I scanned the brush and scraggly trees, awaiting a flash of gray or a tell-tale rustle. At one point I leaned so far forward that when Davis, our driver, hit a pothole, my forehead bumped against the front window. Rubbing the sore spot, I reluctantly slumped in my seat and told Kai, who laughed in the back, to shut it.
Davis stopped the car and I panicked, thinking I’d missed my chance to spot the first elephant. “Where? Where?” I shouted, my head turning almost three-hundred-sixty degrees.
Kai and Davis both laughed at me. “No, Mah-mee, not the elephants. Look …” He gestured out his window. “Warthogs.”
Warthogs?
Seriously?
I hadn’t flown inside a teeny-tiny plane to see warthogs. Still, I leaned over the SUV’s console and observed the furry boars with their snaggle-tusked underbites.
“Hakuna Matata,” I greeted them with a wave.
“That’s Swahili,” Kai corrected me. “Wrong country.”
“I assumed it was Disney-speak.” I turned around to smile at him while he banged his head against his headrest and groaned.
“I’m kidding!” I laughed. “Okay, not the wild gray beasts I came to see. Onward, Davis!”
Davis peered at Kai through the review mirror as he put the SUV into gear and slowly moved forward.
We spotted a few kobs prior to arriving at the park’s only hotel. Their elegant horns reminded me of antelope.
Warthogs, five.
Kobs, three.
Elephants, zero.
Davis dropped us at check-in with a promise to return three days later to drive us down to Kumasi and then home to Accra.
Three days for elephants. The odds were in our favor.
Our room didn’t compare to Kai’s luxury mini-suite or either of our bedrooms in Accra. Or even Ama’s.
“Sparse,” I said, looking around the bare walls and lack of decor, sniffing the vague smell of cleaning solution and maybe bleach. The king bed looked inviting. Until I sat on it. “Hard.”
“Not what you envisioned?” Kai flopped down next to me. Or rather bounced off the extra firm mattress.
“It’s fine.”
“Uh oh.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“I was married long enough to understand ‘fine’ means ‘not fine, not even close to fine’.”
“No, really. Three nights. It’ll be grand.” I gave him my best pageant smile.
“Don’t make that face.”
“What face?”
“That smile. It’s scary.”
I took on a serious expression. “Okay. Truth? It’s not what I imagined.”
“What did you imagine?”
“Tents for one.”
“You? Sleeping in a tent?”
“Not a regular tent for camping. One of those safari tents like in Out of Africa or on a brochure for game preserves in Tanzania.”
“Again, different country. Not Ghana.”
“I know, but a girl has her fantasies.”
“And you have a wild imagination,” he whispered right as he kissed me.
His kisses made me forget about my safari fantasies. Serenaded by the hum of the air conditioner, we made love.
Delightful Double Dutch mind eraser.
“DO YOU HEAR that?” I shoved Kai’s shoulder.
“What?” he grumbled from his side of the bed.
“Are you awake?”
“I’m speaking, so yeah, I’m awake. Now.” He rolled over and threw his leg over mine.
“Listen …” I waited for the sound to return.
A thump, thump, and then a rustling noise sounded outside of our window. The noise carried over the whir of the air conditioner.
“What is it?”
“I have no idea. That’s why I asked you.”
Yesterday we fell asleep after sex, missing the prime afternoon viewing of the elephants down at the watering hole. We barely made it to dinner before the restaurant closed. From the thin line of light behind the curtains, it was now morning. And something thumped and rustled outside our window.
“Find out what it is.” I pushed his shoulder again.
“Why me?”
“You’re the man.”
“Seriously?” He rolled his eyes at me before standing and padding naked across to the window. Pulling aside the curtain, he covered his nudity and peered out. “You need to get dressed.”
“Are we under attack?” My voice betrayed my alarm. I covered myself with the sheet up to my chin.
“No.” He laughed and grabbed his shorts. “Get dressed.” Yesterday’s T-shirt was pulled on and he stared at me. “Hurry up.”
“Let me see out the window.” I scrambled off the bed wrapped in a sheet toga.
He blocked me and spun me around to face my suitcase. “No, no peeking.”
I dressed with whatever I found first and put on my sandals. “Ready?”
“Grab your phone,” he instructed, heading for the door.
“Phone?”
“Trust me. We need photographic evidence.”
I found my phone and followed him out the door of our little chalet to the strip of grass separating it from the long row of other rooms and pool.
Only the pool wasn’t visible through the elephant.
The elephant who stood mere yards away, pulling up plants with his trunk and stuffing them into his mouth.
An elephant in the garden. Right outside our room.
He turned his wrinkled butt in our direction and his tail flicked side to side, but he didn’t seem to notice or mind we were there.
“Quick!” I whisper shouted. “Take my picture with him.” I handed the camera to Kai and then posed with my arms out, pointing to my new best friend.
“Okay, now me.” Kai’s voice sounded almost as excited as mine.
I snapped a picture of his beautiful, smiling face standing next to an elephant’s ass.
“This is the best morning ever!” I continued whisper shouting.
“Why are you speaking like that?” he asked, using his normal speaking voice. “You’re a very silly woman.”
“Shh. Don’t scare him away.” I faced our breakfast guest and watched him meander down the row of plants, deliberately picking and choosing what to eat. Eventually he moseyed away from the hotel rooms and down the path to the waterhole, his breakfast buffet evidently finished.
Nothing would top that.
Or so I believed.
First day elephant count? Seven.
Suck it, warthogs.
Our afternoon walking safari brought us down to the waterhole where two families of elephants, a few antelope, additional warthogs, and countless birds intermingled. Thankfully, zero crocodiles had been spotted, although they were rumored to lurk in the murky, muddy water. Earlier in the day, another group had a python sighting. Kai and I met eyes, laughing at Solomon’s warning. I said a small prayer of thanks, grateful for our room and door instead of a tent.
Later, while we sat on a terrace next to the hotel pool, sipping well deserved beers and watching the sun fade into a pink haze of a sunset, I counted my blessings. A sweet floral scent tinted the ever present faint smell of smoke.
Kai held my hand between our chairs, softly rubbing the edge of his thumb against my palm.
“Do you ever have perfect days? Days you don’t want to end so badly it makes you sad?” I asked him, continuing to face the view over the flat plain and the watering hole in the growing shadows below us.
A soft, slow smile replaced his typical cocky grin. “I know exactly what you mean. Today is one of those days for me.”
I beamed at him. “Me too. Thank you.”
“I love making you happy, Selah.”
There was that word. The one we’d danced around for months.
Falling in love was the last thing I expected to happen.
Kai was the last person I expected to fall for.
But I had. Somewhere and sometime over the past weeks, I’d fallen. Hard.
Those butterflies schoolgirls had in their stomachs took up residence in mine.
It was silly.
I didn’t do love.
Or butterflies.
Kai kissed my hand. His touch anchored me in the moment. The here of a hazy pink sky and black silhouetted trees. The now of him.
I loved him.
I was screwed.
And not in a good way.
OUR BREAKFAST FRIEND didn’t return the next morning. However, while we sat on the patio eating breakfast, a family of warthogs snuffled around the edge of the lawn. They reminded me of dogs—big, bristly, tusked dogs.
On our final morning, I cut my flat, bland omelet into tiny pieces, moving them around the plate, but not eating.
“No appetite?” Kai asked, touching my arm.
I shrugged.
“What’s going on?”
What would I confess? My sadness over leaving the elephants? I couldn’t believe our three months together were ending? I’d squandered the time and didn’t savor every moment with him?
I’d fallen in love with him?
Who said those things over room temperature eggs and watery coffee?
“I miss real coffee,” I said instead.
“Okay,” he said, drawing out the ‘a’. “I don’t believe you.”
I sighed. “Fine.”
“Not fine.” He ducked to meet my eyes.
I focused on dissecting my omelet. His hand covered mine and slowly moved my plate out of cutting range.
“I’m sad.” I poked the table with my fork.
“I gathered as much.” He placed my fork across the table with my plate.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Are you sure?”
I met his eyes, feeling tears sting. Looking away, I scratched the side of my nose to distract myself from crying.