Andisiwe

Outside the shop I turned to her. “Thank you,” I said. “I can’t believe you did that.”

She smiled. “I can’t tell you how satisfying it was to get the better of that bully,” she said. “Definitely a good afternoon.”

I couldn’t believe how she could possibly think of the experience as something positive. “This has been one of the worst afternoons of my life,” I said. “And without you it would have turned everything into a nightmare. Jail, or rape, I don’t know what would have happened.” I touched her shoulder. “Thank you, thank you,” I said.

She put the bags down and pulled me into a strong hug. “You’re a good girl,” she said. Coming from her it should have sounded mocking, but it wasn’t. “It was good to meet you.” She picked up her two packets. “Here. These are for you.”

“I can’t take them!” I was shocked.

“You will bloody well take them or I will turn the packets upside down and leave everything on the street, do you hear me?” People were already turning round to see who was talking so loudly, and looking at her determined face I could see she meant it. I thought of the chicken and spices in her packet.

“Thank you. But what will I say to my mother?”

“Tell her you found R200 in the street,” she said. “Tell her you sold your soul. Tell her anything!” She threw her hands in the air. She was crazy and she came from a different world but she saved me and I liked her.

“Give me your cell number,” she said. “Maybe we can hang out some time.”

I couldn’t imagine her and me ‘hanging out’, as she put it. Where would we go? She probably went to fancy places I saw advertised on TV. I couldn’t imagine her coming to my youth group at the church hall. But I also didn’t want to say goodbye without any thought of how we would see each other again. I carefully wrote down her cell number and gave her my mother’s number.

We said goodbye and I watched her walk down the street, ignoring the stares of people who turned back to look at her pierced face, her swagger.

I hardly had to explain the food to my mother because she was excited with her own news. Her sister had found her a job in a paint company. Not a good salary, but with a pension and if she worked well she could be promoted, she said. And I knew my mother could do well. She just had never had the chance.

“Where did you get that money again?” my mother asked, as she served up the fried chicken onto my plate. “I think it must have been our guardian angel.” She smiled. “It was a good day for all of us.”

“Not me,” Bulelani whined. “It was the first day I got homework.”

“I’ll help you,” I said, and I sat with him and helped him with his letters as my mother listened to the radio.

When I cleared away later I found a little bottle at the bottom of one of the packets, that I hadn’t seen. It was purple nail varnish, with sparkles. I laughed to myself. But then I thought of Noma. I wondered about how happy she was really. She had everything, I knew that, and I wished I had just something of what she had, but I didn’t want to be her. I think I only realised then that despite her tough girl outside, she seemed sad somehow. I didn’t realise rich people could be so sad.

***

Tell us what you think: Can rich people be sad? How, when they have ‘everything’.