The future
“Sweetheart. Baby, wake up,” Lee-Ann says to a deep in sleep Simo, who reluctantly pulls blanket down his face and opens one eye as the sunlight coming through from the windows was flashing on his face. He opens the second eye and grumpy looks at his girlfriend who disturbed him from whatever dream he was having. He sits up and yawns.“What time is it?” he asks. Lee-Ann just smiles and opens the second curtain windows the let the full sunshine into the bedroom. “Baby, it’s 09:40 already,” she says. She walks over to the bedside table and takes the tray with breakfast on it put on the bed next to her boyfriend. “Too much to drink last night huh?” she taunts Simo, who is not pleased with that. He shrugs his shoulders and wipe his eyes. He garbs something on the tray but Lee-Ann hits his hand, “Nope, go brush your teeth first young man, hahaha,” she’s enjoying this moment seeing her boyfriend hungover.
Simo up, puts a gown on and goes to the in-suite bathroom. Lee-Ann picks his clothes on the floor and put them in the busker. She goes to the wardrobe to pull something Simo will wear. “Babe,” she calls out. “Did you check if Mlu got home okay?” but she doesn’t get the response.
Simo comes out of the bathroom, “No babe,” he says. “I was going to call him this morning, why? Did something happen?” he asks curiously. “Didn’t she leave with your cousin last night after the party? Did you check with her?” he says as he jumps back to bed. He can’t wait to have this delicious breakfast on the tray. Lee-Ann comes over to sit next to him. “No I didn’t check on her,” she says. “I was going to check on her this morning,” she shrugs her shoulders as she picks up something from the tray, much to Simo's annoyance. There’s a moment’s silence as Simo takes a few notes.
“Did you check on JB?” Lee-Ann asks reluctantly knowing how sensitive any subject involving JB’s name is. Mlu looks at him displeased a little bit. “love, don’t do that okay? I have hangover as it is. I don’t want to talk about that one.”
Lee-Ann shrugs her shoulders, “Okay, sorry,” she rolls her eyes as if to say here we go again. “I was just asking babe,” she says. But Simo ignores her and continues to eat his breakfast. There is that little awkward moment as both of them seem to be thinking about what went down last night. “That was pretty much intense wasn’t?” Lee-Ann says, side eyeing her boyfriend, hoping he won’t overreact to it. But Simo puts his plate down. He realises his girlfriend won’t let this go. “yeah it was hey,” he sighs. There’s another moment’s silence. “I know, you’ve told me about what happened to him babe, but...” Lee-Ann says as she sighs heavily, “But why does he hate white people that much? I mean, we ain’t the same, are we?” she asks as she looks at Simo who is looking back at her.
“Well, we could ask the same about your cousin, babe,” Simo says, much to Lee-Ann’s annoyance who feels her boyfriend is just trying to throw her of her point. “But babe, that is not the same thing and you know…” Lee-Ann is cut of but Simo, “How is this not the same? Huh? I mean she hates my guts because I’m black,” he raises his voice. “our parents as well. I mean I could say that I know what you told me about your aunt Stacey’s hijacking incident but not all black people go on hijacking people, so why does your mom in particular, hate me that much?” as he goes on, his voice is raised.
“Your cousin? What’s her story? Why does he hate black people?” Simo asks, now seemingly annoyed himself. Tension has filled the room. Simo has even stopped eating his breakfast now. But Lee-Ann is just as annoyed and she’s not backing down from her own argument, “Babe, if Julie hated blacks…” she takes a moment,
“she went home with Mlu last night, so how can she hate black people when she’s sleeping with one or dating one or whatever? That makes no sense. Don’t you think?” she also raises her voice as well. But Simo shrugs his shoulders, trying to not aggravate the already sensitive and tense situation. “Or maybe she doesn’t have a problem with blacks but she has a problem with a particular black that is dating her cousin, I don’t know,” he throws his hands in the air.
Lee-Ann looks to the ceiling as if she’s giving up on this conversation.
“Look, let’s just leave this okay? We are not going anywhere with it,” she says as she goes to the bathroom. Clearly they both need a moment to cool off a bit. She leaves Simo in amazement. A moment’s silence passes.
Lee-Ann comes out of the bathroom and takes the tray on the bed and goes to the kitchen. There’s still this awkward silence in the room. Lee-Ann comes back and goes to the wardrobe to look for something to wear as Simo looks at her, not knowing what to say to her. Somebody must break the ice at some point. If they will spend the whole Saturday together, this was definitely not the way to start the day.
Simo gets out of bed and walks to his girlfriend who seems more upset than angry. She is by the ironing board. Simo comes and holds her from behind.
“Baby I’m sorry okay,” he says as he consoles his girlfriend. “It’s a difficult situation that we find ourselves in. We are in the middle of people we love, who don’t approve of our relationship. We’ve always know interracial relationships have dynamics that aren’t easy to navigate but made a promise that well never let that affect us as a couple and I intend to keep that promise my love,” he says as he makes the grip on Lee-Ann that much firmer.
Lee-Ann leans her head back on Simo’s shoulder. There’s silence for a moment. They are both enjoying the peace. Lee-Ann sighs heavily and takes her boyfriend by the hands and lead her on the bed and they both sit down. She looks around the room and then looks at Simo. “Love,” she says. “Do you realize that this is something you’ve got to deal with throughout our lives? We are planning for our future and all these people are part of us now and in the future,” she sighs as if it’s only sinking in now. “I mean, are you ready for that, my love?” she asks as she looks at Simo in the eyes. Simo thinks for a moment and sighs, “I realize that babe, and yes, I am ready. Are you?” he opens his eyes wide as he looks at a nervous Lee-Ann.
She keeps quiet for a moment, looks around the room and looks at Simo with a smile, “Yes my love, I am ready. Yes, yes I am ready very much,” as she hugs her boyfriend in excitement. They cling on each other for a moment. Simo looks into the ceiling as if he is thinking about something.
“Speaking of which,” he says as he breaks the hug, “Did you finally managed to tell your folks about our engagement?” that question seems to bring a little dull moment in the room again. Lee-Ann sighs deep, “No baby,” she says with a disappointed voice. “Remember the last time, we couldn’t get a chance because…” she seems to be looking for words, “my parents gave you a hard time and the environment
was already that tense I didn’t want to make it any worse,” she says embarrassed. She looks at Simo expecting him to say something, he’s just looking right in her eyes.
“You? Did you manage to speak to your family, your aunt? Or your friends?” she says to Simo who feels awkward about the question. He sighs heavily, “Nope,” he looks away. “it’s for the same reason with yours. Maybe not so much with my aunt but maybe some in the family may be in shock over this and not to mention JB and your cousin,” he shrugs his shoulders and looks away. He doesn’t want to make eye contact. There’s silence but Lee-Ann is still looking at her boyfriend and she wants him to make eye contact. Finally, Simo reconnect.
“Babe,” Lee-Ann says, “At some point we will have to tell them. We must commit to it okay?” she looks at her boyfriend who now has his eyes firmly on her. “Look, next weekend… your family will be there right?” she asks, “your friends too, Mlu to be specific, they will be there. So it’s the best time to tell them love. I’m not saying it will be easy but this is our future I’m talking about. We must put our foot down and have a stand, okay?” she says like she’s motivating a group of people. Simo nods his head.
There’s nothing more to say in this as they make love passionately like it’s their first time.
***
“So what will you do for the rest of the day, sir?” Julie asks Mlu as she gets dressed, ready to leave. She had left with Mlu after his birthday party last night and slept over. Mlu also rents a beautiful apartment in a good suburb. It’s a very spacious place. Mlu has a great taste in furniture. He lives here by himself. He has a older sister who is married and a young brother who stays in a res at the University. They don’t have parents anymore. They however have grandparents who live in the farms. His younger brother comes to him or the older sister to visit when schools are closed.
“Well, I will go check on Mlu and come back later in the afternoon.” Mlu says as he sits in front of the TV. “what about you?” he asks. Julie comes back and sits on his lap and kisses him, “Well I will go over to see aunt Debra, Lee-Ann and Derby if they are there,” she says as she wipes lipstick from Mlu's lips.
She gets up to walk to the door. “Not so fast, young lady,” Mlu stops her. She turns around curiously. She comes over and sits next to him, “What’s up?” she asks as she looks right to his eyes. Mlu looks away for a second, not knowing how to say whatever that he wants to say, which kind of makes Julie anxious, “Is there something wrong?” she asks.
Mlu looks into his eyes and thinks for a second, “Okay look, I was thinking,” he says anxiously. “I was meaning to ask you, what’s going on between us? What are we? Dating? A couple? A fling? I mean I don’t know…” those questions were unexpected by Julie, who looks away not wanting to make eye contact. “I mean are we Simo-Lee-Ann version 2.0? What?” at those words Julie can’t help but bursts out laughing, “hahaha, 2.0 what? Hahaha,” she laughs even more louder just thinking about it. Mlu joins in, in the laughter even though he wasn’t saying this as a joke.
“Hahaha, I’m serious,” he says. “I mean, what is all this?” he says with a little bit more serious face pointing at both of them. “We see each other and spend the night, and then weeks pass by without us seeing each other but chat casually. And then when we see each other again we end up in bed,” he says as he looks at Julie in the eyes. She’s also looking at him but she looks uneasy about this topic. She sighs heavily and looks to the ceiling.
“Look, I hear you okay?” she says. “Can we not put a name to it? Please…” she looks at Mlu with begging eyes. “I mean I love this less complicated, don’t you?” she stands up. Clearly she really wants to avoid this topic. Mlu decides to not push it any further even though he would have loved to hear the answer from her. He stands up walk her to the door. They stand by the door a d there’s an awkward silence for a moment as they both look down not making eye contact. Julie takes Mlu’s hands and looks at him. He looks back at her.
“Look,” Julie says with a low voice, “Let’s see if this can go anywhere okay. I mean, just like you, I don’t know what this is. And quite frankly I don’t want to give it name, at least not now. Can we just keep things as they are for now, please,” there goes those begging eyes again. Mlu looks at her and sighs heavily, “alright then,” he sounds disappointed as he breaks the eye contact. Julie smiles and kisses him, following it with a long warm hug. In that moment there’s silence. They are just holding each other.
They are both waiting on the other to break the hug but both wish for a little bit of time. Finally, Mlu breaks it and looks at Julie and smiles.
“Okay, I will call you then,” he says awkwardly as he looks away but Julie keeps eye contact for a moment and seems to be lost for words or in deep thoughts. She turns and grabs the door handle but doesn’t pull. All the while Mlu us standing behind her. She turns around only to realize that Mlu is looking at her. “Alright then, uhmm. We will talk on the phone okay?” she smiles at him and quickly turns around to open the door and close it behind her, leaving Mlu standing there confused at the situation or at himself.
He walks to the window to watch where Julie us parked. He watches her as she walks to the car. Deep down he wants her to look up at him but she doesn’t. He is disappointed. He moves away from the window and sits on the couch. He thinks for minute. He thinks to himself it’s a Saturday and it’s not too early to have a drink, is it? He walks over to the side table and pours himself a double of whiskey and downs it in one go and thinks, this is good. He pours himself another one and takes if to the sofa and enjoys it while in deep thoughts.
He looks around the room and decides to pick up clothes that are all over the place. He must have taken them off in a hurry last night. What he doesn’t realize is that when he moved away from the window, Julie didn’t immediately leave. Down there in her car she’s still trying to make sense of that intense moment that happened. She asks herself what on earth was that Julie? She looks up and pulls the mirror. She looks into the refection as if she is asking, who are you, woman? She thinks for a moment. She pulls a lipstick from her bag and puts
it on. As she looks at herself in the mirror, her face changes from the one that is confused into a face that looks very annoyed. She pulls back her hair and puts her head into the steering wheel as if she is regretting something she had done.
She looks into the mirror again. This time she has a straight face. She stares at the refection for a moment. She looks into her bag and pulls of her cell phone and scrolls down the contacts. She looks up as she’s thinking about what she’s about to do. She dials. It rings.
“Hey, Aunt Debra,” she says with a loud voice. The voice on the other side speaks. She listens for a while. “Oh yes aunt Debra I remember about that,” she smiles. “I am not at work today. I don’t do weekends but I promise I will sort that out on Monday okay?” she says smiling as she listens to what her aunt is saying in the other side of the line. “Okay auntie,” she says. “But that’s not why I was calling. I wanted to check if you are home because I wanted to come see you now about what we talked about
the other day?” she pulls the top mirror again and checks on her lipstick ad she listens to her aunt on the line. “Oh yes, no I’m sure I will talk to Derby and Lee-Ann if she comes over as well auntie. But I wanted to talk to you about something okay?” she listens to her aunt. She’s still looking at herself in the mirror. “Alright then, I will see you soon auntie okay?” she says as she drops the call. She puts her phone in her purse. She thinks for a second as she leans back on the seat. She drives off.
Upstairs, Mlu is still thinking about time he had with Julie. He seems very confused. He keeps playing the moments they had over and over in his head and trying to figure something out. He looks around for his phone. He scrolls down the contacts and dials.
“Hey bro,” he says as he listens to the person on the other side of the line. “yeah man yesterday was wild I tell you,” he says as he takes a sip of his whiskey. This is a third double now and it’s still around 10:00 am. “No man, I’m sorry I was going to call and check on you guys,” he says and listens. “Okay look man, I want to come over and talk to you about something. Is Lee-Ann there?” he says as he walks around the room listening to Simo on the other end. “okay man, I will come over around 14:00 in the afternoon. I just need to tidy up here and talk a shower and send a few work emails. Thereafter I will come see you okay?” he listens for a moment
“okay then bro. See you soon,” he says as he drops the call. He picks the bottles of ciders on the table and puts them in the bin. He goes to the kitchen and looks how messy it is and tries to think what was happening here last night. He shakes his head as he tidied up.
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