Jaz & Miguel (14 page)

The one thing she noticed as they arrived—even when they were on the
freeway—was that the area was lush like the Amazon. And when she got out of the
car, the humidity of the air hit her like a blanket, covering her entire body
with a sheen of thick sweat that she knew she would probably never get rid of
until they returned to Johannesburg. It was like sitting in a hot-box, the air
so thick she could feel it washing down her throat as she breathed.

"Hot?" asked Miguel as he pulled their luggage out the
back of his car.

In more ways than one, baby
. Jaz nodded,
a line of sweat already tickling the side of her cheek as the combination of
heat and humidity made her yearn for the ocean she could hear and smell just
across the road. Before the trip (and during it), she'd thought endlessly about
spending a night alone with Miguel in a room, but right now all she could think
about was dropping her body underneath the ocean waters and not coming out
until the sun was down.

"Are we going to swim, or what?" she asked, desperate.

The others laughed, although, from the look (and glisten of sweat)
on their faces, she could tell she was not the only one who needed a dip in the
waters.

"Let's just put the bags away and then we'll hit the beach,"
said Miguel.

The hotel (sort of a mix between a B&B and standalone apartments)
was a low-slung building with two floors. The exterior was a freshly painted orangey-adobe
color. Each apartment in it had a balcony on the second floor with a table outside.
Jaz imagined sitting there for breakfast with Miguel over the next few days.
Miguel had booked the place, and Jaz had not asked much about it. She'd offered
to pay but Miguel never took her money for anything (which, she had to admit, really
made her feel special).

There was a pool ahead of the building (like anyone would go to the
pool with the ocean right next door) which was surrounded by thatch-umbrellas
and beach chairs. Also, as Jaz had come to expect at just about every establishment
in South Africa, there was a spot for barbecuing built into a wall on the far
end of the pool (no, Jaz corrected herself: a spot for "braaing").
For a moment, Jaz pondered the possibility of diving into the pool from one of
the balconies, but she was pretty certain she'd have a different idea when she got
up there.

She wasn't sure what to expect on the inside, although the fresh
smack of air conditioning as they entered their room was a welcome surprise.
What she hadn't expected, however, was Miguel's next statement:

"So, this is a sleeper couch. I checked before booking. I'll
sleep down here. You can take the room upstairs. It's apparently very roomy."

Although she hadn't given it much thought (and, in fact, had even
come to consider it presumptuous of Miguel to have booked a single room for
both of them, especially when she'd offered to pay for a second), when he told
her this now, she suddenly felt … distant. Then again, maybe he was just being
polite and thinking about her needs. Isn't that what every girl wanted? A guy
who wasn't pushy?

But not this girl—not now. Not two-and-a-half fucking months later!
She'd known Miguel since July 5th, and pretty much loved him since July 6th (although
she hadn't yet shared this with him) and if there was anything she
did
want it was for him to be please start being pushy!

"Jaz? Is that OK with you?" Miguel was leaning forward,
trying to grab her attention as she stared blankly at the sleeper couch.

She cleared her throat. "Yeah. Yeah, of course!" She
smiled as best she could. She was about to grab him by the hand and pull him
closer to her for a kiss, maybe even a cheap feel, but before she knew it, he
was past her and standing at the door.

"So? Are we going swimming or what?"

"Of course." She smiled.
Of course.

Jaz was a nice person. That was the best way Elize could describe
her: nice. And it was kind how she'd offered to see Elize's family and convince
them to let the two of them go on holiday together. She was also nice to Miguel,
and Elize knew he needed someone he could count on. He and Sandile had just
been through so much. And Miguel, from what Sandile had told her, had just not
managed to deal with it as well as Sandile had.

Sandile had struggled with the drugs a bit at first, but that had
not been for long. And the only difference between his abuse and Miguel's, was
that Miguel had chosen to not use the heavier stuff—which made it easier for
him to stop. But, once both of them had stopped, that life was long gone.

Since then, however, Miguel's only crutch in dealing with the problem
was gone. And after Sandile's sister's
umbuyiso
, Sandile had finally
made peace with it all.

But not Miguel.

At least this is how Sandile had explained it to her.

It was obvious that Miguel loved Jaz. Everybody knew that. So why he
was taking it so slow with her was beyond something Elize could really
understand. Jaz had not outwardly told Elize this (another thing that convinced
Elize that Jaz was nothing short of the angel Miguel needed—because she was trustworthy
and respectful) but Elize could tell from the way Jaz became distant every time
the subject came up that Miguel was holding back his affections from her.

What good is affection if it is not shown?

Maybe this trip was just what they needed, some time together,
alone, by the ocean.

What could be more romantic?

This is what Elize was thinking about while walking behind Jaz and
Miguel as they headed onto the beach, the grains of sand burning her bare feet.
She was thinking so much about it, that she completely missed seeing him.

Until it was too late.

His name was Piet Oosthuizen, best friend of her oldest brother when
they were in school (although Elize didn't know if this was the case anymore).
More to the point, since that incident in their neighborhood, Piet had been
heard on more than one occasion calling for a separatist Afrikaner community, "without
kaffirs
."

She saw him now, setting his towel up about twenty meters ahead. Jaz
and Miguel were walking in front of her, Miguel's arm around Jaz's shoulder.
They had blocked Elize's view just slightly; maybe another reason why she
hadn't seen him at first. She and Sandile were holding hands, just by the tips
of their fingers. When she tried to let go, Sandile held on tighter, thinking
she was only kidding.

Then Sandile jerked her suddenly toward him and wrapped his arm
around her. "What's wrong baby?" he said, moving in for a kiss.

And that's when she heard Piet's voice.

"
Elize, wat maak jy hier
?"
Elize, what are you doing here?

Sandile let go of her so quickly that she almost fell over, all the
blood flushing from her extremities. She could almost feel Sandile's cold body
next to her.

Between Jaz and Miguel's heads, Elize saw Piet walking over to them
like a rhino. She hadn't seen him in a year, and he had gotten even bigger than
before, always having played hooker (the rugby kind) most of his life in both the
school and university rugby teams. Miguel's head was now turned to Sandile, a
shock of panic on his face, but Jaz still faced forward, clearly unaware of
what was happening—probably because Piet had spoken in Afrikaans and Jaz had
not understood.

Miguel unwrapped his arm from Jaz's shoulder and walked in Piet's
way, turning his head to the right as if he'd only been walking aimlessly—clearly
to try and buy Elize and Sandile a little more time; for what, Elize wasn't
sure. The damage had already been done.

"Hey!" said Piet as he walked into Miguel, almost knocking
him over.

"Oh, sorry, broe." Miguel looked briefly behind him—toward
Elize—to see if all was clear.

And just like that, Piet was there, in front of them.

All of them paused in an eternity of silence, waiting for the
inevitability of what was to come.

"
Piet! Hoe gaan dit
?!"
How are you?
asked Elize, wondering if the crack in
her voice had been obvious.

"
Ek is OK. Wie is hy
?"
I'm
fine. Who is he?
Piet gestured to Sandile with his eyebrows as if he
weren't even there, or, more likely, like he was some kind of dog.

"Uh, Piet, this is Sandile," she said in English. "And
this"—she pointed to Jaz—"is our American friend, Jaz. She doesn't
speak Afrikaans." The thought crossed Elize's mind to tell him that Jaz
was Sandile's girlfriend, but by now she was too afraid to say anything else,
preferring to wait and see what happened next.

In all honesty, it was always the boys who'd worked out all the lies
for her. She'd never been very good at it herself.

By now it was clear to Jaz what was happening. This guy—this …
massive
hulk
of a monstrously large guy—was obviously someone Elize knew.
There was only one thought in Jaz's mind:
lie
, and lie well.

She shot over to Sandile's side and wrapped her arm around his waist,
all but bumping Elize over. "Yes, hi," she said, extending her hand
toward Piet. "I'm Sandile's girlfriend, from the States."

Elize quickly picked up on the scam and moved over to Miguel.

"Oh, I see," said Piet, his eyes switching between Jaz and
Sandile, and Elize and  Miguel. Jaz admitted to herself that the move had been,
in retrospect, perhaps a little too obvious, but what else could she have done?
He extended his hand to meet hers.

Clearly confused, Piet then simply said,
"OK,
well, see you then," and walked away. No questions about how long they'd
be staying, no chit-chat about life or how things were. Whereas Jaz didn't know
who this guy was, she knew that the way he'd suddenly left was far from a good
sign.

It was a downright
bad
sign.

All four of them stood watching as Piet went away to stand by his
towel, as if waiting for them to start ignoring him before he pulled out his
cell phone and called someone about what he'd seen.

"Shit," said Elize, never being one for excessive swearing.
"Shit, shit, shit."

"Who was that?" asked Miguel.

Jaz was silent as an opossum.

"It's my brother's best friend—
was
his best friend. I
don't think they talk anymore. But he was at those meetings—you know, the ones
for a separatist community. He's a big supporter of it."

"Fuck," said Miguel. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Damn it.
Do you think he bought it? I mean, what Jaz did?"

"Not a fucking chance. I was moving in to kiss Elize when he
first saw us. But nice try anyway, Jaz."

"
Shit!
" Miguel turned smoothly to face Piet,
pretending he was just looking around. "We should've moved faster. I
should've grabbed Elize the second I heard the guy's voice and pulled her to my
side. Why didn't we move faster?"

"Because we were shitting ourselves, boet. And we were caught
in the lie, with our hands down the
koeksister
jar," said Sandile.

"What do we do now? Surely he must know that whole thing with
Jaz and you was bullshit," said Miguel.

Piet turned to look at them, his hands on his waist, eying all four
of them much as Miguel had done earlier—pretending to be looking elsewhere.

"What do you mean what do we do now?" said Sandile. "We
stay. We play it cool. If we leave, the whole thing will smell like a skunk's ass."

"I'm sorry, Miguel. We brought you into this," said Elize.

"Please, Elize. You didn't bring any of this on me."

"Do you guys realize that the more we stand here doing nothing,
the more suspicious everything looks?" said Jaz. "Look, so what if he
finds out? It was bound to happen, wasn't it?"

Sandile looked at Elize. "Yes, but not in this way," he
said.

"Look, start putting the towels out while we talk," said
Jaz.

They laid the towels down and opened up the cooler box. Miguel put
up the umbrella and then sat down with the rest of them. "Offer him a
beer," said Sandile. "Afrikaners love beer."

"Piet," called Miguel. "Catch!" Miguel threw a
can of Amstel at him, not bothering to ask if he wanted it or not. Jaz saw from
Piet's smile that the gesture had gone down well. But the smile was only
momentary, disappearing quickly as Piet's gaze fell, once more, on Sandile.

"This guy is starting to piss me off," said Sandile.

"Chill. The Fuck. Out. Boet," said Miguel through clenched
teeth, and smiling. "Fuck it, I have an idea."
Miguel got up and went to speak to Piet.

"Do you have somewhere to go, Elize? I mean, if things get bad?"
asked Jaz. Elize looked at Sandile.

"She has somewhere to go," he said.

Miguel chatted to Piet some more, both of them sipping beer.

Piet was still frowning heavily. Miguel looked like he was being Mr.
Cool—Mr. Smooth Talker.

Finally, Miguel called out to Sandile. "Boet, come, touch
rugby, you're on my team."

"Touch rugby?" said Sandile. "I fucking hate touch
rugby."

Ten minutes later, Miguel had put together a team of twelve men—six
on each side. He did it by simply approaching people and asking if they wanted
to play. Jaz didn't know if he'd done it on purpose, but she noted that he'd
picked a mixture of every possible race there was on the beach: Indians, black,
white, coloreds and even one Asian guy. It also looked like Miguel had made
sure that many of them were even on Piet's team.

After a while, it even looked like they were having fun, Piet
seeming to have forgotten all about the earlier incident (although Jaz also
noted that Miguel kept pumping the man with more and more beer). Miguel told
them (while he fetched the fourth Amstel for the guy) that Piet had come to the
beach with only his girlfriend—so at least they'd been lucky on that count. The
last thing they needed would be the entire fucking AWB contingent of Elize's
neighborhood laying claim to the beach.

Technically, you couldn't really say it was "lucky" after
all that had happened—but in a way it was.

With nothing to do but talk and wait to see how things panned out,
Jaz decided to ask Elize something that had been silently bothering her since
that morning: "Who's Tsepho?"

Elize shook her head, her eyes quivering nervously. "He's a
drug dealer. More like a drug
user
. You know the boys used to do drugs,
right?"

A
weight of lead settled in Jaz's stomach. "No—um—I didn't."
She looked at Miguel, smiling in the sun, his skin already becoming darker
from it.

"Nothing major. Dagga mostly."

"What's that?"

"You know, marijuana."

Jaz thought they called marijuana "zol." But now was not
the time to clarify.

"Well, everyone tries it at least once in South Africa. And
after—you know—the incident with their parents, well, they both smoked it a lot
for a few weeks. But then Sandile started using some of the heavier stuff. It
wasn't much, but it was enough to get him into debt. Miguel paid it off for
him, on the condition that Sandile stopped. And he did stop—both of them did.
So anyway, this Tsepho guy has been trying to sell Sandile stuff for a while.
He keeps on going past the university. I have a feeling he's even been
threatening Sandile, but he hasn't told me that directly."

"Why doesn't he just call the cops?"

"It's not that simple down here. You never know who's friends
with who."

Christ, could this day get any worse?

Another three beers down Piet's gullet and two hours later (his skin
now looking like a strawberry from the sun) the man finally lay down on his
towel and fell asleep. In all that time, Jaz and Elize had not gone to the
water once, too afraid to let their eyes slip from Piet's movements.

When he finally lay down, they also fell back on their towels,
feeling the colossal pressure of the day's events finally ease off them so much
that they ultimately also dozed off under the umbrella.