Page 10 of Worlds Apart
He was waiting by the truck when Alice walked over.
“Why are you sitting by the truck like a lump, eh? Go and join your guests.”
He glanced at Ethel, Sunny, and the American family. “Guides and spotters usually eat on their own. I don’t want to intrude.”
“I’m going to join them too. You’re the owner of the camp, Martin. You want to take all your meals this week with Mingati?”
Martin glanced over his shoulder where the surly game spotter was crouched on the grass, leaning against a tire and silently drinking cornmeal porridge and sweet milk tea. He squinted into the distance, ignoring both Alice and Martin both.
“Fair point.” Martin decided that eating with the guests wouldn’t be too unprofessional, especially if Alice was joining him. “Your friend is having a good time?”
Alice nudged his side. “I told you she was beautiful.”
“I’m not… That’s hardly the point, Alice. I’m simply asking if she’s feeling welcome at the camp.”
“Sunny is the type to be happy anywhere. She’s very content, but not very good at standing up for herself sometimes.”
“Ah. She seemed a bit nervous yesterday.”
“Hmm.” Alice shrugged. “That can happen when she’s around men she thinks are attractive.”
Martin blinked and Alice continued to the riverside to sit next to Ethel, leaving the seat near Sunny the only open one at the breakfast table. He hesitated for a moment.
What was Alice doing? Was she trying to tempt him into a holiday romance with her friend? That wasn’t something he did.
Martin had been raised to be professional with guests at all times. His father was always quick to remind him that someone paying you for the use of a room was not a friend and couldn’t be. They were a customer and one always had to keep the rules of proprietorship at the front of one’s mind.
She wasn’t a woman he could flirt with; she was a guest.
Then Sunny looked over her shoulder, squinted into the sunlight, and smiled.
Damn that smile.
Martin walked to the edge of the river where the folding tables had been covered with fresh white linens, heaping plates of fruit, and steaming omelets prepared at the camp kitchen for the guests.
They were seated on the edge of a riverbank and in the distance, hippos and crocodiles sunned themselves in the silt-filled river. A herd of zebras was grazing nearby, and two curious vervets perched in an acacia tree. Birdsong filled the air, and in the river, hippos snorted as they floated in the muddy shallows.
“Hello.” Sunny motioned to the seat beside her. “Would you care to join us? There’s plenty of food.”
“Thank you.” Martin quickly took his seat and glanced down the table. “Alice mentioned that you wouldn’t be averse to my company, so I thought I would join you.”
Both the American parents and Ethel were quick to agree.
“Please!”
“Make yourself at home.”
“Wait, is this where you live all the time?” the older boy asked. “Do you live your whole life at the safari camp?”
His brother piped up. “I want to live in a tent all the time too.”
Martin smiled as he helped himself to a mushroom omelet; he could tell the entire table was curious. “I don’t live here all the time. We have an off season here in the Mara, and during that time I have a house in Nairobi where I live.”
Mrs. Calloway said, “Nairobi is the big city we flew into, boys.”
“Ohhhh.”
Martin took a glass of juice that Sunny held out to him. “Thank you.”
