Jaz & Miguel (5 page)

The creeping sensation that she had done something wrong began to waft
into her thoughts like the smell of a dumpster.

And then the boy laughed—not a big laugh, not a laugh at all really,
just a sort of "hah!"—like she was an interesting animal he'd found
in the bush and was looking at curiously. She felt the steady firmness of her
arm—like it had been made of reinforced steel—ease up and quiver.

And then a gentle hand from behind her, touching her shoulder.

"Um—Jaz, this is Miguel, my best friend." Her arm lowered,
her eyes flicked to the ground.

Could this moment be any more embarrassing?

"Er—oh ...." She didn't even greet him. She only slid over
to the side and looked down, shaking her head in mild bewilderment. Finally,
she looked back up. "Hi," she said, her hand convulsively waving
hello (the same hand that had convulsively formed a barricade between the two
boys only moments ago and convulsively stretched out to shake Sandile's hand
earlier. She made a mental note to do something about said hand).

The Miguel guy (still looking askance at her and with a raised
eyebrow) mumbled a hello
over but pretty much
otherwise ignored her. He turned to Sandile who'd since straightened his
glasses and who was now holding the ball out for the Miguel guy to grab. But
when this Miguel reached for it, Sandile pulled the ball back so that Miguel
grabbed thin air, jutted forward, and Sandile then bounced the ball once on
Miguel's own head—hard!

"You f—" said the Miguel guy.

Sandile ducked back, his shirt now untucked as he bounced the
basketball, waiting for Miguel to come to him. "A little pump-fake there,
eh? Nice, nice," the Miguel guy said.

Pump fake
—that was a basketball term,
wasn't it? She'd heard it once or twice back home but had never really known
what it meant.

Miguel was standing with knees bent and arms spread out, ready to
block Sandile. Sandile was bouncing the ball, grinning, looking to either side
of Miguel, trying to see how he'd get past him. Miguel swayed from side to
side, clenching and releasing his fingers.

They were playing basketball now?

Sandile kept bouncing the ball, waiting, waiting, waiting.

Then his eyes caught Jaz's. He looked once more at Miguel. And he
stopped.

He stood up, and just like that, the game was over.

"What?" asked Miguel. "You give up just like that?"

"Jaz is from America," said Sandile, pointing over to her.
For a moment, she thought she saw Sandile give a mischievous smile, but she was
so introverted into herself (and still trying to recover from the earlier
embarrassment) that she wasn't really sure
what
she was seeing anymore. "Technically,
I didn't really introduce you two."

Hadn't he? Well,
technically
, no, that mess earlier had not
really
been an introduction.

Miguel turned to face her—no smile on his face—and raised his chin,
saying, "Hey."

She'd really screwed this one up. That she knew.

She looked at him more closely. He had an extremely dark tan which made
his hazel eyes stick out like they were made of gold (or was that just the
sun?) His calves were made of rock, a faint shadow forming beneath both of them
as they bulged out just below his shorts.

She countered his "Hey" with a "Hello" (again,
not sounding any more confident or at ease this time either) but then turned
her gaze away. This was not a boy she should be considering anything with,
that's for sure. Besides, he looked like one of these
too-cool-for-you
kinds of guys. She wasn't interested in that.

Sandile and Miguel stood silently for a while, Sandile's eyes flicking
over to her every now and then. From Miguel's silence, she assumed that it was
maybe time for her to go. But as she picked up her bag, Sandile called out to
her, "No, wait, it's fine."

Jaz paused, saying nothing,

"Stay, please." He walked over to where she was and—she
wasn't quite sure—it seemed like Miguel rolled his eyes.

Who
was
this prick?

Sandile sat down and Miguel avoided eye contact with her.

"Elize is not going home for the weekend so I'll be picking her
up tomorrow morning," said Miguel to Sandile. "Do you wanna hang out
with us?"

"Uh—sure," said Sandile. "How is she?"

"She said she misses me ... a
lot
."

Oh, brother, what a jerk.

"Right. Right. Well, I'm sure you miss her, too," said
Sandile.

And now Jaz was
sure
Miguel rolled his eyes—just a bit—and
then stopped, realizing she was there.

"Uh, yeah, I guess."

Asshole. He's probably been stringing this Elize girl along for
weeks and she must be one of those unconfident types that would hang on to him
for dear life because ... because—I don't know—of his fucking tan or something
!

Jaz suddenly had a keen interest to meet this Elize, and give her
some advice.

"So," Miguel continued, "can you make it?"

Now he's asking if Sandile
can
make
it, not if he
wants
to
. She was sure he'd first asked if Sandile
wanted
to go with them.

"Of course. But"—Sandile hesitated—"I'd like to bring
a friend along, if she doesn't mind."

Jaz was looking down. But after the moment of silence that never
seemed to end she looked up and saw Sandile looking at her, and Miguel's eyes
wide with shock.

"No. Forget it!" said Miguel, turning and walking away.

That was embarrassing. Were they just talking about me like I wasn't
even here?

"Wait, wait!" said Sandile, standing up.

Jaz had begun to fidget.

Miguel gestured with his head for Sandile to walk over somewhere
else with him.

What followed was a heated conversation consisting of a lot of
gesticulating, pointing at Jaz, Miguel shaking his head, one times "Fuck!"
on the part of Miguel, then looking at Jaz again—
both
of them—and then walking back to her.

Who
were
these people?!

When they got back to where Jaz was, Miguel piped up. "Um, if
you'd like, you could come with us tomorrow," he said to her. "We'll
be going over to Northgate Mall for a few drinks."

Northgate Mall
—wasn't that a place in
Seattle?

Jaz didn't bother to ask; the whole scene had made her
uncomfortable. She politely rejected and said she had to get ready for the trip
on Monday, all the while realizing she was going to be bored out of her skull
because Thandie was going home for the weekend and so Jaz would be all alone
for two days.
She thought of
hanging out with Candy and Long-Legs (Maxine) ... and that didn't seem too
exciting either.

She was in Africa, and she felt like nothing more than a cooped up chicken
in a friggin pen!

And, then again, she did want to have a word with this Elize.

She changed her mind.

"Actually, yes, I'll go. I'll be your date, Sandile," she
said, interweaving her arm in his and smiling.

There was that eye-roll again—very slight—from Miguel.

"Ha ha," said Sandile nervously. "That wasn't exactly
what I had meant." And he gently unwrapped his arm from hers.

Severely embarrassing moment number three for today
. If Sandile had not intended for her to be his date, then what
had
he wanted?

"Look, she's going to find out anyway," said Miguel angrily,
"so you might as well tell her now. The poor chick is probably freaking
out by now." He raised his hand. "Look, I'll see you later. I'll be
at Northgate with Elize at about ten whether"—he waved his hand at Jaz—"
Jaz
comes or not. See ya."

Well, excuuuuuse me!

He walked off, basketball under his arm.

Wow
. Jaz definitely needed to meet this
Elize girl now. Definitely. No one deserves to be with such a know-it-all like
that. And who was he to think that Sandile should go alone with them and be
dateless?

Jaz: "Look, Sand—"

"No," he said, "let me explain." He looked
around like something dangerous lurked behind the trees. "Let's walk."
He gestured over to the field.

As they walked, he explained it to her.

Elize Van Zyl was not Miguel's girlfriend.

Miguel had no girlfriend.

Elize was Sandile's girlfriend—his white girlfriend; his white
Afrikaner
girlfriend from an area that didn't take lightly to ... "kaffirs."

Sandile told her the whole story about him and Elize and, as could
be expected, she fell for it (she was such a sucker for a decent romantic story).
Tears had tugged at her eyes as he'd explained that Miguel had been pretending
to date Elize for the last three months so that he could pick her up from
Pretoria (a place about forty-five minutes from Wits, and where Elize went to
college) without her family (or, more to the point, her
neighborhood
) getting
suspicious. Miguel spoke fluent Afrikaans, and they figured it would be more "acceptable"
for her family to think he was dating her. Miguel had met her father and mother
(they had insisted) as well as her brothers. 

But her family was not really the problem. For all Sandile could
tell, there was nothing really even particularly racist about them (no more
than the usual). Sure, they threw around the K-bomb a few times and made some
racist jokes. And? Who didn't? Heck, with the number of "Dutchmen"
jokes Sandile and Miguel had cracked in their own time, neither really had a
leg to stand on, on that count.

Dutchmen?
Sandile explained that this
was the "impolite" (well, honestly said, "racist") word for
the Afrikaner—although the word was in such common use that it was hard for
people to even consider it a racist word in itself. Much like the word "porra"
for the Portuguese.

The problem, he explained, was really in what had happened in Elize's
neighborhood two weeks before they had met. A couple had been murdered there. The
papers made a big deal about it, like it had been racially motivated. Had the killings
really been motivated by racism? Who the hell knew? Although, once the press
had gotten a hold of it, Sandile explained, the intricate details of the facts hadn't
really mattered anymore—they played the race card much like they always did
when it came to news about South Africa.

Miguel had freaked out. He was the one who'd insisted they keep
things quiet until they found out the truth behind the killings. Well, that was
three months before. The death of the black guy, his girlfriend and her father
still as mysterious as the day the world's news networks played it in all its
glory for everyone to see.

"Wait," said Jaz. "There were
three
people who
died?"

"Yes."

"Three months ago?"

"Yes, I'm sure you heard of it. It was all over the news."

It
had
been all over the news. She remembered it. Jaz had
been as convinced as anyone else that it had been, without a doubt, a racially
motivated killing. She remembered watching it on TV with her parents, her
mother begging for her to reconsider her trip. Then, when those riots broke out
three months later—only a
week
before Jaz was to leave—there were those
travel warnings. And, again, a mention of the possibility of that racial
killing three months earlier as having caused them.

"I did hear of it, Sandile. But from what I remember, it was a
cut-and-dry case. African kid, white girl, both dead. And her father as well."

Sandile looked at her silently for a moment. "It's all in how
you word it, isn't it? It may have been racist. Sure. But it also may not have
been. They never found the gun which killed the father."

"I see," said Jaz, deep in thought.

"Look, Jaz, the point is, we—actually, Miguel more than anyone—didn't
want to take any risks. He and I … well, we go back. And he just wants me to be
OK."

Sandile explained how, because of that incident in Elize's
neighborhood, all three of them were careful about this—more than careful. They
never texted each other, never emailed, just in case one of her brothers saw
the messages (they often picked up her phone and looked at it). Who knew who
they'd speak to?

Sandile had not planned to see Elize this weekend. It had been a
last minute thing, which is why Miguel had come over to tell him. They were so
over the top cautious that Miguel would not even text this stuff over to
Sandile (lest her brothers got hold of
his
phone
as well). Sandile had suggested getting another phone or just deleting the
messages after he sent them—but Miguel was a bit of a paranoid guy on the
subject, so he preferred to give the messages personally.

When Miguel had asked Sandile if he'd "like to join them,"
that had been code for "Elize wants to know if you're free." They'd
been doing it for so long that they didn't even bother having private
conversations about it anymore, Jaz having been just some bystander listening
to two guys talking about a girl.

The sheer tangle of lies that were involved in keeping this thing afloat
made Jaz's head reel, unable to grasp onto one single untruth above any other,
all of them sort of meshing into one another like glue and confusing her.

"You'll only be able to carry this lie on for so long. You know
that, don't you?" she said.

He shrugged half-heartedly. "Yeah. None of us really wanna
think about that now, actually. The truth is, things have been very tense where
she lives. A few AWB flags have gone up since that day—oh, that's a right-wing political
group down here. There's been a lot of talk of …. Well, right now is just not a
good time."

"I see."

Another moment of silence.

As she considered it all, none of it still answered why Sandile had
suddenly asked her if
she'd
like to come along. If she wasn't going to
be
his
date then—

And then it hit her.

"Oh, no. Oh, no! You're setting me up on a date!" she
said, turning to walk away.

"Jaz! Wait!"

Jaz felt now like the girl she'd seen earlier on the grass rejecting
her boyfriend's kiss.

"Look. You're right, there was a third reason I spoke to you
today," he said embarrassedly.

Jaz turned and crossed her arms, leaned back on one leg and cocked
an eyebrow at him, waiting for an explanation.

"Well …" he said.

"M-hmm?"

"Thandie suggested it. She thought that maybe you … and Miguel
…."

And there Jaz began to smile. She'd hardly known this girl ten hours
and there she was, setting her up with … some guy! Well, what are best friends
for?

"So that's why you came and spoke to me?"

"Well, that and the interview, of course."

"Of course."

"Of … course," said Sandile, sticking to his story.

"But you're wrong, I don't see it as the 'third' reason. I see
it as the first—that whole made-up thing about 'being friends'?"

Sandile gave a warm smile. "No, I really had meant that—so that
was the first and main reason. The least you could expect would be for all of
us to become friends—Miguel included."

Jaz shook her head, trying to be upset but instead smiling from ear
to ear in a feeling of either embarrassment or coyness. Miguel seemed like a
bit of a rough diamond to her.

"Look, you would be doing me a personal favor," he finally
pleaded.

Hmmmm
. "Can I think about it?"
she asked.

"Sure."

Sandile asked her to tell no one. Miguel would pick Elize up from
Pretoria and then drive her up to Northgate (there really was a Northgate Mall
in Johannesburg, just like in Seattle), which was far enough from anyone they
knew so that Elize and Sandile could spend some time together. Usually Miguel
just hung around and went to a movie for a few hours and then he took her back.
That was the drill. And usually only twice a month. This weekend had been a
surprise. Elize must've wanted to see Sandile before he left for the camp and
so had arranged not to go home for the weekend.

Why?
That was the question Jaz had in
her mind. Why would Miguel do that for Sandile? What did he owe him? But she
chose not to pry. She had enough questions in her mind not to want to add to
the confusion with yet another one.

"Oh, and Jaz, one more thing," he said as she turned to
walk away. "If Thandie asks, just tell her you were my date and that
Miguel was out with some other girl."

"God. Boys. I can't tell her I was
your
date!"

"Why not?"

Jaz shook her head and smiled. Were all guys this dense? "Because
you guys dated!"

Sandile pondered this. "I see. Do girls have some unspoken rule
about that sort of thing?"

Jazz chuckled and shook her head in utter dismay.

And so they began working on the lie they would tell Thandie, and it
was there that Jaz began to feel the unease and discomfort of one lie forming on
top of another, a waste-dump of untruth above untruth, each rotting away and
infecting the ones below it. She felt herself being assimilated into their
story, much like some of the local words had been assimilated into her own language,
as if the two would never again be separated.

After each of their concocted stories had failed, Jaz finally said, "Look,
I'll just tell her I was alone with Miguel. She's away this weekend so she'll
never know you came with us."

And just like that, she was going to tell her first lie to her new best
friend.