FOUND HIM WITH MY SISTER

THE THREE MONTH TEST

*CHAPTER 12: THE THREE MONTH TEST*

The R30,000 envelope stayed on the table until 6pm. I did not touch it.

At 6:01pm, Mrs. Khumalo-Dlamini's driver came inside, picked it up, and left without saying a word.

Liam said, "You did the right thing, Nandi."

But I did not feel like I did the right thing. I felt like a stupid girl. R30,000 could have paid Mama's clinic. Could have bought Lindiwe baby clothes. And I said no because of pride.

That night I could not sleep in the guest room anymore. I told Liam, "Take me back to Umlazi."

He looked hurt. "Why? Because of my mother?"

"Because I need to remember who I am before I become who you want me to be."

He drove me back. The mansion gate closed behind us. The taxi rank smell hit me. Home.

Mama was sitting outside our small house, braiding someone's hair for R50. When she saw me come out of a big white Range Rover, she dropped the comb.

"Nandi? What happened? Did that man chase you?"

"No, Mama. His mother chased me. With money."

I told Mama everything. About the envelope, about the red bottoms, about the 3 months.

Mama was quiet for a long time. Then she said, "My child, that woman is right about one thing. You are from Umlazi. But she is wrong about what that means. Being from Umlazi does not mean you are weak. It means you survived what would kill Sandton girls."

Then she took my hand. "So you have 3 months to prove you are not a gold-digger? Then you prove it."

Next morning, I woke up at 4am. I wore my old reception uniform and went to the hotel before anyone.

At 7am, Mrs. Khumalo-Dlamini arrived. Not Liam. Her.

She was wearing black today. Black dress, black sunglasses, even though she was inside.

"Oh, you came back," she said, surprised. "I thought you would run."

"I don't run, Ma. I work."

She smiled - that cold Sandton smile. "Good. Because your 3 month test starts now. You want to be with my son? You want to be a manager? Then run this hotel for 3 months. But not as assistant manager. As..."

She looked at the cleaning trolley.

"As a cleaner. And receptionist. And manager. All three. Let's see if a girl from Umlazi can handle pressure."

The staff gasped. The cleaners looked at me with pity.

Liam came running from his office. "MAMA! You said you would give her a fair chance! Not humiliate her!"

"This IS fair, Liam. Your father started as a cleaner at Protea Hotel in 1987. If she wants to be part of this family, she must start where we started. Or is she too good to clean toilets?"

Everyone looked at me.

My old boyfriend Sipho never made me clean. But he made me feel dirty inside.

This woman wanted to make me clean outside, to make me feel small.

I took off my manager blazer. Folded it nicely. Put it on the chair.

"Give me the gloves, Ma. And the mop."

The whole reception went silent.

Mrs. Khumalo-Dlamini raised her eyebrow. "You will clean?"

"I will clean, I will check guests in, and I will manage. Because my mother cleaned houses for 20 years so I could go to school. Cleaning is not an insult to me. It's my mother's pride."

I put on the yellow gloves. They were too big.

For 8 hours that day, I cleaned 12 rooms. My back was breaking. My knees were shaking. Sweat was running down my bra. But I also checked in 20 guests at reception between cleaning, because I refused to leave reception empty.

At 6pm, Mrs. Khumalo-Dlamini came to inspect. She opened rooms, checked under beds with a white tissue. Looking for dust.

Room 101 - clean. Room 102 - clean. Room 103 - clean.

Until Room 110. She wiped the bathroom mirror and showed me the tissue. Dust.

"Fail," she said. "You failed on day one."

I looked at the tissue. It was clean, but she had put baby powder on her finger before wiping. I saw it.

I wanted to shout "YOU CHEATED!" But I swallowed it.

"Tomorrow I will do better, Ma."

She walked away, heels clicking. But as she passed me, she whispered, "You have 89 days left."

Liam found me crying in the laundry room at 7pm. Not because my body was tired. Because my heart was tired.

"Nandi, stop this madness. You don't have to do this. I will tell my mother to leave."

I looked at him, my hands still in yellow gloves, my uniform wet.

"Liam, if I quit now, she will be right. She will say 'I told you, location girls don't have stamina'. I will not give her that. I will finish these 3 months. And on day 90, I will buy my own red bottoms with my own salary. And I will put my dirty cleaning gloves on her clean table and say 'I did it'."

Liam knelt down - this rich man, in his R5,000 suit, kneeling on a wet laundry floor - and he took off my yellow gloves and kissed my cracked hands.

"Then we do it together. Tomorrow, I clean with you."

And from the doorway, I saw Mrs. Khumalo-Dlamini watching us. She was not smiling. She was not angry. For the first time, she looked... confused. Like she had never seen a rich man kneel for a poor girl.

Maybe - just maybe - the test was not for me. Maybe it was for her.