Beverly Hills Maasai (2 page)

I laughed. “I don’t think anybody would ever mistake me for a Maasai. I think I sort of have the wrong skin colour.”

“You have the heart of a Maasai.”

I knew what a compliment he was giving me. “Thanks, but I don’t think I could kill a lion.”

He laughed. “Of course not. You are a
woman.
Even Maasai women do not kill lions.”

“It would be wonderful if you
could
come to California. But it’s awfully far from Africa!”

I didn’t mention how expensive the plane fare would be—way more than he could ever afford.

“It is very far,” Nebala said. “Even your country is very big, and far from one place to another. It is a long way from New York to the other side in California,” he said.

“It would be a long walk.”

“It is a long airplane ride,” he said. “But a Maasai could walk from one side to the other of a country even as big as America.”

“I know, I know, because Maasai can walk without stopping,” I said.

“Never needing to stop from sunrise to sunset.”

It was something they prided themselves on. I could picture him with that long, bouncy stride. Given enough time, I was sure he
could
walk from New York to L.A., or even from Africa to L.A. if there wasn’t an ocean in the way. I imagined him moving along the interstate, and the shocked looks from the drivers of passing SUVs and cars and transport trucks.

“To walk across your country would take more than one hundred days,” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said. I guessed he must have been looking at a map. “I’m not sure if anybody has ever done that before, walked across the country.”

“A Maasai could walk that distance.”

I wasn’t about to argue with that. They were pretty stubborn and determined people.

“And if you did come here, you know I would insist that you stay at our house,” I said. “We have a big house with lots of extra rooms.”

“I was hoping you would allow that.”

“That would be wonderful, if you did come someday.” That sounded like I was blowing him off. “I’d like it if you could come someday
soon.”

“Yes,” he said. “Soon, very soon. Alexandria, I am at the airport.”

“In Nairobi?” I exclaimed.

“LAX. I am in Los Angeles.”

That time I did drop the phone.

The tires squealed as I turned the corner.

“Alexandria, slow down!” Olivia insisted.

“Are you afraid of a little speed?”

“It’s not the speed, it’s the wind. It’s absolutely
ruining
my hair!” she exclaimed. “Could you either slow down or put up the top?”

“I haven’t got time for either.”

Olivia made a cross little puffing sound and then scrunched down in the seat until she was so low that I didn’t think she could even see over the dashboard. If she had been driving she would have been looking through the steering wheel like some sort of really ancient senior citizen. It was strange how the older people got the bigger their cars got. Around here, though, the senior citizens all had chauffeurs to do their driving for them.

“This is so … so bizarre,” Olivia said.

“What’s so bizarre about going to the airport to pick somebody up?”

“This isn’t
somebody.
This is some guy from Africa you hardly even know.”

“Wrong! I know him very well.”

“How well could you know him? You were only in Africa, like, a month.”

It was three weeks, actually, so she was close on that one. I didn’t expect her to understand any of the rest.

“And I can’t believe that you’re going to let him stay at your house.”

“Where else would he stay?”

“There are hotels, you know.”

I tried to imagine Nebala at the Beverly Hills Hotel—dining at the Polo Lounge, lying by the pool as starlets and models strutted past in their bikinis and high heels. I laughed out loud.

“This isn’t funny!” she screamed. “You told me how scary these Maasai are! You told me they are the most dangerous warriors in all of Africa!”

“They are dangerous … if you’re a lion. I’ll be fine.
We’ll
be fine.”

Of course Olivia knew I had been in Africa—and why. I’d been caught shoplifting, and the judge had sentenced me to go to Kenya to build schools as part of what they called a “diversion program.” But she really had
no
idea what it was like. Nobody who had never been there would ever understand how …
different
it was, how special the people were, how it changed who you were, your very soul.

“And I can’t believe that you haven’t even asked your mother about any of this. What will you do if she says that he can’t stay at your house?” Olivia asked.

I looked over at her, slowly shook my head, and then we both broke into laughter.

“Well, she
could
say no,” Olivia chided.

“Not likely. I can’t even remember the last time she said no to anything I asked. You know what I’m talking about.”

“Ha! Yeah, I just play my mother against my father and I can get almost anything I want, too.” She paused. “But with your father not living with you … well …”

“He may not live with us, but he’s only a phone call away.”

“I hear you,” she answered.

Really, all I usually had to do to get my mother to cave was
threaten
to call my dad. I knew it would still work, but I hadn’t gone there in a long time. It just made me feel guilty to play them that way.

Of course my mother almost never said no to anything, anyway. Partly it was because she really wanted to make me happy, but partly it was because she was so wrapped up in her own life—or trying to find a life—that she didn’t much notice what was going on in mine.

We rolled along the road leading into LAX. There were lots of cars heading in, and I had to slow down. We passed the coloured columns that lined the entrance. There were twenty or thirty of them, some as high as 120 feet. I loved the way they looked, not just from the ground but from the air. If you flew in
from the right direction you could see them as your plane came in for a landing, especially at night. They were like “welcome home” signs.

“Where are we meeting him?” Olivia asked.

“In front of the terminal.”

“Which terminal?”

“He didn’t know which one, so I told him to just go out front and stand by the road. Keep your eyes open for him.”

“There are hundreds and hundreds of people standing by the road waiting to be picked up, and I don’t even know what he looks like.”

“Think about it, Olivia. He’s going to be wearing a bright red blanket, and I would imagine he’s the only Maasai warrior who came into LAX today … or any other day.”

“Sorry. Duh!”

Traffic slowed as cars and cabs swerved and stopped to pick up passengers and their luggage. It was hard to believe just how crowded it was, but then again, this was one of the busiest airports in the world.

“I told him to stand by the circle road.”

“Why didn’t you ask him which terminal?”

“He didn’t know the terminals,” I said.

“But there are nine of them. This could be difficult.”

“So we’ll just keep driving past, one by one, until we see him.”

“Did he even tell you why he was here?” Olivia asked.

“I didn’t ask. I thought it was best to get down here as soon as possible. He’s got to be feeling a little lost.”

“That makes this all so
ironic,”
Olivia said.

“Ironic” was a word she used a lot, but she almost always used it wrong.

“Well, don’t
you
think it’s ironic?” she asked.

“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s ironic?”

“In Africa he was your guide and he protected you from danger, and now you’re rushing here because you think you need to protect him.”

I guess that
was
kind of ironic. “Not protect him. It’s just that it’s all going to seem pretty strange, and he’s alone and—”

“There he is!” Olivia screamed.

“Where?”

“There, over there,” she said, pointing up ahead.

Instantly I saw him—bright red against a sea of black and white and bland. I put my foot on the brake and swerved into the curb lane, cutting off a taxi. It blared its horn at me in protest. I raised one hand so the cab driver could see that I was giving him the universal symbol of response to honking. What a jerk.

I pulled over to the curb and squealed to a stop right in front of him. I jumped out of the car and ran around the front.

“Here I am!” I screamed, waving my arms in the air. “It’s so good to—” I skidded to a stop just a few feet away as I was about to wrap my arms around him. It wasn’t Nebala. It was a stranger—a strange Maasai warrior!

He stood there, shield in hand, staring at me. He looked older than Nebala. His expression was fierce, and I stumbled backwards a step.

“I’m so sorry … I thought you were somebody else,” I stammered.

He didn’t react. His expression remained fierce and frightening.

Olivia appeared at my shoulder, just slightly behind me.

“You mean this isn’t him?” she asked.

I shook my head vigorously, and Olivia started to laugh. I turned to her, surprised and confused by her reaction.

“Apparently, there
is
more than one Maasai warrior coming into LAX today,” she explained. “Ask him if he knows Nebala.”

“Just because they’re both Maasai doesn’t mean that—”

“Nebala?” He stepped forward then, and I had to fight the urge to retreat.

“Nebala?” he asked again.

I nodded my head. “Yes, yes. Nebala.”

He started talking, a stream of excited Swahili.

“What is he saying?” Olivia asked.

“I have no idea.”

“But I thought you spoke Swahili.”

“I speak a
little
Swahili, and only if it’s slow Swahili. I can ask for some food or say thank you or hello, but I don’t really know how to speak it,” I protested.

“Well, try to say something to him,” Olivia said.

“Sure … okay … I’ll try.” But what? I didn’t think asking him where the washroom was located would do. But what about asking where Nebala was? I could do that, couldn’t I? I struggled to find those words in
my brain. I wanted to make sure I could pull out the right words, because the last time I’d made a mistake in Swahili I’d threatened to kill somebody by accident.

“Um … um …
wapi
Nebala?”

“Nebala!” he yelled, and I started and Olivia screamed.

He reached out and grabbed me by the arm and started to drag me toward him. I dug my heels in and struggled. Maybe he knew Nebala and didn’t like him—or maybe he really was bringing me to him—but I couldn’t just leave my car or it would be towed away. I tried to back away, but he had me firmly in his grip.

And then I saw him, through the glass doors, inside the terminal. Nebala was walking toward us, a shield in one hand and a large cloth bag in the other. He was far away, but he stood out so clearly—the bright red, the shield, and that long, bouncy stride eating up the distance between us.

“There he is!” I screamed and pointed.

The mystery Maasai let go of my arm then and nodded his head enthusiastically.

“Naam, naam!”
he yelled, and he too pointed at the terminal.

“What does that mean?” Olivia demanded.

“It means ‘Yes, yes!’ It’s him. It’s Nebala.”

“Samuel …
Naam, naam
, Samuel,” he said.

“What? I don’t understand … What do you mean?”

“Maybe he means that’s somebody named Samuel,” Olivia volunteered.

I huffed. “Yes, there’s a Maasai named Samuel, and I’m sure there’s another one named Taylor, and Cody.”

“Samuel,” he repeated.

“There, he’s saying it again!” Olivia protested.

“Of course he’s saying it, but we don’t know what that word means in Swahili. He’s just saying something about Nebala and—” I stopped myself mid-sentence.

The figure was now close enough for me to realize that it
wasn’t
Nebala. It was
another
unknown Maasai warrior. He was taller and thinner and much, much younger. Nebala was grown up—he’d already been to college in Nairobi—but this guy couldn’t have been much older than us. He quickly came toward us wearing the traditional red blanket, like the scary guy, but with a gigantic smile plastered across his face.

I quickly scanned the surroundings. Was there a third Maasai somewhere?—Nebala? Or were there many, many more? Were we being invaded by the Maasai? Had the whole airport gone Maasai mad? Was there a gigantic Maasai convention in town? Maybe that was why Nebala was here. I couldn’t see any more, though—I couldn’t see Nebala anywhere.

What I did notice was that we were now at the very centre of a large crowd of people who were staring at us. Dozens and dozens of travellers had put down their luggage and were watching us. Some of them had taken out cameras and were clicking pictures, and cars were stopping so people could gawk at us—well, really, at the Maasai.

The second Maasai came right up to us and dropped his bag to the sidewalk.

“Samuel,” he said, and touched his hand to his chest.

“I told you that was his name!” Olivia trumpeted.

“We still don’t know that!” I protested.

The first one tapped his hand against his chest. “Koyati!” he said proudly.

“And that one’s Koyati,” Olivia said. She pointed at herself. “
O-liv-i-a,”
she said slowly and loudly. “I am
Olivia.”

“O-liv-i-a,” they both repeated, nodding their heads in acknowledgment.

“And this,” Olivia said, placing a hand on my shoulder, “is Al-ex-an-dri-”

“Alexandria!” the young man screamed. “Alexandria!”

They both got all happy, and the young man—was his name really Samuel?—started jumping up and down like a very big, very excited three-year-old.

“They must know you!” Olivia exclaimed.

“I don’t know them,” I said.

What I did know was that the crowd surrounding us was getting bigger and bigger, and the space between us and them was getting smaller as they pressed in on us from all sides.

“We need to find Nebala,” I said.
“Ne-ba-la,”
I said again, this time much more slowly and much, much louder, the way Olivia had.