It seemed amazing that three weeks had passed since the trip to The Cape. Elizabeth had her hands full and the time melted away. She was staying with both Chompie and Bessie. Realeboga needed no responsibilities; he needed to focus on getting prepared for the fight, so had no spare moments to care for a dog. Elizabeth offered to take Bessie. So a lot of the three weeks she was busy with dogs- walking, feeding, and cleaning up after them.

During those weeks, she and Realeboga saw each other a total of two times. Both times he came over to the flat. In each case, he managed to eat dinner and then stayed awake for a total of 25 minutes and then he was out. He always felt bad about it but she knew he was exhausted from the crazy schedule he was on. She told him not to trouble himself; he should focus on his training. She would instead come by the gym when she got a chance, but otherwise they’d just wait to get back on track with their relationship after the fight.

Though she made it out like she was doing Realeboga a favour, the favour was really for her. Every time she saw him the guilt of her secret weighed so heavily on her that she ended up behaving oddly. Either overly attentive or distant. It confused him. She was not a good liar and it seemed like everything was a lie between them now. So though she said she’d come by the gym, she never did, always making excuses for why she couldn’t find the time.

She missed him desperately, though. She missed his smile. His kind words and receptive ear. She missed holding him and kissing him. She missed walking the dogs with him and talking about everything. But in a way she thought it might be better to get used to him being gone. She realised now, if she was honest that would be the only option, him leaving her. Too much time had passed now for her to reveal her lie and still be forgiven.

She sat at her desk going through all the various scenarios of what would happen if she told Realeboga she was EB Diseko. As time passed and she continued to keep quiet, more and more of the possible scenarios, at least the ones that made any sense, ended in Realeboga leaving her forever. That conclusion gave her more faith that keeping her secret was the only sensible thing to do. After the weekend away, she could lie to herself no more. She loved Realeboga and she wasn’t going to risk losing him by telling him the truth. She couldn’t, not now.

Levendale burst through the door, no knock, saving Elizabeth from her thoughts. He threw the latest issue of her column on the desk. “So what is this?”

For once she welcomed Levendale’s intrusion into her thoughts. “Not to state the obvious, but it’s my column.”

“I know it’s your column, Elizabeth. But why are you avoiding talking about the fight? The fight you couldn’t stop talking about a month ago.”

“It is about a fight- the upcoming WBC title fight between Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Andy Lee. That’s a big fight.”

“Don’t play stupid. You know I mean The Hitman’s fight. How do you almost single-handedly push the guy into the ring and then keep silent about it. It’s crazy.”

“What’s there to talk about? Nothing’s happening. I’m waiting for the fight. Then there’ll be something to write about. Then I’ll write about it. Until then I need to occupy myself with other things.”

Already Rre Chako had given her a talking to about her column. He also wanted to know why she seemed to be ignoring a fight she was so keen to see happen. She told him that talking about it too much might make it lose some of its suspense. She didn’t believe that and she knew he didn’t either, but he let it go. She promised the next column would be exclusively about the fight. Right now she couldn’t bear to write a word about it.

Levendale looked at her as if searching for a different answer. She turned away just in case he had some superpowers for reading minds that she wasn’t aware of. The last thing she needed was Levendale getting messed up in everything.

“Strange. It almost seems like you’re not interested in the fight anymore. Like you don’t want it to happen after all. Could it be you agree with me now? That the entire fiasco will be a joke? An old, out of shape man who hasn’t been in the ring for over a decade fighting a man at the top of his game? Disaster in the making. Your making.”

“What? Why would you say that? Of course I want it to happen. And besides The Hitman is only 31, hardly an old man.” She felt like she was losing ground. She hoped he wouldn’t push. She didn’t want to talk about this, especially with him. She wished he would leave now.

And like magic, her wish was answered. Coming up behind him was Marea. “Hey girlfriend!” Elizabeth said too loudly.

Marea was dressed in black, her mapondo wrapped in florescent pink shoelaces and in her ear, the jack of hearts. “Jack of hearts?” Elizabeth asked as she squeezed past Levendale who was still looking for an explanation for her odd behaviour.

“I’ll explain later,” Marea said as she was being pushed back out the door. “So are we going to lunch? I didn’t know we were going for lunch?”

Levendale stood in her office looking confused.

“See you later, Levendale. Big lunch date,” Elizabeth said over her shoulder as she rushed Marea to the elevator. Once the doors closed, she turned to Marea. “Sorry. I had to get out of there. Levendale was sniffing around. I was afraid he’d discover something.”

“Levendale’s lucky to discover his office. He’s a dunce, a sexist, misogynistic dunce. About as intuitive as a rock. I doubt you had anything to worry about. ”

“Yeah, well, he acted like he knew something. I was getting worried.”

“He knows nothing. You need to chill. Everything’s going to be fine.” Elizabeth wished she had Marea’s confidence.

Downstairs at Gino’s Marea ordered a coke and Elizabeth became suspicious. First the jack of hearts earring, now no drinking. “Okay what’s up?”

“Up?” Marea said.

“Jack of hearts?”

“I may be in love! But this time he came chasing me. If you can believe that.” She looked out the window. “Look! Is that not Lira? That is Lira! I’ll bet you a million Rand. ”

Elizabeth looked at the woman selling oranges across the street. “Lira selling oranges?”

“You never know. Maybe it’s research… for a song. I swear it’s her.”

Elizabeth turned back from the window. “Okay. So spill. Something is up. Coke?”

“Nothing.” Marea looked out the window again, fiddling with the jack of hearts in her ear.

Then Elizabeth got it. Of course! “Zakes! You and Zakes are back together!”

Marea turned back smiling. “Okay…yes. It’s stupid, neh? Mrs and Mr Man?”

“No, it’s not stupid. It’s great. How did it happen?” Elizabeth always felt they could make it work if each of them chilled a bit. Zakes didn’t like that Marea drank so much. Marea didn’t like the way he pushed her to serious things too quickly. Each needed to chill and each needed to compromise. It looked like that was happening.

Marea was suddenly very excited. “It was after that bowling fiasco. You know you’ve been so busy with Realeboga you didn’t notice, I think. And then this whole fight thing and I just couldn’t find a way to tell you. I didn’t want to parade around in your rainstorm. He asked me out. Like on a real live date! No Nando’s and a movie either. We got dressed up. Imagine it- Zakes in a suit! And he looked so seriously hot! He took me to some swanky place in Sandton. And we negotiated and we seem to have found a place that is working for us.”

“Oh Marea, I’m so happy. Really really happy.” She smiled at her friend. Marea deserved someone great like Zakes. And Zakes deserved someone as wonderful as Marea.