Epilogue
Luca
Three Months Later
The sun claws it’s way above the horizon, rising above the choppy waters of the Indian Ocean to cast red rays down upon this sprawling stretch of sand that marks the border between Mozambique and Tanzania.
Seabirds squawk in the distance, throaty calls that mingle with the smell of smoke on the breeze.
Somewhere in the distance, a village is burning.
It means there will be plenty more work by noon, but for now, I lose myself in just staring at the alien beauty of the world around me.
I mean, fuck, this place is gorgeous.
“I’ve seen this view so many times and it still takes my breath away. Every time,” Stephanie says behind me.
I turn around.
She’s got two cups of coffee in her hands and she’s a vision. Her hair is fluttering in the ocean breeze, her face is smudged with dirt and sweat, she’s sunburnt, and she looks like she spent the night sleeping on a pile of rocks. Which she probably has.
Even so, she’s beyond beautiful. I’m a lucky man.
“You know, I say the same thing about you every morning.”
“Liar,” she says, handing me a cup of coffee. But she still smiles.
“You see that?” I say, pointing off to the south where the smoke seems to be coming from.
It’s a thick black pillar that’s just making its way into the sky.
“There’ll be more refugees, for sure.”
Even though her voice is bone-weary, there’s not a hint of regret at the work that lies ahead.
We sip our coffees and sit together, watching the sun finish it’s journey into the morning sky. It’s one of the rituals we have here — some quiet time in the morning to enjoy each other’s company before we get lost in the rush of another day. As the sun rises, the day goes from hot to burning-hot. Though at this point, I hardly notice the difference. Everything is just hot and sweaty and dirty.
“You know, when you told me you wanted to make up for everything, I never pictured this. Or that I’d be wearing this,” I say, pointing to my Medicine Sans Frontiers vest.
“It looks good on you.”
She rests her head on my shoulder and slides one arm around my back, leaning into me and hugging me at the same time.
“Even still, love, this is nuts.”
“Does that mean you regret it?”
“That’s a complicated question,” I say, as I brush some of her hair away from her face. “But, no. Not for a single fucking second.”
Even when she’s covered in dirt and smells, she’s gorgeous. And that smile on her face — the way she looks knowing that she’s doing actual good? There’s not a prettier thing in the world.
“We’re doing real good here,” she says, looking off into the distance. “It’s rough and it’s hard and sometimes I want to cry about how stupid and unnecessarily complicated things are here, but we’re making a difference.”
I’m not the regretting type — I don’t feel the same need for whatever karmic balance she’s going for — but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t feel really fucking good to see her proud of what she’s doing.
I stretch and give her a kiss.
“We should get going. Today’s going to be a busy day.”
“They’re all busy days,” she says. “Just one more minute. I feel so good here. Doing this. With you.”
We sit there as long as we can, staring into the distance, ignoring the call of the world and enjoying feeling alone together even though there’s a camp of several hundred people less than half a mile behind us.
It’s just us, right now. Together. The way it should be.
* * * * *
“This is it, man,” Felix, one of the camp supervisors, says, handing over a small wrapped package. “Just like you asked for. I checked with your guy twice to make sure he was giving me the right one.”
I take a peek inside. For something so small, it’s a damn weighty package.
“Thanks, Felix,” I answer and hand him over the cash we’d agreed on. “How was Johannesburg?”
He shrugs. “Crowded. I saw the Mandela House. It was OK. So when are you planning to do this thing?”
I check the package again. It’s exactly as it was thirty seconds ago. “Tonight.”
He looks me up and down and wrinkles his nose. “I know we’re rationing water in the camp, man, but take a shower, ok?”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got this all planned out.”
And I do. Ever since we arrived here to this corner of the world, ever since Stephanie told me her plan to do something substantial and I agreed because fuck if I’m letting her go without me, I knew this is where we were heading.
I’ve been planning this for a while.
And tonight’s the night.
* * * * *
“You smell… clean?”
Her voice rises in a bit of disbelief as she sniffs me suspiciously.
“Yeah, I cleaned up a bit.”
I try and say it like it’s no big deal, even though it is. The last time I took a real shower was two weeks ago. Out here, between the humidity and the dust and the heat and the weird bugs, you’re dirty again within minutes of washing.
She sniffs again.
“Is that cologne you’re wearing?”
I ignore her.
But it is.
I’m definitely not in uniform at the moment which, for someone like me who’s helping out with the camp logistics — a job which I got thanks to a hefty donation — includes a Medicine Sans Frontiers vest, jeans, and a light button-up, all of which are inevitably going to get caked in sweat and grime. Instead, tonight I’m wearing a clean shirt, with almost half the buttons open because god damn it is hot, a light sports jacket, slacks, and dress shoes.
I even shaved and ran a comb through my hair.
“What’s going on?” she says, suspiciously.
She’s right to be suspicious.
No one wears clean, good clothes out here because what’s the point if they’re going to get ruined right away.
“Just follow me,” I say.
It’s twenty minutes to sundown and, even though Stephanie’s technically still on duty, I’m so insistent that she doesn’t even argue.
Besides, it wouldn’t matter if she tried. I’ve already talked to most of her co-workers and they’ll have my back. And if for some reason she tried to put up a fight, I’d just carry her.
I take her hand and I lead her out of the camp.
There’s a small hill just a stones throw away where we can look out and see the sunset as it burns red into the wild highlands of the west. It’s miles and miles of green and it is fucking breathtaking.
There’s a picnic blanket and a bottle of champagne on ice waiting us.
I’ll have to remember to give Felix some extra cash later. He brought everything I asked for, and porting a bottle of high-end Veuve Clicquot back from Johannesburg ain’t easy.
“What is this? Seriously?”
“Just sit down,” I answer.
Somehow, my voice isn’t shaking, even though, for the first time in a long time, I’m nervous.
She does what I ask and I get down beside her and take her hand. We watch the sun disappear. The air fills with the sounds of the evening wildlife. Cicadas chirrup all around us. Off in the distance a hyena calls out to it’s pack and a trio of the gnarly-horned antelope they have around here start braying at each other.
We enjoy it in silence and I wait as long as I can before I say anything, because we’re both so bone-weary from the grind of working in the camp that any chance to rest is welcome.
But, eventually, I open my mouth because I can’t hold it in any longer.
“Look, Stephanie, I want you to marry me.”
She raises an eyebrow and looks at me for a second, long enough that I feel like a fucking dunce. “That’s it? Nice proposal.”
I pop the champagne because my nerves need a drink. I pour the both of us a generous amount and hand her a glass and down most of mine in one gulp.
“I’m not good at this, alright? Lay off. You’re the first real relationship I’ve had and look where it’s got me,” I say, gesturing at the whole wild, weird world around us. “I never imagined I’d be working at some camp in Mozambique, driving jeeps around and doing supply runs and feeling like I’m Dr. Livingstone.”
I only know that name because I breezed through a book on African explorers while spending eight hours sitting in a jeep at a border crossing last week.
“None of those sound like things you enjoy,” she points out.
“Oh, they’re fucking terrible,” I say. “There was a viper in the latrine tent two nights ago. Nearly bit me someplace important. It took three rounds to kill it, too.”
It didn’t really take three rounds. The snake died after the first shot. But, when something like that tries to bite your dick, you can’t just shoot it once and move on. There’s a process.
“So tell me why this isn’t the worst marriage proposal ever.”
“Maybe it is. How should I know? Again, I don’t know anything about this sort of thing. But what I do know is that, as much as it sucks nearly having a viper sink it’s fangs into your cock, it’s worth it just to see you happy,” I look at her and stop talking for a second, because the way the light of the rising moon is illuminating her is fucking breathtaking. “Not that I want a viper to bite my cock.”
“I don’t want a viper to bite your cock either. The only mouth your cock should be in is mine,” she says, smiling.
“You’ll do it, then?”
“Bite your cock?”
I wince. “No — you’ll be my wife?”
She takes a sip of her champagne and looks off over the valley and up into the night sky, where the moon and the stars have started to come out in full. Out here, away from anything close to civilization, you can see every star; every tiny pinprick of light stands out against the deep, endless black of the night’s canvas.
It’s incredible.
And I’m here because of her, making people’s lives better, making a difference. She really is too good for me.
She sips her champagne and looks at me, and says the words I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
“Yeah, sure.”
* * * THE END * * *
Want more Luca and Stephanie? I have an extended epilogue that I’ll be sending out on May 31st to my Dirty List subscribers! Sign up for my Dirty List here: