Marriage (Red, White &) Blues (Unexpectedly Married #2)

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

T he first animals we came upon were a pair of tiny antelope. And by tiny , I mean they might’ve been fifteen inches tall at best. I would’ve missed them if not for Moses pointing them out.

“Those are our Naivasha dik-dik,” he said. “They are full-grown adults at this point. The dik-dik is known for forming monogamous pairs rather than living in herds. The larger of the two is the female. She’ll give birth to one baby once or twice a year.”

“That sounds horrible,” I said and Blake looked at me, laughing. “What?” I asked. “Give a girl a break once in a while.”

“They only allow their young to stay with them for about seven months or so before they chase them off in order to make room for more babies,” Moses continued.

“That’s harsh,” Blake said.

“If you think that’s harsh, then the moral to this story is don’t be a dik-dik,” I replied to the hoots of both men.

Moses shifted in to drive to get us moving again. He pointed out plenty of birds for us to see before we hit the safari jackpot. “Look there!” Moses shouted and Blake and I snapped our heads in the direction he pointed.

“Is that a—?” Holywownoway . We watched a lion launch at a wildebeest, leaping onto the poor creature’s back and digging those massive claws into its hind quarters before sinking his razor-sharp teeth in to tear it apart. It broke my heart for the wildebeest, but I couldn’t turn away if I’d wanted to. When in my life would I ever get to see this again?

Moses kept the cruiser moving so as not to disturb the lion’s meal.

We were probably three hours from the lodge when we came across something I really never expected to see. A group of traditionally dressed men—hunters—chasing down a, well, it looked like an incredibly large warthog. Growing up as a city girl in the good old US of A, I had no idea that warthogs ran so fast and were so wily.

“Watch,” Moses ordered calmly this time, and I did, raptly. It took everything those men had to corner that beast and kill him with their spears. And that didn’t happen before one of the men, a younger man, maybe late teens, found himself on the wrong end of those tusks. It sliced his leg wide, blood just oozing like a battlefield wound.

“Where do they live?” I asked. “Will they be able to get him home on time?”

“I don’t know where they’ve set camp,” Moses answered. “They’re some of the area’s semi-nomadic people.”

“We have to help him. Will they let us help him?” I asked. Moses had a massive first aid kit in the car with us. He apparently agreed because he turned off the engine and opened the door. Blake grabbed the kit from the back then the three of us got out.

“He needs help,” Moses said to the men and they responded in a flurry of words some in English and some I didn’t understand. “Please let us help him.”

The young man writhed on the ground. Sweat beaded along his forehead. The leader of the hunting party agreed, letting us get close. Blake held him down while Moses performed the actual triage, which left me by the poor man’s head. I laid it in my lap and talked to him.

“Look at me, okay?” I said and he moved his eyes to me. “I know it hurts.” He reached up to grab one of my hands, squeezing it until the circulation went out of it. “Do you know Moses here?” I asked and the man shook his head. “Well, he’s awesome. He’ll get you fixed up so we can get you home.”

Right then, Moses did something that shot pain through the poor kid and he squeezed my hand even tighter if that were possible. Blake used his whole upper body to keep our patient still and Blake held some power in those arms, back, and chest.

Finally, Moses finished, wrapping the wound in a sterile bandage. “Let us take him home. He cannot walk with that injury.” All his fellow hunters agreed and the group of us helped him into the Land Cruiser. “One of you should come with us,” Moses said next. “To show us the way.”

Several of the men got down to the business of tying the dead hog to poles or something so they could carry it home while a fellow hunter joined us in the car. He pointed us in the direction of their camp and then introduced himself as “Leboo.”

“It’s good to meet you,” I said. “I’m Gloria.”

“I’m Blake.”

“Moses,” Moses said. Of the five of us in the car, four were covered in blood, and I wasn’t one of them. Though Leboo’s had to have been from the hog. Given we were in a moving vehicle, we arrived back at the camp before the other hunters.

“Where did you learn all that?” I asked our guide.

“I was a medic in the military,” he replied. He’d left being a medic to be a safari guide? There had to be a story behind that, but I’d been too aware of vets back home who’d been too messed up by their time in the service to talk about it, so I held my tongue this time.

Men and women spilled out from their huts to take in the visitors. Leboo hopped out first to approach a group of men. He spoke in that language that I didn’t understand again. Then one of the men approached with Leboo.

“This is our chief, Mingati. You saved his grandson, Lankenua.”

Mingati thanked us profusely. And as the other hunters made their way back to camp, Mingati ordered a feast to be held in honor of the hunters’ great kill, and for us, I guess, for saving his grandson. It wasn’t really explained, so I filled in the gaps myself.

Some of the women prepared the food while others helped paint bodies and faces. I sat back taking it all in.

“Is the woman your sister?” Leboo asked Blake. “Your wife?”

“No. She’s my girlfriend,” Blake said. When Leboo gave him a curious look, Blake explained further. “We’re together, but we aren’t married.”

I felt a little offended that Leboo would ask Blake that question but not me. Like I couldn’t speak? I totally had a voice, too.

“You travel with this woman who is not your wife?” he asked and he sounded absolutely affronted. “What of her family?”

As Blake appeared to be forming his response, Mingati said something in his native language and Leboo told us, “Mingati has stepped in to speak for the woman while you are in the camp.”

“‘Speak for the woman’?” I asked. I got no reply from either Leboo or Mingati.

“Is a great honor indeed,” Leboo went on.

Mingati called something out and a group of women ran over. They helped me up from the ground where I was seated next to Blake and began to pull me toward a hut. I glanced over my shoulder to maybe get Blake’s help in this matter, considering it appeared that women weren’t allowed to speak for themselves here, but he was being ushered away as well.

Well, okay, then.

They primped me, along with two other women. Paint and this heavy jewelry. Bright-colored shawls. They looked amazing. Since they had no mirrors in the camp, I had no idea if I looked amazing. But the way the women fawned over me; my guess would be they thought so.

When we were finally ushered back outside, the women sat me back next to Blake. One of the women sat next to Lankenua and the other woman next to one of the other men who had been on the hunt today.

I wasn’t exactly sure why Moses wasn’t sitting next to Blake and me, given that he did the majority of the life-saving, working on Lankenua’s leg. Seeing as Blake and I were seated in a place of honor along with two of the hunters and the women, whatever their role in this happened to be, I figured my earlier assessment about the hero’s feast was right.

Mingati began speaking loudly to all the people standing around us. He gestured to us and the sky. There was dancing by several men. Then a woman loaded down with chunky necklaces and bracelets on both wrists thrust a cup at me. Several of the women used their hands to gesture lifting the cup to my mouth, and I took that to mean they wanted me to drink it.

When in the Serengeti, right? I took a large drink from the cup, and the liquid dribbled down my chin. The people cheered. It tasted very bitter and strongly of alcohol. I was commanded to hand the cup to Blake and he lifted the cup to his mouth to drink, too. The other men and women in our circle drank from shared cups as well.

Then Mingati laid a hand on my shoulder and one on Blake’s. He spoke more words, the people cheered, and he moved down the line. Once he’d finished, the feasting began, and whatever that beverage was started to take effect.

Typically, I wasn’t much of a drinker, but seeing as we had food but no water around to drink, I had no choice except to imbibe more. By the time Blake and I were ushered to a hut, we were holding each other up.

I smiled at Mingati as he appeared to give us one final blessing. Blake and I fell on the mat left for us and I passed out.

We were woken up the next day by a woman bringing a sponge bath into the hut. She smiled and said something in a kind voice, then quickly left us. I washed the paint from my body and dressed in my clothes. I folded the shawls, placing the jewelry on top of them to return them. Then Blake washed himself, dressing back in his own clothing as well.

Moses sat talking with Leboo and Mingati when we emerged from the hut. This Tanzanian heat had already started melting my white-girl skin from my body. I reached inside my bag and handed Blake my sunscreen spray.

“Can you get me everywhere? I’ll burn to a crisp out here.”

“That would certainly put a damper on the rest of our trip.” He lifted the can and began to spray me all over. I returned the favor for him.

“We ready to head out?” Moses asked. I was hungry, but I knew we had nonperishable snacks in the car.

“I’m ready,” I said.

“Me too,” Blake answered.

The people of this camp were so nice that I almost didn’t want to leave. They wished us well and Moses steered us in the direction of the trail again.

We were about an hour into our drive and I still felt really hung over. I’d downed three bottles of water on my own. Surprising the both of us, Blake’s phone rang. I didn’t know we could even get cell service out here. The curious look on his face told me neither did he.

When he answered I tuned out, giving him his privacy. It was only right since he’d done that for me.

The problem was when he hung up, he looked incredibly unhappy.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“No— shit . I have to cut the trip short. Family emergency.”

“Can I do anything?”

“I wish you could. Moses, I have to get back to the States. Can you get me to the airport?”

“Going now,” he replied. Well, this sucked. Given that we carried our backpacks with us everywhere we went, he had no need to head back to the hut, save maybe for the extra clothes we’d picked up on our travels, but he didn’t appear to care about those.

“There is something you can do, now that I think about it,” Blake said to me. I gave him my full attention. “Go back to the lodge and spend a few days there pampering yourself. We’re paid up through the end of the week.”

I jerked, almost like he’d hit me. “You don’t want me to come with you?”

“ Glory ,” he said and I knew I wasn’t going to like what spilled from his mouth next. “My relationship with my family is… complicated . They don’t know about you and with what’s going on, I’m afraid they won’t be very nice. Give me time to wear them down and make sure they’re on their best behavior when they meet you. I don’t want them scaring you off.”

“They won’t?—”

“Please,” he said, cutting me off. “Do this for me. I’ll call as soon as things are good, then I’ll bring you to Vermont.”

Could we call this a crushing blow? Yes. Did my eyes rim with tears? Yes, again. Did I let them fall? Not on your life. It took a good chunk of the day to get us to the airport. Blake bought his ticket and then kissed me goodbye. But this kiss felt different than our others—like he really was saying goodbye.

Though before I left him, he promised to call. What was I supposed to believe, the man or the kiss?

Moses drove me back to the lodge and I spent the next few days swimming in the pool, eating fine food, and animal-watching all alone.

While I sat at the airport waiting for my flight to England, I went over my books and realized that thanks to Blake I still had plenty of money left, but the idea of continuing on this trip without my traveling companion sucked. I decided to head back home once I landed in Heathrow. This sadness could suck my big left toe. I knew it was bad when the draw of London wasn’t enough to keep me.

What felt like five million hours later, I finally touched back down in Detroit. I didn’t call anyone to let them know I’d returned. Well, other than to schedule an Uber driver to pick me up. But that didn’t count.

My mother wasn’t home when I arrived. No surprise there. What did surprise me was that there weren’t any perishables in the fridge, which meant while I was away, she’d been staying with Carl. What other explanation could there have been?

I thought a couple of times about calling Blake to let him know I’d arrived back safely, but if he really cared, he’d contact me.

“I’m falling for you…” God, I’d actually believed him. I just might’ve been the biggest idiot on the planet. Thank the good lord we’d never had sex because that would’ve made this ten thousand times worse.

Two weeks of me alone in this house, sending out applications to crappy jobs and jobs in different locations that I’d actually like to work, went by before I let Pen know that I was home. How? Fake pictures on my social media accounts. I wasn’t above subterfuge to keep my privacy for a while longer.

My mom never showed up. No clothes hung in her closet. Everything, every picture still hung on the wall, little knickknacks still sat on the shelves exactly like when the four of us—mom, dad, my grandma and me—lived here. But now there was only me.

“Gloria?” Pen said my name with such excitement when I called. “Where are you now?”

“Home.”

“Home? Is Blake with you?” she asked and like a damned fool, I burst out crying. Crying. I never cried. Maybe an errant tear here or there but a full-on sob? Never. “Honey,” she said softly and that just made it worse.

Somehow, I worked up the ability to say, “I’ll call back later.” Then I hung up. But here was the problem with unleashing a torrent of tears on one of your best friends and then hanging up. They don’t let it drop.

About an hour later, I heard a knock at the door. Pen stood there with Sierra and they had a smorgasbord’s worth of food bags in hand from every takeout place this side of Detroit, and Sierra held one paper bag that immediately caught my attention. I distinctly saw the red lid to a giant bottle of tequila peeking out of it.

I stood aside, holding open the door for them. “Come on in,” I said and since the living room was right there behind me, Si and Pen walked over to the sofa to drop their bags onto the coffee table.

My friends laid out a spread of Chinese food cartons, foil containers from the Mexican restaurant, Coney dogs, fried chicken, burgers, fries, fried mushrooms, and mozzarella sticks from a local bar. Sushi. Poke. Several foil containers from a local Indian place. And all the ingredients to make margaritas.

Both Pen and Si followed me to the kitchen to grab mason jars, plates, and forks. Then I got a pitcher from the cupboard over the refrigerator and filled it halfway with ice for the margs. We filled our plates and I downed one full mason jar of margarita before Sierra looked at me and cracked her neck from side to side.

“Where does he live? I’ll kill him and make it look like an accident,” she said.

“I won’t bother with making it seem like an accident. My family comes from enough money to hide that scandal and make sure I don’t do time,” Pen replied.

It was nice that they cared, but killing Blake seemed like an overreaction. Maybe just hire someone to break his kneecaps—no. He hadn’t really done anything wrong besides not wanting me to go back to Vermont with him and not calling. It hurt but I’d come to terms with the fact that I’d been his vacation fling—could you call it a fling if we’d never slept together? Without clothing, I mean.

“Guys, he’s allowed to change his mind about me. We met on my first day in Paris. We apparently both had the same idea to eat lunch by the Seine. Only, a bird flew off with half his lunch.”

They started laughing.

“I felt bad for the guy and went over to offer to share mine,” I continued.

“A meet cute,” Sierra said.

I shrugged. “I guess.”

“What happened, then?” she asked.

“We enjoyed each other’s company so much that he asked me to go to a festival in Norway with him. I did, and it sort of took off from there. We never left each other’s side as we toured Europe.”

“Was this a ‘just friends’ kind of arrangement?”

“If ‘just friends’ meant copious amounts of kissing and him telling people that I was his girlfriend.”

Pen’s mouth dropped open before she composed herself to ask, “He called you his girlfriend?”

At the same time, Sierra said, “Let’s go back to this kissing.”

“Yes. We talked about it. About halfway through our trip, he told me he cared for me. Then nearer the end, he said he was falling for me. And I swear I’ve never been kissed like that in my life.”

“ Okay … then why are you here?” Pen asked a very good question that I hated to answer.

“We were on a safari in the Serengeti?—”

“Wait,” Sierra said, cutting in. “You, Gloria Kowalski, went on a safari?”

“I did. And we stayed the night with this semi-nomadic tribe of people after saving one of their young hunters. Then the next day, we were back in the Land Cruiser and he gets cell service.”

“In the Serengeti?” Pen asked.

“Yes. His phone rings. He’s visibly upset and says he has to leave. That it’s a family emergency. Well, of course, I ask him what I can do. He tells me nothing. Then he says he’s going back to Vermont by himself. I asked why. His relationship with his family is complicated. They don’t know about me. He said he needed to make sure that when they do meet me, they’re on their best behavior.”

I couldn’t help it. Thinking back on that conversation started my eyes tearing up again.

“The son of a bitch is married,” Sierra said.

“I really don’t think he’s married.”

“Maybe his situation is like Ant’s. He has someone he’s supposed to marry and never intended to hurt you because he’s not in love with that person. He probably never expected to meet you, Gloria. Whatever that call was about, he had to go back to his real life.”

“That makes me want to kill him even more,” Sierra said. “If he knew he was supposed to get married, then what in the hell was he doing playing with her heart like that?”

While my friends argued about what the hell made Blake flake on me in Tanzania, I sat back on the sofa tuning them out. It really didn’t matter the why of it. He’d never intended for me to meet his family. As the vacation fling that he’d never gotten sex from, it shouldn’t have surprised me that he didn’t want me along for the ride. What ride? He’d never received one.

Once again, I’d been stupid Gloria.

Stupid, stupid, Gloria.