The Trouble with Faking

  We’re driving back to UCT when Noah looks up from his phone and says, “Do you mind dropping me off at home? My aunt needs me to fix a TV, and my dad’s pretty useless at electronics. Normally I’d tell her to wait until the weekend, but it’s my grandmother’s TV, and she’s kicking up a major fuss.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “Thanks. It isn’t far. Only about ten minutes from UCT.”

  “Ten minutes?” I look over at him, then back at the road. “Your home is ten minutes from UCT, but you live on campus?”

  “Nine people under one roof, remember? I had to get out.”

  “Oh yes. That must have made you a little crazy.”

  “More than a little, I think.” He turns the radio up and smacks out a rhythm against his knees while occasionally pointing out which way I should turn. When we arrive in front of his house, he says, “Thanks so much. Do you want to come in?”

  “Oh, no, I should probably get back to Fuller. If I wait here much longer I’ll get caught in traffic on the way back to campus. A ten minute drive will end up taking at least half an hour.” I don’t add that the idea of his large family scares me a little.

  “We’ll stay for dinner,” Noah says. “Leave after the traffic. Trust me, the food here is way better than in res. And this way I won’t have to call you later to ask you to come back and pick me up,” he adds with a grin.

  “Oh, of course, you also have to get back to campus. Sorry, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. Um, yes, okay. I’ll stay.” I turn the car off and climb out.

  Noah rings the bell. “Didn’t bring my keys,” he explains.

  I nod, rubbing my hands over my shorts. The memory of standing on Damien’s parents’ balcony on a morning not too long ago pops into my head. Mom told me not to bring my lower class friends home anymore. I push the thought away. I don’t want to judge Noah’s family before I’ve even met them.

  “So, just to warn you,” Noah says, “it’s probably quite noisy in there. My three cousins are boys. All under the age of twelve. They have a lot of energy to expend. And since Grammy’s TV’s not working, she’ll be adding to the noise.”

  I continue nodding. “Cool. I can handle noise.”

  The gate rolls open, and we walk up the driveway as the front door opens. “Noah, thank the Lord,” an older woman says as she leans out. “Grammy’s been yelling at her TV for an hour.”

  “Sounds about right,” Noah says, stepping up to the front door and giving the woman a brief hug. He turns back to me. “Andi, Auntie Shaylene. Auntie Shaylene, Andi.”

  I greet Noah’s aunt and follow the two of them inside. A small boy runs past us, shouting, “Ek kon dit nie daar kry nie.” An answering shout of “Kyk harder!” comes from upstairs, just as an older man’s voice yells, “Stop shouting!”

  Noah glances at me and shrugs. “It’s like this a lot.”

  We head down a passage, past a kitchen and several closed doors, and into a room with an unmade bed, a dressing table covered in old perfume bottles, jewellery, and medication, and an ancient TV in one corner. In front of the TV, sitting in a wheelchair, is a grumpy, grey-haired woman.

  “Hey, Grammy,” Noah says cheerfully. “How’s everything going?”

  Instead of answering, Grammy looks past Noah and frowns at me. With slow, slurred words, she says, “Wie’s daai wit meisie?” Her shaky right hand tugs at Shaylene’s sleeve. “Vir wat is sy hier?”

  Shaylene gives me an apologetic look, then mutters, “Ma, moenie onbeskof wees nie.”

  “Sorry,” Noah says quietly to me. “I should have warned you about Grammy. She had a stroke two years ago and lost the use of her left side and, apparently, her filter. She pretty much says whatever comes to mind. So don’t be offended.”

  “Well, I am the palest person I know,” I say, raising my arms in front of me, “so I shouldn’t really be offended by the label ‘white,’ should I?”

  Noah grins. “You are very white, aren’t you?” He crosses the room to the TV, pulls it away from the wall on its wheeled trolley, and slides behind it. “So, you’re having TV troubles again, Grammy?”

  “Dom masjien,” she grumbles, waving the remote control at it.

  Shaylene rolls her eyes and walks back to where I’m standing in the doorway. “Come on. You don’t have to stay here and listen to the old lady cursing her TV. You can meet everyone else.” She takes me around the house and introduces me to Noah’s father in his study, Cousin Number One, Number Two, and Number Three who are arguing over TV channels in the lounge, and Noah’s mother as she arrives home from work. I remember Noah mentioning a sister, but she doesn’t seem to be around.

  “All fixed,” Noah announces, appearing in the doorway of the kitchen just as I’ve finished giving Shaylene and Noah’s mom the edited version of my life story. “Hey, Ma,” he adds. “Is it cool if we stay for dinner?”

  “Of course. You’ve seen the size of the curry pot, right?” She points to the stove where a pot bigger than any I’ve seen before sits. “You know Shaylene always makes enough to feed an army.”

  “Ah, but did she make enough to feed Andi?” Noah says, throwing me a teasing smile. “This tiny girl over here eats a deceptively large amount. You should have seen the size of the cake she had at Truth.”

  “Hey, I offered you some of that cake and you weren’t interested,” I remind him.

  “Because it had carrot in it. Vegetables have no business being anywhere near a cake.”

  “Carrot cake is the best cake in the world,” I tell him authoritatively.

  “Agreed, Andi,” Shaylene says.

  “You guys are crazy,” Noah says as his phone rings in his pocket. “French toast is the way forward.”

  “Nie vir middag tee nie, silly,” Shaylene says, flicking him with a dish towel as he removes his phone from his pocket. I see a picture of a pretty girl on the screen before he steps out of the room to answer it. Half a minute later he returns, saying, “Lolly said she’ll be here in half an hour.”

  His mom nods as she pulls a bag of rice from the cupboard. “Great.”

  “Want something to drink, Andi?” Noah pulls the fridge door open and examines the contents. “I can offer you … orange juice or water. That’s it.”

  “Water’s great, thanks.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yes. Beats almond milk any day,” I add.

  Noah leans around the fridge door and gives me a questioning look.

  “Damien’s parents,” I explain.

  “Ah, yes. The vegan thing. I don’t think they appreciated my comments on their dietary choices.” Noah hands me a glass of water, then takes a swig of his orange juice.

  “Is Lolly your girlfriend?” I ask.

  Noah chokes on his juice. “Girlfriend?” He coughs while his mother and aunt laugh at the two of us. “No, she’s my sister.”

  “Oh.” Now I understand the laughter. “Oops. Well, when will I get to meet your girlfriend?”

  He gives me a confused look. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

  Now it’s my turn to be confused. “But … when you were talking about getting a new tattoo, Damien very sarcastically said your girlfriend would love that, and you said—”

  “Oh, no, no. That’s not—No, definitely not.” He laughs. “Damien was talking about a girl in one of my classes. We went out once, and then she became a bit of a stalker. Damien likes to refer to her as my girlfriend because he knows it annoys me. She’s a bit weird. Still shows up at Smuts sometimes asking for me.”

  “That’s a bit awkward.”

  “Yip. I’ve told her repeatedly—in the nicest possible way—that she and I will never be together.”

  “Maybe you’re being too nice.”

  He runs a hand over his barely-there hair. “Trust me. Nice is the only way to go with this one. The one time I tried to be a little firmer, she completely flipped out. Starting yelling at me about being racist, that I wouldn’t date her was because she was white. I t
hink the whole of Upper Campus heard her.”

  “Oookay.”

  “Noah, Noah, Noah!” Noah’s smallest cousin dashes into the kitchen from outside and tugs at Noah’s arm. “Can we do Savage Time? Pleeease?”

  “Yes, Noah,” Shaylene says, giving him a pointed look. “Please.”

  “Fine.” Noah allows himself to be dragged outside to the garden.

  “Savage Time?” I ask. “Do I even want to know?”

  “Best thing ever,” Shaylene tells me as she removes a whole load of knives and forks from a drawer. “Noah came up with it when Jamie—my youngest—was four. It’s for when they’ve all finished homework and have way too much energy for me to deal with. They go outside and Noah chases them around. If he catches them he’ll toss them over his shoulder or hang them upside down or … something. I don’t know. I don’t generally watch. I think sometimes the three younger ones gang up and attack Noah. Whatever the rules are, it generally ends up with all four of them attacking each other in a heap on the ground. Fantastic way to exhaust the boys.”

  “Sounds … fun?”

  “I don’t suggest you go outside,” Noah’s mom says. “I got knocked over once when I went to call them for dinner. Now I just shout from the window.”

  “The window definitely sounds safer. I’ll watch from there.”

  Half an hour later, Savage Time is over, dinner is ready, and ten of us are squished around the dining room table. Noah and the three boys are covered in dirt—except for their hands, which they were forced to wash—Noah’s dad is trying to have a conversation with Grammy—who won’t stop complaining about the food, and then tells everyone she needs to go to the toilet RIGHT NOW—and Lolly is giving an animated description of her afternoon soccer practice to her mother and aunt. It’s nothing like any dinner I’ve ever had with Damien and his parents, and it’s light years away from the dinners Mom and I used to share every evening. We chatted, of course—at least, we did before I found out about my father—but the chatter of two people can never come close to that of ten.

  I love it. I love that there’s never a silent moment I feel obligated to fill. I love that I can barely hear the clinking of cutlery amidst the talking, laughing, complaining, squealing, and interrupting. I love that at one point I’m involved in three different conversations at the same time. They speak partly in English and partly in Afrikaans, and I assume the English is for my benefit until Noah mentions that his dad was brought up in an English-speaking home.

  On the other end of the table, Lolly laughs loudly, then lowers her voice to a whisper while watching Noah and me. “Um, I get the feeling they’re talking about us,” I say to Noah.

  “I think you’re right.” He spears a curried potato with his fork. “They’re probably taking bets on whether you really are just a friend or if we’re actually together.”

  “Perhaps we should make a general announcement just so everyone knows.”

  Noah gives me his mock serious face. “Why? Don’t you think there’s a chance we’ll wind up together one day?”

  I laugh. “You’re not exactly my type.”

  “And what is your type, Miss Clark?”

  “Well, Mr Ferreira, it isn’t tattooed and wearing a wife-beater.”

  With a chuckle and a shake of his head he says, “That’s right, I forgot. You don’t actually have a type. You have a person. A person who’s probably never even owned a wife-beater.” He shovels more food into his mouth, chews, then adds, “Just out of interest, have you ever liked anyone other than Damien?”

  “No, of course not. Damien’s always been the one for me.”

  “Why?”

  “Hmm?” I pause to chew on a mouthful of curry and rice.

  “Why Damien?”

  “Well, he’s just … always been there for me. If school was horrible, he was there at the end of the day to make me feel better. When I got lonely and needed someone to hang out with, he was just one house away, and he understood my loneliness because he doesn’t have brothers and sisters. If I fought with my mom and wanted to get out, his house was the one I’d run to. And he’s always supported my YouTube and Etsy stuff. He even used to help me with some of the crafts.”

  “Sounds perfect,” Noah says.

  “Exactly.”

  “And really boring.”

  “Hey!”

  “Have you guys ever fought about anything?”

  “Of course not. Fighting’s bad.”

  “No it isn’t. Fighting is honest. Sometimes you’ve just gotta get everything out there. All the issues and stuff.”

  “Well, we don’t have any issues,” I say. “And if we did, we’d just talk about them rationally.”

  “Everyone has issues. No one’s perfect.”

  “Maybe you have issues,” I say, pointing my fork at Noah, “and maybe I do too. But Damien? He’s pretty close to being perfect. And Damien and me together? That’s gonna be close to perfect too.”

  “Well then,” Noah says, raising his glass of orange juice. “Bring on the most boring couple of the year.”

  We get back to campus just before 9 pm. “Thanks again,” Noah says as we reach the parking lot between Fuller and Smuts. Hopefully next year I’ll be fortunate enough to get a spot up here rather than having to park down the road.

  “No problem. It was nice meeting your family. I like them.”

  Noah’s smile seems relieved. “Good. I don’t take many friends home. I never know if Grammy and her rudeness will be too much for people. Damien didn’t like being called ‘that white boy,’ so that visit turned out awkward, to say the least. But Grammy told me you’re allowed to visit again, so you must have made a good impression.”

  I look down at my shoes and smile to myself. Now I’ve heard both stories: Noah’s visit to Damien’s family, and Damien’s visit to Noah’s family. Sounds like neither of them went particularly well.

  “What are you smiling about?” Noah asks, tilting his head.

  “Oh, nothing really.” I shrug. “It’s just funny you and Damien ended up friends when you come from such different families.”

  “I guess it is.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Anyway, uh … have a good night.”

  “You too.” I step away, but he steps towards me, obviously moving in for a hug. There’s an awkward moment of fumbling limbs until we finally end up with our arms around each other, laughing. That moment by the pool table flashes through my mind. Noah’s arms around me. His hand over mine on the cue stick. His breath leaving chills along my neck.

  I force my mind in a different direction.

  We part ways after the hug, and I wander slowly back into Fuller, enjoying the warmer-than-usual evening air. I contemplate calling Damien. I’m torn between wanting to hear his voice and not wanting to hear what a great afternoon he had with Marie.

  I reach my floor inside F flat and find Carmen pacing across the landing, speaking rushed Afrikaans into her phone, her face wet with tears. She ends the call and hurries back to her room without saying a word to me.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask before she can close her door.

  “None of your concern,” she mutters.

  “Carmen, come on. Just let me help y—”

  “My grandpa had a heart attack, okay?” she snaps, spinning around in the doorway to face me.

  “Oh my goodness.” My bag slips to the floor. “Is he …” I can’t bring myself to say it. Dead. “How is he? Have you seen him?”

  “Of course I haven’t seen him, Andi,” she shouts. “How am I supposed to get to the hospital? I don’t have a rich father like you ready to just hand me a car.”

  Her words sting, but I decide not to go there. “What about—”

  “All my family members with cars are already there, and they don’t want to leave Grandpa. One of my cousins said he might come get me a bit later, but I don’t want to wait that long.”

  “Well, I’ll take you. I don’t mind—”

  “No. I don’t need your hel
p.” She steps back and starts shutting her door.

  “Carmen, wait.” This hating me thing is starting to get old. “Look, I get that you’re upset about your grandfather, and you’re upset that I didn’t tell you what was going on with Damien. But I’ve apologised for that and it’s in the past, so why can’t you stop being so mad at me? Why can’t we go back to being friends?”

  She stares at me, slowly shaking her head. “It’s amazing how convincingly you lie.”

  “What?” I hope she can see how baffled I am because I don’t think I can put it sufficiently into words.

  She speaks slowly, looking at me as if I’m stupid. “Damien cheated on his girlfriend. With you. Then you lied about it. To my face. Twice. Now I’m sorry, but I can’t be friends with a compulsive liar.”

  “I told you that’s not—”

  She takes another step back and slams her door shut.

  I stare at the door, my breath quickening and my insides burning up. Noah was right. On the surface, I don’t seem bothered by things that should upset me. Tell me there’s poop in my hair, and I’ll come up with a civilised response. Insult my clothing, and I’ll act politely confused. Spread rumours about me, and I’ll shrug them off. Tell me I was an accident and never wanted by either of my parents, and I’ll push the hurt down where I don’t have to feel it. But underneath it all, I’m a ticking bomb waiting to explode on the unfortunate person who happens to lay the last proverbial straw.

  Carmen is that person.

  I march across the landing and push her door open with such force it bangs against the wall. “I have had ENOUGH of these ridiculous accusations,” I shout at her. “I don’t know what you heard that could possibly have convinced you so thoroughly that I’m a compulsive liar, but whatever it was, it’s NOT TRUE. I may have kept things from you because, HELLO, we’ve only known each other a few weeks, but I have NEVER LIED TO YOU. Now stop being so damn STUBBORN and let me bloody well DRIVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL.”

  ***

  I sit in a hard, plastic chair under bright lights drinking bad coffee and waiting for Carmen. Her extended family has just about taken over the whole waiting area, but I managed to find a seat in the corner next to Carmen’s cousin Tania. I pretend to read an ebook on my phone while processing my thoughts.