Free From Cape Town with Love by Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due, Blair Underwood

the world. In a real sense, this was her job. I felt no threat from the worshipping crowd, and if she didn’t either . . . maybe we could do this. “Do you want us to try to shield your face from the cameras?”
    â€œNo,” she said. “I want the name of this orphanage in every paper in the world. Privacy is overrated.” Her voice was full of resolve, but her chin quivered. Her slumped shoulders told me how weary she was. I was glad to see there were two police cars instead of one, at least. We had been promised an escort through Langa from a police car this time.
    â€œYou’re doing great,” I told her. “From the gate, only eight steps to the van.”
    â€œSeems like fifty,” Tim said.
    â€œThese are children from the high school,” Toto said from where he was waiting in the foyer. “They only want to see a movie star with theirown eyes. Don’t believe everything you read, how everyone is a car-jacker.”
    â€œThat’s not what we’re worried about,” Rachel Wentz said, defensive.
    â€œReady for your close-up, Miss Desmond?” Tim said.
    He opened the door. When Sofia Maitlin stepped outside, the crowd cheered. She waved once, shyly, and stared straight ahead. Her subdued, hopeful smile was Oscar worthy.
    No sign of Ganya and his knife. Good.
    The cameras were mostly cheap, or cell phones, but two bright flashes bespoke professional photographers. Paparazzi. There were two video crews, not just one. As I surveyed the scene, I realized what the cameras would capture: Sofia Maitlin’s pale skin afloat in a sea of grinning, dark-skinned Africans, many of them reaching to try to touch her. Maitlin’s designer sunglasses contrasted with the bland Western hand-me-down clothing of world poverty. And Maitlin’s wave—a polite reflex that would be captured on film to look like a politician’s pitch.
    â€œStupid, stupid, stupid,” she said as the van drove off. “I
had
to wear these glasses today.” Maitlin looked sick.
    â€œThat little girl is so amazing,” Tim said. “How did she end up there?”
    â€œIt’s terrible,” Maitlin said. She stared out toward the orphanage as it grew more distant, unwilling to let it out of her sight.
    â€œMother dead, father unknown,” Rachel Wentz said. “When you see this little girl, it boggles your mind. She’s a beautiful, healthy, little human being. And that’s why the adoption will go through like a breeze, Sophie—everyone’s gonna be rooting for this kid. I’ll post the pictures I took of the two of you, get them out. We’ll let everyone fall in love with her.”
    â€œHer name is Nandi—not ‘this kid,’” Maitlin said sharply.
    â€œHon, I’m sorry this is so hard,” Rachel Wentz said. “But we
will
get Nandi.”
    â€œSophie, your hands are shaking,” Pilar said, offering Maitlin a bottle of water.
    Maitlin drained her bottle in one pull, pausing only to catch her breath. “I don’t feel well right now,” Maitlin said. “I need to close my eyes.”
    No one said a word the rest of the drive back to the hotel.

    Sofia Maitlin’s wave to the crowd outside Children First had made international news by the time I got to Johannesburg the next day. On CNN, the viewer question popped up on the screen:
Should celebrities receive special treatment in overseas adoptions?
Ninety percent of viewers voted no. The war for public opinion was under way.
    No clear shot of my face showed up in the video footage. I hadn’t really tried to avoid the cameras, but people like Maitlin seem to get what they want, whether the rest of us like it or not.
    I boarded my plane back home to Los Angeles with a check for five thousand dollars in my pocket. Not bad for a day’s work; it was more than I would have asked for. I decided I would send half the money to Children First, where