grimacing at the onlookers, who seem to agree with him that she is a difficult customer, at which his face shows relief.
As soon as they are outside and the music is softer, File turns on him, furious. “What the hell are you doing?! What is this all about?”
Lwazi can see that she is exasperated with him and says sheepishly, “It’s about you and me, baby.”
She tries to answer him, but he places a finger on her mouth to stop her. “I know we’ve been apart for a while, but we’re so good together, File.”
She slaps his finger away and says matter-of-factly, “Good for your career, you mean.”
“No, for each other’s careers . . . And other stuff,” he stumbles, taken aback by her frankness. “I’m no good without you and I think you may need me a little too,” he says hopefully.
“Stop this,” she says. “You should know that sometimes there are no second chances when it comes to romance. And anyway, ours was more of a mutual admiration association, with friendly feelings and some initial passion. We were never really in love; it was never meant to be forever. It would be completely fake to continue what we had, and I’m not the kind of woman who can cope with that much artificiality.”
“Please,” he insists, “one more chance, that’s all I’m asking of you.”
She shakes her head. “No, we served the purposes we were supposed to in each other’s lives and we said goodbye, as we should have. We can’t go back because there’s nothing to go back to. My true love is out there, and so is yours. Stop wasting your time with me; you could lose out on that one true love because you’re too focused on the wrong person. Please, Lwazi, I don’t like doing this any more than you enjoy being at the receiving end. So let’s be friends if we can, but I don’t want to and I never will be your partner again. Okay?”
He opens his mouth to argue, but this time she puts her finger on his lips.
“No, Lwazi, you’re ruining my night out. Look around you – there are so many women eagerly waiting for you to just say the word and they’ll be yours. Go for one of them. I’m not interested.”
“But, File, they’re just ass kissers who rarely add any value. You said yourself that all relationships are basically parasitic, and we serve each other very well.” Lwazi is trying his best to sound as practical and logical as she is.
“Yes, but we have nothing else to offer each other,” she counters. “What’s left for us to discover about each other and ourselves? What else can you teach me about life and who I am? You taught me that I can be a caring and supportive girlfriend and that I don’t have to be so logical about relationships, plus you taught me about passion and ambition. We truly stuck it out and milked it for everything it was worth. But now there’s nothing left, only affection.”
“But I love you,” he insists.
“You mean you love what I do for your image,” she says, raising her eyebrows in irritation. “You’re a great guy, Lwazi, but I’m just not the woman for you. You need someone who’ll be all enamoured of you, and we both know I’m not that woman. You have an entire harem to choose from. You really don’t need me to be fabulous.”
She notices that he is on the verge of giving up. “Come on, let’s go back inside and have some fun. Stop being silly and trying to live up to the title of Luscious Lwazi.”
He smiles at the last quip, but File can see that he is disappointed. She quickly turns away, pulling him after her.
As they enter the club again, she pushes Lwazi into the middle of a bevy of bootylicious beauties. They release pleased squeals and are all over him, drawing the attention of onlookers. He gets into it and loves the attention. As he swivels around and looks at File, she gives him a wide smile and two thumbs up, then turns to go back to her girlfriends, relieved to have dodged that bullet.
As she arrives at the group, Tumi raises a questioning eyebrow, but she just shakes her head and purses her lips, making her friend laugh out loud. File looks over towards Lwazi one last time and sees that he has clearly forgotten about her with all those women rubbing up against him. Despite her exasperation, she feels a little twinge of jealousy that startles her into resolutely getting back to partying away her last night in Joburg.
* * *
Orefile opens her eyes and is glad that she drank that jug of water last night, otherwise she would be too much of a wreck to attempt the long drive to the Lehurutshe district, which will be her home for the next six months to a year. She looks around her empty bedroom and the suitcase by the wardrobe with a pair of jeans, a tank top and underwear on top of it, and sighs.
Her mind travels back over the past few years spent in this townhouse . . . The braais in her little garden with her wild girlfriends, the raucous parties she hosted with the city’s glitterati, and even the hot nights spent with ex-boyfriends. This thought takes her back to the twinge of jealousy and sadness she felt last night when she realised that she really wasn’t important to Lwazi.
File thanks God that the economy went up in smoke, giving her the perfect excuse to escape the city and head back home to the bundu. She’s glad that she will be away from Lwazi, who seems to have turned into some kind of stalker. She shakes her head, trying to dispel the sharp headache that strikes at the thought of all the embarrassing SMSs and phone calls, and the fact that she eventually had to ask Security not to let him into the complex without her permission.
Most men would be quite happy to have a break-up end so cleanly and without a fuss, and actually for a while Lwazi had seemed to appreciate it, flirting around with various bimbos, much to her relief. But then he appeared to do an about-turn and has since made many attempts to win her back.
He provided the kind of fluffy relationship that she has always loved. It was all about looking good together and having fun. But that was no longer enough for her. File realised this when she found herself looking for something more than base desire in Lwazi’s eyes and found even less than that.
He was too self-absorbed to even take the time to get to know her. Lwazi never listened to her or asked how her day had been or what she was thinking, and he seemed content to parade her at parties all over town and being constantly surrounded by people. But with the crowd gone and just the two of them together, she found the long silences grating and telling.
Orefile knew it wasn’t supposed to be like that, and she didn’t think she was supposed to feel lonely with someone right next to her. So she decided like the Motswana girl that she was that they should part ways while they were still friends. That was at least ten months ago, and to have him come back and want to pick up where they had left off was creepy and more than a little off-putting. It was making her very uncomfortable.
She sits up in bed and wonders whether she truly feels nothing for Lwazi at all, or whether the sadness from last night is just a nostalgic twinge for life in bustling Joburg that she has come to love so much. This city treated her well, welcomed her with open arms, clothed and fed her, and raised her into a successful young woman. Perhaps having to give this up has sparked the twinges. File frowns and tells herself it had better be that, because there is no point in feeling anything for an egotist like Lwazi January. She truly hopes she isn’t that stupid.
She releases a relieved breath, closes her eyes tightly and bites on her bottom lip, gathering the strength to embark on this new adventure. Fortunately she will be deep in the bundu of Lehurutshe, where she doubts there will be any cute, cologned, well-dressed, clued-up young men to
