin. The scabs on her face were healing, and her eyes had lost some of their wariness. The fear was still there, deeply ingrained, and her eyes darted nervously as we followed Jack through the rows of coffee plants.
“Coffee beans are actually the seeds of coffee cherries,” he explained, as Scholastica and I tied baskets around our waists. “See these bright, red ones? These are the ones you want.” He cracked the red skin and picked out the seed beneath. It was gooey and slimy. “The cherries from your baskets will get dried in the sun, raked, and turned throughout the day, so they don’t spoil. They’re covered at night or when it’s raining, to prevent them from getting wet. Depending on the weather, it can take a while until they’re dry enough, when the beans ‘rattle’ inside the cherries. Then we separate the beans from the rest and sell it as raw coffee. We save some for the farm and the workers, so we can roast it for our own use.”
“That’s so cool,” I said to Scholastica when she plucked her first cherry and held it up for us to see.
The farm was a balanced grove of banana trees and coffee bushes. The banana leaves provided shade and shelter for the coffee. The rows were tight, and as we moved between them, Jack slid by me to help Scholastica. It was barely a brush, but his entire body tightened in reaction. I felt the quickening of his breath on my face, the jolt of his thigh against my body, the crackle of awareness where his bare arms touched mine. I felt the kind of chemistry I’d been holding out for, the kind that ignites all your senses, so that you’re more alive in that one second than in all the moments, in all the days before. Then Jack stepped past me, from under the shade of glossy banana leaves, and into the sun.