Free Thirty Girls by Susan Minot Page B

unique and inspiring, regardless of the fact that only a smallest amount of Harry was known to her.
    Pierre and Don were in the back on either side of Lana who was tucked into Don’s shoulder. Finally they left the traffic behind and the truck hummed over unsmooth road. The passengers fell asleep, bumping awake over potholes. When Jane woke, her window overlooked a valley dropping off the roadside with houses scattered among greenery and Lake Naivasha a purple disc below. The pink lace at the edge of the gray flats was a flock of flamingos. They stopped at a pull-over overlooking the valley when Lana spotted a display of Maasai blankets strung up on sapling branches, and could determine from a distance they were the old wool ones, not the new polyester blend. A woman sat in the shade with narrow shoulder blades and rectangular beaded earrings and was surprised by Lana’s speaking Maasai to bargain. Harry hunched down to a blanket spread with collar necklaces and belts dangling arrows and beaded leather bracelets. The old bracelets used gut, the new, plastic thread. He bought one, with red and green diagonal bands. Lana pointed out to Don where they were headed, to the right of the lake, her sister Beryl’s house. They were stopping for a night or two. Beryl’s husband Leonard was an artist and Lana was keen to show Don his work.
    Back in the car Harry handed Jane the bracelet. You need a souvenir, he said. He gave it to her casually, and she felt her face flush. Thanks, she said, as if she were used to having men give her things. In truth it was rare and, snapping on the bracelet, it seemed important he not know it.
    In a valley of light green trees they turned off the paved road onto beige dirt. At an open aluminum gate they drove on a smoother road with farmed fields of crops on either side. At a huddle of trees they passed a white barn trimmed in black with wrought-iron windows and a yard of carts with handle pulls tilted to the ground. A long avenue of towering eucalyptus made a roof as high as a cathedral with a white stuccohouse at the end. The villa had a red tile roof in the Italian style, with a wide terraced balustrade on one side full of potted palms and blooming hibiscus trees.
    They piled out of the truck, and Jane felt the thrill of arriving at a beautiful place. At one end, wide double doors were flung open to a gigantic hall with a black and white checkered floor and a great archway in the shape of a spade. French doors were open all along the veranda. An interior balcony rimmed the second floor, with doors behind the wooden railing, some open to windows beyond, some shut. Children came running across from the far end in wet feet and bathing suits, followed by a young woman in a bathing suit top with a kanga wrapped around her waist languidly advancing, shaking out long wet hair. A swallow swooped past Jane’s head. Lana picked up two children in her strong arms.
    I thought you were getting here for lunch, the woman said, gliding across the hall. She kissed Lana’s cheeks.
    We tried, Lana said vaguely. To everyone else: This is my sister, she said brightly. Lana stood a head taller though her sister was the elder. Beryl, with her flat stomach and blasé manner, looked more like a teenager than a mother of four.
    Well, you’re in time for tea at least. Like Lana, Beryl had the Kenyan brand of British accent, but where Lana’s was full of enthusiasm, Beryl’s was flat. She seemed to be sighing at the boredom of life, particularly incongruous to Jane in this paradise swooping with children and flowers and birds.
    Pierre, I knew you were coming, she purred, kissing both his cheeks.
    Hey, beautiful, Pierre said.
    But Harry, too? Lana doesn’t tell me anything. How’d she rope you into it?
    Flying, Harry said, kissing her hello.
    That all? Beryl raised an eyebrow toward Jane, but she wasn’t done with the boys yet. And you … are Dan.
    Don.
    She put out her hand, looking at him straight-on. Welcome,