18Zelta met me at the office after work, something she rarely did. I knew something was up. We sat at the bar at Lulu’s in silence for what seemed a very long time. Silent, that is, except for the clinking of ice cubes in my Early Times and then the sound of her sucking the last of her soda with a straw.
“Know what that means in Swahili?” she asked me.
“Nope,” I said, hardly looking up from my drink. I’d had so much I could hardly hold my head up.
“Means it’s all gone,” she said.
It was kind of funny, but I couldn’t manage a chuckle. I took another long pull to drain my glass and signaled to Lulu to pour another.
“You stopped being fun an hour ago, or was it last year?” Zelta said, not angrily but not joking, either. As Lulu came back over, Zelta said to her, “Call me a cab?”
Lulu sh
