Mr Not Quite Good Enough Read online

  Talk to them, advise them, help them to get out of it – and if you have to, call the police on them. Because I can assure you, ma-chinas, there are only two endings to this story: your loved one will either go to prison forever or he’ll turn up dead.

  Take action. Now.

  Peace out – Bra Kee

  “Quite a mouthful, huh,” Gorata said. “He’s telling the truth, like always.”

  “Yeah,” replied Kelebogile. “We know these thugs but we do nothing, since they’re robbing other people. Some of us even buy the stolen stuff from them, thinking we’re not wrong because we didn’t steal it ourselves. We’re just as guilty.”

  Gorata took the scissors from the kitchen drawer and cut out the column. She dropped it in her purse but wondered when she would see Ozee again. No one at the petrol station seemed to know where he’d gone. She had tried his cell number and either it was off or he wasn’t taking her calls. How do you kiss someone like that and then disappear forever?

  She guessed Alfred was part of the problem. Him showing up in his R4 000 suit couldn’t have made Ozee feel very good. She felt awful when she saw Ozee across the garden, looking at Alfred on his knees proposing to her with that huge ring.

  Maybe Ozee thought she said yes and that it was over between them before it had even started. Maybe that was why he wasn’t answering her calls, why he had disappeared.

  Ozee probably thought she said yes to Alfred’s big diamond ring. But Gorata was realising now that none of that mattered really. The job, the stuff, she didn’t care about any of that. If there was love, real love between two people, it shouldn’t matter what job they did or how much money they had. She knew that now.

  She needed to find Ozee and let him know she knew it now too.

  * * *

  Monday morning, and the same old traffic to contend with. Minibus taxis diving and ducking. Horns hooting, tyres squealing.

  Kelebogile had slept over at Mark’s place, so Gorata was alone in the car. She was early, since she didn’t need to pass by her friend’s school, so she took the next turn to make a stop at the petrol station to see if Ozee had shown up yet, even though it was out of her way and involved a significant amount of backtracking.

  She’d passed there twice on Sunday, but never found him. It was as if he’d dropped off the face of the earth. She wondered if she’d ever find him again.

  Her mind kept drifting back to the night they were alone in her garden, under the moonlight with all of its promise. Thinking back about everything, she realised that was the moment when she knew Ozee was someone very special. There was a connection between them, something she’d never felt with anyone else before. An honest connection, a strong one.

  But now she had let him disappear without telling him the truth about how she felt. She wondered if she’d ever get another chance with him.

  She pulled into the station and was relieved when she spotted Ozee talking to some of the petrol attendants near the shop. He saw her and came up to the car.

  “Morning, Lady Gorata,” he said, but not in his normal cheerful voice. Today he seemed depressed.

  Gorata parked the car and got out. “Hi, Ozee. Do you think we could go somewhere to talk?”

  “Sure, let’s go for a walk.” He shouted back at the other guys, “I’ll be back soon!”

  They walked to the park down the road. It wasn’t a storybook park with jolly yellow rocking horses, green grass and a rainbow-coloured merry-go-round. This was still Soweto. It had a tall, wobbly slide kids could go down if they didn’t mind falling onto the bare dirt at the bottom. There was a swing set with chains hanging and bits of broken seats that had waited so long for the fix-it man that they had forgotten their original purpose.

  The greater part of the park was taken up by the dusty soccer pitch. A huge jacaranda stood to one side with a rusty metal bench under it; that was where Ozee and Gorata headed.

  “So where have you been? I’ve been looking for you,” Gorata started, suddenly nervous and unsure. She looked down at the ground, littered with purple flowers.

  “I had some things to take care of, family things.” Ozee was being closed and distant. He sat well away from her. Gorata felt an invisible wall between them that she didn’t know how to get around.

  “What’s going on here?” Gorata asked, pointing at the space between them on the bench.

  “Come on, Gorata, we both know the score, right? You need someone I’m not. A petrol attendant just won’t cut it for you, and I’m not willing to change to become someone I’m not. Love is about acceptance. You need to want me, just like this, and we both know that’s never going to happen. You said it yourself. I need to do something more significant with my life. That’s a judgement. I can’t live with that sort of thing. I can’t change for you. That’s not how it works. I would never ask you to change for me.”

  Gorata had never seen him like this before: so down, so negative. “Are you okay? How’s your brother?” she asked, trying to find the source of his mood.

  “I’m fine. He’s fine, I guess.” Ozee looked out over the soccer pitch. His voice became soft and he disappeared inside himself to the memories held there. “You know, when we were kids, Morake, my brother, used to follow me everywhere. I’m ten years older than him and he idolised me. We used to play for a local soccer team, me and Stunki and a few other guys, and Morake would come for every practice, every game.

  “He’d take care of the water and he’d be so serious about his job, as if the whole world depended on him getting it right. He was the sweetest kid ever. I just don’t know what happened.” Ozee wiped his hand across his eyes before turning back to Gorata, but she’d seen the tears. She knew how much his brother was hurting him. “He’s gone missing. He got out of the hospital and just disappeared.”

  “What do you mean disappeared?”

  “Stunki talked to some guys from the gang he’s been running with. They told him the boss said Morake was too hot right now since he’d been shot. He sent him to Cape Town; those thugs have branches all over. That’s where I’ve been – in Cape Town, looking for him.”

  “Did you find him?” Gorata asked, taking Ozee’s hand in hers.

  “Eventually, yeah, I did. He didn’t want me to, though. That’s why I was gone so long – he kept dodging me. He knows what he promised me in the hospital, what he promised my mother. He knows he let us down by putting the gang’s wishes above ours.”

  “So what happened? Did you bring him back?”

  “No . . . He’s Mr Big Man down there. Suddenly he’s got no time for me and doesn’t give a shit about our mother whose heart is breaking. I could have killed him, I was so angry. I honestly could have killed him.” Ozee shook his head, trying to get rid of the emotions he was struggling to control.

  Gorata took him in her arms though he tried to stop her, but once there, he held her tightly.

  “I lied to my mother,” he said into her shoulder.

  Gorata pulled back slightly. “Lied? About what?”

  “I told her I never found him. She wouldn’t be able to accept that he just didn’t want to come home to us. He told me he had a new family, one that respected his choices. Can you believe that?”

  Gorata shook her head. No, she couldn’t. She felt angry at this young man she’d never met. She was angry that he was upsetting Ozee so much.

  “I told him if he ever comes to Joburg, if he ever tries to visit us, he better be clear of that gang or I’ll be calling the cops on him. I’d rather have him alive in jail than shot dead on the street.”

  Suddenly Gorata remembered the Batho Ba Mzansi article. She dug around in her handbag. “Here,” she said, handing it to him. “I cut this out, thinking it might help you. From what you’ve said today, I know it will. You’re doing the right thing, you are.”

  Ozee unfolded the newspaper clipping and looked down at it, smiling. “So you read Bra Kee too?”

  “Sure, who doesn’t? He must be the wisest guy in Joburg, maybe
the whole country. He always tells the truth, no matter if we want to hear it or not,” Gorata said. She remembered the column Bra Kee had written about the listers. She realised now how silly it all was, how irrelevant. Bra Kee had been right yet again.

  Ozee nodded his head, folded the newspaper clipping and put it in his pocket. “Thanks.”

  “I’m really sorry about your brother. I wish there was something I could do to help you,” Gorata said.

  “You already have. Thanks, Lady Gorata, you’re a sweetheart.” He reached forward and kissed her on the cheek. He looked at his watch. “Don’t you need to get to work?” He stood up and reached for her hand, but she didn’t offer it.

  “Wait, sit down. I wanted to say something else,” she said.

  Ozee sat back down on the bench next to her.

  “I’ve been so stupid and so wrong. You’re right, I wasn’t looking at you, I wasn’t seeing you. I was seeing a uniform, a job. I was seeing everyone like that. But it’s stupid, I was missing things, I wasn’t seeing what’s real.”

  Gorata stopped. She wanted to say this properly and it was coming out so fast and confused. She stood up and paced back and forth in front of Ozee as she spoke. “What I mean is, I like you. I like you a lot. And you’re right, I was just telling myself it’s impossible because you’re a petrol attendant, because of some stupid job that doesn’t mean anything. All that matters is you and me. Right? Isn’t that all that matters?”

  Ozee smiled. “Yes, I think it is.”

  “You see? That’s what I keep telling myself, and it’s true. You’re right and I’m wrong. That kiss the other night, on the stoep, under the stars . . . I don’t know . . . It . . . It was like I’d never been kissed by anyone before then. It was as if I’d been waiting my whole life only for you.”

  Ozee pulled her to him. And there it was again. The kiss. His kiss that set her pulse racing and her heart soaring, his kiss that she wished could last forever. His kiss that made her forget any kiss before it, that redefined what a kiss could be.

  At last he pulled away from her. “You mean that kiss?”

  Gorata took a moment to gather herself back together. Pieces of her had flown away on tiny wings of happiness. She smiled. “Yes . . . that kiss . . . That kiss told me I need to see you. I need to see you clearly, with my honest eyes. With my heart. Everything else isn’t important, just details to sort out.”

  “But I understand someone proposed to you that night,” Ozee said.

  “Alfred? Forget about him. It’s not happening, but for some reason he can’t hear me, no matter how many times I tell him that.”

  “Maybe I should tell him,” Ozee said.

  “No, I’ll get it sorted out. But you . . . I wanted to ask you something . . .”

  “Ask away.”

  “Will you go out on a date with me?”

  Ozee smiled. “Our first date?”

  Gorata nodded. It was odd to think it would be their first date after everything they’d already been through.

  Ozee stood up and took her hand in his. He held it and rubbed his fingers lightly along the back, then he bent down and kissed it ever so gently, like butterfly wings brushing against her skin, making her shiver in the warm Joburg morning.

  “Yes, Lady Gorata, I’d be honoured to go out on a date with you.”

  Chapter 8

  8

  “What about my hair?” Gorata said, looking in the mirror, sure that everything was a complete disaster. She’d first put it up and then brushed it all out again so it lay smooth along her shoulders, and then she added some spirals with the curling iron, and now she’d piled it all up on top of her head again.

  It was crazy how nervous she was about this date. You would swear she didn’t know Ozee at all and that he was a complete stranger.

  “It looks fine,” Mmandu said.

  “Fine? Fine isn’t good enough. I need fantastic!” Gorata spoke with a manic edge to her voice. She’d been waiting all week for this day. Now Saturday was here and she was finally going on her first date with Ozee and she was a jittery wreck.

  She looked in the mirror again. “Maybe it’s too curly.”

  Kelebogile came and stood behind Gorata, who was sitting at her dressing table. She put her hands on Gorata’s shoulders and looked at her in the mirror. “You look stunning. Your hair is perfect. Your dress is perfect. Your make-up is perfect. If Ozee doesn’t drop dead at the door from a heart attack when he sees your beautifulness, he is crazy.”

  Gorata laughed. “Okay . . . okay . . . I’m done being a lunatic.”

  They all left the bedroom and joined a very patient Mark, who’d been waiting in the sitting room through all of the drama. “You look nice,” he said, and his face promptly turned pink.

  “Thanks,” Gorata said. She sat down and waited. She suspected Ozee didn’t have a car and didn’t want to embarrass him by asking, so she had offered to drive. But he’d insisted he would pick her up. She felt bad, because he’d likely have to borrow a car, but she was trying not to worry about it.

  She’d already told him their outing would be on her since she was the one who’d asked him out. She didn’t want money to be an issue between them, but she knew she earned more than him. A night out to the movies and dinner was nothing for her, but it could seriously wreck a tight budget. She’d lived like that the greater part of her life, so she knew all about it.

  There was a knock at the door and Gorata jumped out of her seat as if she’d been launched. She opened the door and had to catch her breath a moment before she could speak. Kelebogile had joked that Ozee might have a heart attack when he saw her, but Gorata was sure her heart was beating quite irregularly when she saw the man at her front door. She wasn’t sure she would not need paramedics.

  There he stood. He’s cut his hair, she thought. It was nearly gone, and his fabulous heavy-lidded, sexy eyes were suddenly all she could see. He smiled and his dimples appeared. He wore a tight, long-sleeved black jersey and black jeans, accentuating those chest muscles and that trim waist and those legs she’d barely noticed under his petrol attendant uniform. Did he say he played soccer? And had he always been so tall?

  “Hello,” Ozee said. “Gorata? Are you okay?”

  She was knocked back into the real world. She wasn’t sure how long she’d stood in silent awe of this beautiful man in front of her.

  “Yes . . . I’m fine,” she said. “Hello. Do you want to come in?”

  “Sure. You look great,” he whispered in her ear before kissing her on the cheek.

  Mmandu pushed forward. “Hello, hello, Mr Ozee. Don’t you look like something I could eat up?”

  “Hey, Mmandu, howzit?” Ozee said. Gorata wondered when the two of them had got so friendly, but then, with her sister you just never knew.

  “You know Kelebogile, and this is her boyfriend, Mark Wilson. He’s an American working at Hope Springs,” Gorata said.

  Ozee shook Mark’s hand. “Yeah, I know that place. They’re doing some really important work. Thanks for coming over and helping us. HIV/Aids is a big problem, especially in the black communities with fewer resources.”

  “Yes,” Mark said. “The organisation is trying to make a difference.” He kept looking at Ozee as if he was trying to figure out something. “You look kind of familiar, have I seen you there before?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  But Mark kept looking at him. “Wait, I know! You’re in some photos there. Weren’t you like one of the donors or something?”

  Ozee looked at Gorata and then at the others. “No, I think maybe you’re getting me confused with someone.” He turned to Gorata and said, “Well, let’s go then.”

  She thought he looked a bit like a trapped rabbit, but why? Mark just had him confused with someone.

  “Okay, see you guys,” Gorata said as they made their way to the door.

  “Nice to meet you!” Mark shouted excitedly after them, a bit out of character.

  * * *

/>   Outside Gorata was surprised to see an almost new VW Golf. She kept quiet as Ozee opened the door for her, but wondered which of his friends had let him borrow their brand-new car.

  He sat down behind the steering wheel. “Okay, you said you’re the boss tonight. Where to, my lady?”

  Gorata didn’t want to go somewhere too fancy, so they headed for Ramon’s, a new Mexican restaurant in Melville. Since she was the boss, she decided she’d go retro-romantic with Breakfast at Tiffany’s at the cinema a few blocks away from the restaurant.

  Ramon’s had recently become the hang-out of choice for Joburg’s up-and-coming. It had an old-school Mexican mariachi band playing in the corner, adobe walls and waiters in sombreros and Mexican blankets. Gorata thought she knew a lot of people, but she was surprised to see so many people coming up and greeting Ozee.

  “What’s the deal?” she finally asked after watching the parade pass by.

  “Customers,” Ozee said, then changed the subject while taking both her hands in his. “Do you know how fantastically beautiful you are?”

  “Thanks, you’re not so bad yourself.”

  They sat at a booth in the corner, on the same side. Ozee moved closer and Gorata could feel his thigh pressing against hers, and soon she couldn’t think about anything else. He picked a nacho from the plate in front of them and slowly fed her. After each bite he kissed her gently, and she wondered how much more she could take. Her body was tingling in places she didn’t know could tingle. What was going on between her body and his? She was startled by the power of it.

  “I like you,” Ozee whispered in her ear. “I like you a lot.” He nibbled at her neck and she wasn’t sure but she thought she groaned in pleasure – she hoped she hadn’t.

  Gorata was having trouble breathing. She pulled away from him. This was crazy. She had never felt like this before. What was going on? She couldn’t keep control of things.

  “What’s wrong?” Ozee asked.

  “Nothing . . . I . . . just . . . I . . . It’s all so fast, so . . . strong . . . so . . . new.”