Page 6 of The Rival in South Africa
I took a bottle of acetone out from behind the mirror and settled in to take my nail polish off and trim my nails.
Unfortunately, my recent thoughts of Alex combined with the acetone made my mind wander to the first time I had ever talked to him. We had gone to the same private school and had vaguely known each other in passing. One day, I stayed late—I don’t even remember why anymore—and in passing through the empty halls, I found some graffiti on a locker. I knew whose locker it was just from the words sprawled across it: racist Asian bollocks with male genitalia commentary thrown in.
Furious, I’d stalked down to my own locker and dug out a bottle of acetone, the small travel kind, and cotton balls. I hoped it would be enough.
Alex was the only Asian kid in our school. He was lanky and a bit nerdy, and he hadn’t grown into his long and lean body just yet. Of course, bullies in secondary will pick on anyone. I’d been called Horse Teeth for a while because my front two teeth are kind of big, but when my tits grew in, the nicknames no longer focused on my teeth. Calling me Knockers instead was ever so clever.
“What are you doing?”
Alex’s voice rang out behind me as I was scrubbing off the “i.”
“What does it look like? I’m shoving love notes in your locker, obviously.”
A moment of silence stretched as I moved on to the “n.” I heard Alex shift behind me, and wondered if he knew what had been written. Had he seen it already?
“Well, thanks.”
His tone was resigned, so clearly not the first time this had happened.
“Pleasure. Won’t give these wankers the satisfaction of everyone seeing this tomorrow. What are you doing here, anyway?”
His clothes rustled as he shrugged behind me. “Tutorials.” He paused. “I’m the one getting tutored in maths, not the other way around.”
“Didn’t think you were. I remember your test scores.”
“Yes, well, just wanted to make sure the day wasn’t chockablock full of Asian stereotypes.” After a moment of silence, he said, “I’m not even Chinese.”
“Bullies don’t tend to excel at geography.” The “k” came off easily, and I capped the bottle and turned around.
He watched me, pursing his lips.
“What?”
“It’s weird to hear you say wankers in your posh accent.”
“Other people here have posh accents.”
He tilted his head. “Not quite as posh as yours.”
Alex’s accent was muddled. As I learned later, his mother spoke with a slight Malaysian accent, his dad’s accent was a rougher Cockney, and Alex ended up a hodge-podge. My accent, on the other hand, was metaphorically beaten into me. When our family moved from Russia—much to my mother’s anger; it is something my parents still row about—my parents hired an elocution coach to help me fit in.
From that day on, after scrubbing the graffiti off his locker, Alex became one of my best mates. Until my teenaged hormones kicked in and threw everything off balance.
THREE
I satin the Johannesburg airport at one of the high tables with a plug that miraculously turned it into a workstation, cramming at the last minute. I was nervous, and when I got nervous, I got compulsive. The compulsion had led me to obsessively reread emails and simultaneously watch YouTube videos.
While an American droned on in my ears about depth of field and focal points, I scanned an email from Siviwe, the marketing manager of Amukela Lodge.
We’re operating on a soft launch right now, so only half the tents—six will be in use while you are here. The pool is fully functional, but the hot tub is not. As you can see from our website, we don’t have much in the way of photographs yet, and that’s where you come in.
We’d messaged back and forth after that, coming up with a list of shots to get beyond the obvious ones; staff photos, shots of the kitchen and rooms, plus all of the excursions.
I was going to be working my arse off for this luxurious “vacation.”
Something touched my shoulder, and I pulled a headphone out, spinning in the chair and expecting to find someone asking if they could use the extra plug at my station to charge their phone. Instead, I spun right into Alex, who was leaning over my shoulder and looking at my laptop screen.
Thanks to my chair’s height, I was eye-to-eye with him when my knee connected with his groin. It was an accident. Completely accidental.
