manicured hand. It looked as if her fingers had been dipped in blood.
“Going a bit kinky now, if you ask me,” Ayanda said, sipping at her beer.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Kiki said. “So he doesn’t have a car.” She raised her hand to stop any protests. “Before you say anything, I’ve changed that rule. The new one is: I can date men without cars, as long as they have a job. Anyway, so I go to his house to collect him and who opens the door? His mother!”
“So? What’s wrong with that?” Jabu asked. “Honestly, you don’t know what you want. You’re so tough on these guys.”
“Oh yeah? You think so?” Kiki asked. “I opened the door and thought I was looking into a mirror – only my reflection was about thirty years older and three or four shades lighter, but everything else? Almost spot-on!”
Jabu started laughing.
“Oh god!” Ayanda said. “He wants to date his mother!”
“Yeah,” Kiki said in a slightly put-out voice. “Laugh all you want. It’s creepy having to kiss a guy good night when you know he’s fantasising about doing it to his mother.”
Ayanda tried to contain herself. “I don’t know why you go on all these dates anyway. Rather just wait; the right guy will come along. Who knows, he might be here right under your nose.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it.” Kiki downed her pink drink, pushing the umbrella to the side to get the bit left at the bottom. She looked up, her bottom lip pushed out in a pout. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Nothing’s wrong. I think you’re perfect,” Jabu said with a face that looked slightly too serious. Then he quickly joked, “I’m sure Omar thought so too.”
Ayanda covered her mouth to muffle a giggle.
“Oh, Jabu, you think you’re so funny,” Kiki said, but she couldn’t hide her smile.
Busy with the story, they hadn’t noticed who entered the bar until someone said, “Hi, Ayanda, I thought I might find you here.”
Hearing a gasp from Kiki, Ayanda turned around to look into Sipho’s face. It took her a few seconds to get her bearings. Sipho Dlamini in Selly’s – that was something she never expected to see. “Hey . . . Aren’t you a bit out of your territory?”
“I came looking for you. I heard this was where people like you hung out.”
“People like me?” Ayanda asked.
“I meant journalists,” Sipho answered.
“I thought we agreed on Saturday,” Ayanda said, unable to prevent a tinge of annoyance from slipping in.
“I couldn’t wait until then to see you.”
Suddenly Ayanda realised she was being rude to her friends. “Sorry, guys, this is Sipho Dlamini. These are my friends Jabu Mathebula and Kiki January.”
Sipho took Kiki’s hand and kissed it, much to her delight. “What a lovely friend you have, Ayanda.”
Then he shook Jabu’s hand. “Are you the Jabu Mathebula who writes those fantastic sports articles?”
Jabu couldn’t hide his pride. “Yes, I cover sports for The Joburg Tribune.”
“I’m your biggest fan,” Sipho said.
Ayanda was pleased he was making her friends happy, but somehow it seemed all too smooth for her. Was he being sincere? she wondered. And what was he doing here? Was she never going to have any chance to be alone if she dated him?
“I have to take Ayanda away; I beg your forgiveness,” Sipho said.
Before any of them could say a word, he took Ayanda by the hand and led her out of the door. She was surprised to see his car parked right in front of Selly’s, where parking was notoriously hard to come by. Her car was in a lot five blocks away.
“Where are you taking me?” Ayanda asked as Sipho seated her in the car.
“I saw something lovely I’d like you to see.” He smiled and Ayanda sat back, surprised to realise she was ready to be taken to Mars if that was where he intended to take her. She wondered for a minute if he was using some kind of muti on her. So much about him was so wrong, and yet at that moment everything felt perfect.
He got in and drove effortlessly through the lit city. Ayanda didn’t see the passing scenes – she was mesmerised by Sipho. It was as if everything acquiesced to his whim. The lights were all green. The car silently glided as if it wanted only to please him. She’d never seen anything like it. She was drawn to him, but fear flickered at the back of her mind. If he had all the power, what would she have?
She was surprised when they stopped in front of the towering office building that housed Egoli Investments. Sipho got out and opened her car door, taking her hand and leading her to the glass doors at the front. A watchman jumped to his feet when he saw who it was.
“Good evening, Mr Dlamini.”
The watchman opened the locked doors and they went inside. Sipho led her to the lifts. Inside he inserted a key and hit a button marked R.
When Ayanda stepped out of the lift, she was confused at first. She had expected to be somewhere in the building, but instead she was outside in a garden planted on the roof. It smelled of musty earth with hints of frangipani and rose. It was magical.
“Here, take my hand,” Sipho said, having stepped out of the lift while she still stood in amazement. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’ll keep you safe.”
Automatically, Ayanda held her hand out to him. She believed every word he’d said. He led her to a wooden bench on a carpet of green grass at the edge of the fenced roof.
“Please sit down.”
Sipho disappeared and immediately reappeared, carrying a small tray with a bottle of champagne and two glasses on it. He set it on a dainty wrought-iron table in front of the bench, poured for them both and handed her a glass.
Then he said, “Look up.”
Ayanda did as directed and saw a velvety black sky full of stars. Up there on the roof she and Sipho were somehow far enough above all the city lights to see stars nearly as clearly as they appeared out in the villages with no electricity. The wide expanse of darkness with the twinkling of a million stars.
“How lovely,” she said. “Thanks for bringing me here.”
“When I saw those stars this evening, they were so beautiful that I thought of you, and of how beautiful you are – both inside and out. That’s a rare find, I can assure you.”
Ayanda wasn’t used to such compliments. She smiled and quickly changed the topic. “Do you come up here often?”
“Sometimes, when I’m troubled. When I’m here, I feel as if all my problems are left down there, fighting among themselves, and I get a bit of a reprieve.”
“Yes, I
