Dedication
To all my sisters, given and chosen, thanks for the lunches, the wine, the great laughs and for being there. May each one of us be blessed with the love of a good man. In the meantime, here’s to those who buy champagne.
Chapter 1
1
Mbali Matheba’s heart hammered painfully in her chest. Sipho Ngubene had just rung her bell.
What the hell! She’d buzzed him in, and he was coming up the stairs of her Edenvale flat this very minute. If she’d had her wits around her at all today, they had suddenly deserted her.
Mbali’s eyes misted over as a rush of excitement went through her body. She leaned against the door and tried to calm her breathing.
Why did the thought of Sipho always do this to her, ever since the first time she had seen him at varsity, up to . . .
A knock on the front door interrupted her brief foray into the past.
“Hey!” Mbali tried desperately not to sound breathless as she all but flung the door open. “What a wonderful surprise.” She smiled and didn’t dare speak another word.
Sipho took a moment to examine Mbali. Her hair, now short, was a riot of healthy black curls held back at the sides with fancy diamanté clips to expose the smooth ebony of her face. Twinkling dark-brown eyes stared into his and her little snub nose wrinkled slightly above smiling lips that always looked as if she had just been kissed.
She was tall, but still only came up to the level of his chin, and her body was slender with long, shapely legs leading to a curvaceous bottom. Yes, not much had changed. She was still irresistible and he was still on a fool’s errand, but looking at Mbali he was suddenly glad.
“Wow, you’re still just as beautiful,” he ventured.
The sexy huskiness of his voice had always been her undoing. Mbali caught herself before she sighed dreamily.
Sipho bent his head and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “May I come in?”
“Oh ja, sure!” Embarrassed at her lack of etiquette, Mbali stepped aside to allow him into her tiny flat and then shut the door after him.
Thank God she’d done some cleaning before stepping out earlier. She had a tendency to allow things to accumulate in the living room over the course of the week and then do a big clean on Saturday mornings. It wasn’t uncommon to find a bra slung carelessly over the couch. Phew! Despite it being a Thursday, today was one of her rare days of house pride.
She gestured him to a seat on her tan suede couch and sat down in a comfortable, worn leather armchair across from him. The noonday sun streamed in through the French windows that led out to a small balcony.
Sipho hadn’t changed much, except for maybe carrying himself with a new air of maturity. His eyes were light brown with golden specks, and fringed by the most beautiful lashes Mbali had ever seen on anyone. His eyes had always mesmerised her.
She watched as he arranged his tall, athletic form to lean slightly towards her and recalled in that instant the name she had given him all those years ago – Golden Delicious – on account of his golden, caramel-coloured skin. She almost licked her lips, but smiled instead.
He shifted in his seat, making her realise that she had been staring intently at him.
She quickly cleared her throat. “So, what brings you here?”
Eish! She had just jumped in and started interrogating the man. Whatever happened to small talk, or offering a drink? Mbali couldn’t believe that even now she was exhibiting this extended lack of finesse when it came to dealing with Sipho. Six years on she was still behaving like a gibbering fool with no idea of how to hold a normal conversation. It might have been forgivable at the tender age of twenty-one, but really, twenty-seven was an age that demanded some sophistication.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so abrupt, it’s just that . . . You really caught me by surprise. After all these years you’re about the last person I’d expect to see at my doorstep, on a weekday afternoon for that matter.”
He grimaced. “You don’t have to explain yourself, I completely understand. I had to come to Jozi for a couple of meetings and when I told Gcina, she insisted I bring you a letter. I probably should’ve called first, I wasn’t sure you’d be home . . . But I guess I just got lucky.”
“A letter?” Mbali seized on the salient point. Gcina had been her soul sister since their first day at Rhodes and they talked regularly, so what letter could she be sending with Sipho? But with Gcina it could be anything; she was always up to mischief. “Why didn’t she just post it or simply call me?”
Sipho shrugged.
“I don’t know. She made me promise on my honour that I’d deliver it personally. She even said I should take a photo of the expression on your face when you read her letter . . . But hey,” Sipho held his hands out with palms up, a crooked smile spreading across his face, “I don’t roll like that.”
They both laughed.
“Ooh! Gimme.” Mbali held out her hand excitedly. Gcina had a thing for dramatic revelations, and the two of them were always trying to top each other with surprises so that they would have something to crow about later.
Sipho regarded Mbali’s outstretched hand for a few seconds, then looked into her eyes that were sparkling with anticipation and crinkled at the corners to carry her smile. Her face was open and unaffected, and he felt himself being pulled into her deep gaze.
“Uhm . . . the letter?” Mbali was feeling breathless all over again.
He reached over and placed an elegant cream envelope in her hand.
On the front was written boldly:
Ntombazana! EAT YOUR HEART OUT!
Mbali laughed. It was a crazy thing between the two of them, something that had cracked them up from the day they first called each other ntombazana. Nobody else got it and it was never funny when anyone else tried it on them. They joked that they probably knew each other from a previous life where the joke had been conceived, and having found each other again in this life, they had recognised each other through that reference point.
Mbali opened the envelope and read Gcina’s short letter. “I don’t believe it!” she said, clapping a hand over her mouth and squealing before bursting into laughter. “She did it! She really did, and oh damn, I’ll have to pay up.”
Despite the fact that curiosity was getting the better of him, Sipho patiently waited for Mbali to finish exclaiming and talking to herself.
Absently, she got up from where she was sitting, wandered into the small kitchen and poured two glasses of sparkling water, all the while glancing back at the letter she had placed on the counter.
“So, what’s this all about, if you don’t mind my asking?” Sipho finally gave in to his curiosity as Mbali handed him a glass of the cool water.
She
