Loyalty
“Darling, have you heard from your cousin? I can’t get hold of her on the phone, neither can Morgan and I’m really worried about her” Debra asks Julie with a worried face. It has been about 5 days since that night of drama when Simo proposed to Lee-Ann, who has since gone back to her place. Julie had come to see her aunt just to check up on them.“No auntie, I haven’t. She’s also not taking my calls,” Julie responds as she slips on her coffee. Today is a really cold day, perfect for some hot cocoa. They are sitting in the living room, watching TV while Morgan is asleep upstairs. “Look auntie, I think she just needs some time of. She will come around. Let’s just give her some time okay?” Julie insists. But this doesn’t help Debra who is very sad over how things went down that night. She goes over by the old display table, she picks one of the pictures that has Lee- Ann and Derby when they were kids. She looks at it and suddenly she is overwhelmed by grief as she puts the picture in her chest.
“I’m worried about her Julie. What if something has happened to my little girl? What if we’ve pushed her away?” she starts sobbing. But Julie comes over to comfort her, “No, no, no auntie, don’t think like that okay?” she pleads with Debra. “Look, tomorrow I will go and see her okay. I just need to get the apartment number from Mlu and I will go check on her, so don’t you worry now okay?” she says as she takes Debra by the hand and leads her to her sofa.
There’s a moment of silent as both of them sip on their coffee. Julie looks at the ceiling and sighs deeply, “But auntie,” she says. “We both know what’s the problem here, right?” she raises her voice little bit. But Debra looks a little confused as to what Julie means but she waits for her to continue while she’s sipping on her coffee. “The problem here is Simo, auntie.” But that statement makes Debra give a sigh as if she doesn’t want to entertain that conversation or she just doesn’t want to hear Simo's name. “No, auntie I’m serious” Julie insists. “Did we have this before this Simo guy showed up? No. And I did tell Lee-Ann about him but no, she didn’t want to hear it. Look now” her voice is only getting higher and higher. She’s getting upset over this.
“But I think we should let that issue go Julie,” Debra cuts in. “Yes I don’t like that boy. I think he is trouble and will bring trouble in my family. But I don’t want to fight my daughter over this and I sure don’t want to lose her, not over her own choices that she’s made as a grown up woman. I just can’t Julie” she gets sad all over again.
“But auntie you don’t understand,” Julie cuts in again. “That man is not good for my cousin. He will hurt her” she raises her voice as she stands up and goes by the window to look outside. She then comes over and sits next to Debra. “auntie, have you forgotten what these people did to my mom, your sister? And my dad?” she’s now really upset. “They hijacked my parents,” she shouts. “They hurt my dad. They are all the same, these people. They are raised the same way. Who’s to say Simo isn’t capable? What makes him so different to the rest of them? What if one day this man decides to beat Lee-Ann half way to death? What then?” she shouts even more while looking at her auntie.
Debra, who was quietly listening to her niece all this time suddenly drops the cup to the table in terror and the coffee spills over the table and staining the magazine that Julie was reading earlier. “Oh my goodness auntie, are you okay?” Julie shouts in shock as she rushes to the kitchen. She comes back with the dish cloth.
Are you okay, auntie? Did it burn you?” she asks as she wipes the coffee table. When she’s done she takes the cloth to the kitchen and comes back with a glass of water. “I’m sorry auntie I didn’t mean to scare you with that, are you okay? Here drink this” she gives Debra a glass of water. Debra takes it and starts drinking, she holds the glass with both her still trembling hands. She puts the glass down. There’s an awkward silence in the room. Julie doesn’t want to make it worse by say something more upsetting.
She just keeps quiet and drinks her coffee.
“I’m sorry darling,” Debra says. “I just got terrified at the thought that…” she doesn’t finish her thought knowing that Julie probably gets where she’s going with it. “But you are right darling,” she says. “That man is not good for my daughter. I don’t want him in my daughter’s life” she now looks angrier than terrified. Julie looks at her with a straight face, not showing emotion at all.
“I also don’t want his friend in your life too, by the way” she says with a serious face, looking at Julie. But Julie let’s out a smile, “Don’t worry about me auntie. Mlu isn’t in my life and if you must know, I was working on a plan.” She says to a confused or curious Debra who continues to drink her water. But she can’t help but asks, “What do you mean you’ve got a plan?” But as Julie was about to responds, she’s interrupted by Derby who is coming down stairs. They had agreed to keep her out of whatever they say or plan about Lee-Ann and Simo's relationship. Derby is very close to her sister and she will never approve of anything sinister.
“Oh hey, cuz,” Julie calls out. “Have you talked to Lee-Ann lately? No one seems to get hold of her. We are worried about her. Has she said anything to you?” she asks Lee-Ann who clearly has something on her mind to say about these two in the living room. She knows these two don’t Simo and she can’t help but wonder what they are sitting here talking about.
“No I haven’t spoken to her. But I’m sure when she’s ready she will come over here. This is her home. Let’s allow to deal with things her own way.” Derby says as she goes to the kitchen and pours herself a glass of milk. She decides to not disturb whatever is going on in this living room. Debra and Julie don’t respond to that but watch Derby climbs the stairs all the way to her room. There’s moment of silence thereafter as Debra is still waiting to hear what her niece meant by a plan, “so, you were saying?” she says to a rather reluctant Julie who stands up and goes to look through the window. She comes back and sits down. She takes a deep sigh as she looks to the ceiling, which makes Debra curious.
“Look I can’t tell you what the plan is okay. But yeah I have found a way of getting rid of this man. Believe me, he’ll be out of Lee-Ann's life for good. She looks at Debra, honestly expecting a little more excitement than a confused face. But Debra is her heart, she’s thrilled but she’s just wondering about the cost of all this. And Julie can tell what her aunt is thinking.
“I know what you are thinking, auntie,” she says. “But realistically, there’s no way of getting rid of this man without hurting Lee-Ann. We spoke about this, remember?” she holds the embarrassed Debra’s hands. “But this is for her own good. She will get over it. It’s better this happens now than when they are married and having kids, don’t you think?” she insists. Debra takes a minute to think about it. She sighs, “Yeah I guess you’re right” she says. “we just have to be there for her when it all goes down. That’s the most important thing” as she finishes her glass of water. Julie gets closer to her and embraces her, “its going to be okay, auntie okay? I need you to trust me on this one. I got to run now okay? I’ve got a few errands to run.” As she kisses her on the cheek.
Meanwhile, Lee-Ann had decided to go back to the apartment from the day of the anniversary party to go and wait for Simo. But she hasn’t heard from him in a week. Every time her phone rings she jumps to answer in hope that she’ll hear the voice of the man she loves. Even when the doorbell rings she jumps. She has forgotten that Simo has keys as this is actually his place. She had spent this week mostly starring at through the window in the parking lot, hoping his car will park by. She’s been cooking special meals every evening in hope that they can put the past behind them and look to the future. But all those meals have ended up in the fridge.
She is sitting in the lounge looking at the photo album that has their most memorable pictures. She’s starring at this particular photo, where they were on vacation to Cape town. She begins to reminisce about that wondering weekend, their beach moment, to the restaurant up to their bedroom. She lets out a smile as she remembers everything as if it was yesterday.
All the thoughts are disturbed by the smell of a familiar scent, a cologne. This is my man’s cologne; she thinks to herself. She had been in dreamland such that she didn’t even hear someone coming through the door. She didn’t notice that there was a person standing behind her. Her heart pounds fast at the thought. She as anxious. She turns around, and sees, yes it is indeed her man. It is Simo standing behind her. She quickly stands up. She wants to jump to him but she doesn’t think it’s a good idea right now. A lot is going through her mind as she fixes her eyes on her Mandy eyes. But Simo pulls his away as he looks down. Lee-Ann decides to come closer to him. Her eyes are becoming teary.
“Hi,” she whispers because her voice can’t quiet come out. But she waits to hear him respond. She had missed his voice so much. At this point, tears have started falling down her cheeks, and she’s not bothered to wipe them. “Hi,” Simo says with a low voice. Honestly at this point, it’s all she can ask for.
At that moment she can’t help but cling on her man as she begins to cry. “Thank God, you’re okay” she says. But what’s making the embrace not that great is because Simo is not hugging her back. I guess that’s okay. She had expected this so she can’t complain. But because of how awkward the hug is she decides to break it herself. But she leads a quiet Simo by the hand to sit down.
He obliges. There is that awkward silence in the room as Lee-Ann looks at her man with some kind of relief. But she really doesn’t know what to say to him. Simo keeps his eyes from making contact with Lee-Ann by looking around the place as if he were a visitor. But Lee-Ann keep her on him without even blinking as if she’s trying to read into him.
“Uhmm, can I get you something?” Lee-Ann says nervously. All she’s trying to do is to get Simo to talk. And so far she’s not winning. Maybe she’s rushing things. Maybe she should give him time to settle in. All this goes into her head. But Simo finally makes eye contact. Lee-Ann thinks to herself these are the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.
“No thank you. I’m okay” Simo responds. But Lee-Ann just smiles in relief thinking to herself well, that’s a start. She needs something to break the ice though as she thinks to herself that they’ve never in their relationship ran out of something to talk about. They can talk for hours on end until they fall asleep without even getting bored. From politics, to sports and entertainment, there has never been limits. But today just seems like it’s a couple that’s new to each other. But under the circumstances, it probably makes sense that it can’t be as usual. They have a lot of things to talk about. Maybe for Simo, looking at Lee-Ann takes him back to that weekend of humiliation and it creates doubts in him.
“Actually I didn’t know if I had to cook or not because wasn’t sure you’ll come back” Lee-Ann says nervously. But Simo doesn’t respond. There’s an awkward silence. “But you know, we can always order take away if that’s okay with you. I mean, anything you want, really” Lee-Ann says as tears start to come down again and Simo feels bad about it.
“okay look, I think we need to talk first, okay?” Simo says as he pulls away from eye contact. At those words, Lee-Ann’s heart just sinks. No one likes to hear those words. They literally make your heart race. You naturally begin to think of all the worst case scenarios. And Lee-Ann as she goes to sit edgily on the sofa she’s terrified of the thought of losing her love. She can’t say this was completely unexpected seeing how things went so bad the other weekend. Simo comes over to sit next to her. For a few seconds they look at each other in the eyes in silence. The moment is tense and awkward.
“Look, what happened last weekend was…” Simo doesn’t finish the thought as Lee-Ann cuts him of, “Please, before you say whatever you were about to say,” she says nervously with a trembling voice. “Can I say something, please?” she pleads to a reluctant Simo, who doesn’t like that he was interrupted.
When you have set your mind to saying whatever is in your heart, you just want to say it there and then before you lose your nerve. Maybe Simo has already lost his already as he concedes to Lee-Ann’s insistence. He looks at her teary eyes and realises this won’t be as easy as he thought it would be. But the last he wants is arguing with her. Lee-Ann attempts to hold Simo’s hands, reluctantly he gives them to her to avoid awkwardness.
“I know I’m probably your least favourite person right now baby,” Lee-Ann says trying to make a light joke with a smile, hoping it will break the ice. But Simo is just looking straight into her eyes without showing any emotion. But he’s still holding her hands.
“But I just wanted to say that uhmm…” she seems to be running out of words. “I just wanted to say that I’m so sorry about what happened last weekend. I know how that whole drama hurt you and how it has created lots of doubts in you. I just want…” but Simo cuts her, “slow down there” he says to Lee-Ann’s surprise. “So, which drama are we talking about, huh? you mean where your folks humiliated me in front of their guests and called me a criminal on account of the colour of my skin? Or the fact that you stood there and watched as the world swallowed me, and not defending me from the racists treatment I suffered at the hands of your parents?” he says as his voice is raised higher and higher.
By the time he finished he had pulled his hands from Lee-Ann. He is now very upset, much to Lee-Ann’s shock. She’s probably thinking this was way too harsh from her man. She was hoping they’d just talk and try to make up without saying hurtful things to each other. They are still looking at each other in the eyes. But Lee-Ann’s cheeks have now turned red as tears fall down. There’s a moment of silence in the room as Lee-Ann looks to the ceiling trying to stop tears from falling further down but Simo is still looking at her. He has that regret look on his face. Not perhaps regretting what he’s just said but maybe other things. He looks down for a moment. But Lee-Ann looks at him with begging eyes.
“Look, I’m sorry for what happened, okay?” she says with a trembling voice. “I know. I know I should have defended you. I know I shouldn’t have let my parents speak to you like that. But babe, I’m not my parents. You know me” tears fall down again. “You know I love you. You know I want to spend my life with you and….” she doesn’t finish her sentence as Simo cuts her off “Yet you couldn’t tell your folks that I had proposed to you?” he raises his voice. “I had asked you a number of times before, to tell your parents that we are going to get married. But you kept postponing, why? Because you’re ashamed of me right? I’m not the ideal skin colour for your family isn’t it?” at those unexpected words, Lee-Ann jumps from the sofa in shock,
“How dare you” she raises her voice. “How can you even suggest something like, to me of all people? I had told you the reason for my delay in telling my parents. I told you I needed the right time to tell them because I knew how this can turn out like. I was trying to protect you from this”
Simo, who was sitting down as Lee-Ann was talking now also stands down to cut her off, “No, no, no” he says. “Please don’t turn this around to be about me, okay? Protecting me from what, exactly?” his voice too is now raised. And they are starring at each other in the eyes.
“No, stop.” Lee-Ann cuts in again. “You had your turn to speak. Now it’s my turn, okay?” she says as she points her finger on Simo and he keeps quiet. “You are accusing me of being ashamed of you because you’re black? How can you say something so mean to me? After all we’ve been through, you dare question my loyalty towards you?” she starts crying. “you think it’s always easy to have to choose my boyfriend over my family, huh? To have to constantly defend my decision to them every day? ou think that is easy? How do you even begin to say something so mean to me after all we’ve been through?”
She’s now inconsolable.
Simo feels bad about what he’d just said. He tries to take Lee-Ann’s hands but she pulls away as she wipes her tears. She then goes to the bedroom, leaving Simo standing by himself. He decides to go by the side table and pours himself a double of whiskey. He downs it all in one go. He needs another one. He pours and downs it in on go as well. He goes by the window to look outside. He realises maybe there’s one or two things he could have said better but, it’s too late to apologize now. He thinks to himself, perhaps it is something he has always wanted to say. It is hard now to tell which is which. But his thoughts are interrupted by Lee-Ann who comes out of the bedroom. She’s carrying a bag.
“I’m going over to my mom’s” she says to a shocked or surprised Simo as she goes to the door without looking back. Simo goes after her and stops her from opening the door. “Hey, please don’t go. Can we please talk about this for a minute?” he pleads as he tries to hold Lee-Ann’s hand but she pulls it away, still without even looking at him. Seeing that she has made up her mind about this and without wanting to make the situation worse he moves his hand from blocking the door. He watches her girlfriend walk out to the elevator. He closes the door behind him and lean towards it for a moment as he sighs deeply in regret. He goes over by the window to watch down at the parking. He sees Lee-Ann getting into the car. She’s not even looking up. She drives of as Simo watches on.
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