Harry Harambee's Kenyan Sundowner

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Harry’s daughter Nicole was not in favor of the idea, even though she’d encouraged her father to stop moping around and take an interest in something besides Lakers basketball. But Harry didn’t exactly approve of her recent life choices, so he didn’t feel bad about not giving her a vote. Nicole had been through a nasty divorce five years ago from a car salesman who bought more coke than he sold iron. Now she was living with an event promoter whose business had tanked when he was charged with a (presumably baseless) s****l harassment lawsuit, which was eventually dismissed, but the stink stuck. She seemed to fall for guys with big promises and meager assets. She was supporting this one by teaching English as a Second Language in evening classes downtown to Asians and Latinos who might have been just off the boat or, she feared, just out of a shipping container.

Harry informed her he was going for three weeks, and he only told her what Aldo had told him about the safari experience. He’d already resolved to himself that, if anyone asked, sighting wild animals was the main reason he was going.

“I don’t see why you’re going all that way,” Nicole fussed. “You hate getting out of your comfort zone. You might try something less ambitious. There are those Alaskan cruises where you can see wolves and bears. Or those senior tours to Cozumel for dolphins and stingrays and sharks. And if you want to get primitive, you could do a week at Club Med in Cancun, then jump on a bus tour to Chichen Itza. The ruins are only a few hours away, and none of it is all that expensive. You can just as easily meet someone closer to home, and what about all those diseases over there? Africa is how many flights? How many hours on the plane? Do you even know whether the water is safe to drink?”

“No matter where you go, you stick to bottled water. But they are saying you’ll have to buy it in glass. They want to ban plastic, I’m told.”

“Oh,” Nicole cooed in a mocking tone, “so you’re thinking they’ve gone all progressive and green in Kenya?”

“Sounds like it,” her father admitted. “I know they care a lot about wildlife conservation. They realize — no animals, no tourists. I’ve started to read up on it.”

“Since when are you worried about wildlife? You used to tell me another ice age could be just as likely as global warming! It didn’t sound like you thought we could do anything about either scenario.”

“I admit, I’m not up on all the science. But the history intrigues me, especially the colonial period. Also, the way change seems to be accelerating over there. Technology. Even people who have very little money have a phone. It’s their wallet and their checkbook. The app is called M-Pesa, and everybody uses it. They were doing that for years before we ever heard of banking with an app. Solar power, wind, geothermal — they’re working on all of that. The Chinese are in there in a big way, building roads and bridges. We’ve pulled back, don’t want to be seen as colonial oppressors.”

There was a time, before Nicole’s rebellious teens, that she shared her father’s fascination with history. He recommended she read Balzac and Dickens. She turned him onto Harry Potter, and they read those books together. They played Trivial Pursuit.

“We can’t afford foreign aid anymore, you mean. It’s not like we don’t have problems in the good old U-S-of-A.” She shot him a look. “So, you’re some authority on Africa these days?”

Nicole had dropped by unannounced. He’d phoned her to tell her he was going, and he hadn’t expected to exchange goodbyes in person. He wasn’t about to ask her for a ride to LAX. He preferred the promptness and dependability of a car service. He’d book a van with multiple passengers to save money. Now she was sitting on the edge of the bed in the master bedroom watching him fret over his clothes, and it occurred to him that the only time a female had ever sat there had been years ago when her mother was still ambulatory. Not that he hadn’t wished otherwise since Lucille’s passing, but he hadn’t done anything to follow through on those fantasies.

Harry was rummaging through his sock drawer. Each pair was rolled up and folded in on itself, just as Lucille had trained him to do. He asked Nicole, “Do you think your guy would want any of these?” He was holding up Argyle woolens for her to inspect.

Harry was the kind of person who had a sock drawer and usually wished it was better arranged. Today he was working on the first draft of his packing. He’d be shipping a two-suiter ahead via Send My Bag to his first hotel and then bringing a duffel on the plane. The suitcase would hold his slacks and sport coat because Aldo said guests would sometimes have to dress for dinner at the upscale lodges. Into the duffel would go his safari clothes — cargo pants and shorts and lightweight short-sleeve shirts, ultralight rainwear, swim trunks, toiletries, and assorted gear, including chargers and voltage adapters, along with a pair of Celestron Nature DX binoculars he’d recently bought on sss. (He hoped he could sneak the duffel through as carry-on lest the binocs mysteriously disappear from his checked baggage.)

“His name is Courtney,” Nicole said, “and you should donate those if you don’t want them. Keep some homeless person’s feet warm.” Then she demanded, “What’s going on here? Are you moving out? And what’s up with Beto? I saw him on the way in — with his toolbox.”

Beto Cruz was the handyman Harry trusted for all maintenance tasks around the rambling three-bedroom house in Rustic Canyon. Beto was about Harry’s age and a semiretired building manager. The mild-mannered fellow didn’t always complete work on schedule. Sometimes he underestimated the effort and ended up asking for considerably more money than he’d quoted. But Harry valued Beto’s help because the guy could be counted on to give a reliable diagnosis of just about any household problem, from water intrusion to electrical faults to insect infestation. Even with the overages, Harry figured he wouldn’t be paying for unnecessary work from opportunistic tradesmen. His confidence in Beto more than compensated for the fellow’s less than consistent performance.

Perhaps best of all, Beto charged by the fee he quoted for the task and not by the hour. Good thing, because he liked to talk, and he’d spend time before and after his chores shooting the breeze with Harry about health problems, world affairs, and the rising cost of living. You might even say that these days Beto was Harry’s only close friend. Nicole knew Beto well enough to suspect he was taking advantage of her father, but here was another of Harry’s decisions in which he did not permit her to have a vote.

“That sounds like three questions,” Harry said. “Where do you want me to start? I’m guessing you’re taking a pass on the socks.”

She huffed, “You’re acting like you’re not coming back. If that’s the plan, I believe I have a right to know.” Nicole gave off the vibe of not caring what her father did, but her question made her seem like a child who feared she was being left with a nasty babysitter.

Harry shrugged. “I can’t say I have a plan. Beto is building storage cabinets for me in the garage. I’m putting the things I want to keep there.”

“So you are coming back?”

“You asked the question. I never said I wasn’t.”

“But why do you have to go and squirrel everything away? It’s not like you have all that much burglars would want to steal.”

“I’m renting the place out. Furnished.”

“For three weeks?”

“Yes. It’ll help pay my expenses.”

“You could have offered it to me! I could be your house sitter.”

“You wouldn’t have paid.”

“Of course not!”

Now he gave her a look. “I don’t know Courtney all that well — okay, I wasn’t even sure of the name. I met him for less than an hour once, when we had drinks that time. Was it my birthday? But I’d question whether you two, once installed, would cheerfully move out. I mean, would I suddenly have semipermanent houseguests?”

“You could — in some alternate universe — move into a smaller place and gift the house to me. It’s our family home, the house I grew up in.”

“It still has a mortgage. And property taxes. Combined, that’s a lot more than you pay in rent in Echo Park, I’d think. And there’s upkeep, if for no other reason than to maintain the property value. Now, I wouldn’t expect you to get married again, whether to that guy or anyone else. Lifestyle choices, they call it now. But you’ve got a paycheck for a gig that’s only part-time, and is he bringing home anything?”

“You never seemed to care what I did before.”

“Maybe you thought I didn’t care because I didn’t want to be telling you what to do. And then when I realized you might have wanted — no, needed — someone to give advice, it was too late.”

“If you’re going to take off for good, at least be honest about it.”

The accusation was ironic, coming from her. Harry dearly wished she’d share more of her life with him, but he didn’t know where to start. Or resume.

He could feel himself getting upset. “Okay, are you all spun up because I’m making life uncertain for you? My life is uncertain! I don’t have a plan. I wasn’t about to lay out all the options to you because I don’t know what they are. Maybe this trip will help me focus. But if you’re going to insist on having just the facts, let me put it this way: Whether I return or whether I stay over there and you only come to visit for my funeral, I’m renting this place out. I’ve found a property manager. Social Security isn’t quite enough, and I need the income, whether I stay or go. If I do come back — which I was sincerely planning to do until you doubted it — I will probably take that smaller place. But understand — either way, you won’t be living here — unless you can afford the rent or you offer me market price to buy it.”

If she were a more vulnerable person, she might have cried. Instead, she just grew stiff.

“What if you don’t come back because some terrorist cuts your head off?”

“Wow. You’re not your mother’s child. She had her opinions, but she always made it sound like hers were polite suggestions. Losing my life over there is not an eventuality I’d considered. Thanks for that.” He could see she was ashamed she’d said it, but he realized he’d backed her into a corner. He said softly, “My lawyer has my will and a key to the safe deposit box at Bank of America.”

“And is that where you’ve put your wedding band?”

“Thank you for noticing,” he said sheepishly. “I suppose you can consider it a family heirloom. Or feel free to sell it after I’m gone.”

She snapped, “Sure you won’t be needing it again?”

“I don’t know what traditions apply, but I have a feeling this kind of keepsake would be in poor taste to reuse. Your mother’s rings are in the box, too. Those do get passed down, I believe. That is, if you were intending…”

She ignored the implied challenge. They’d both gotten in their digs. “How come I don’t have a copy of the key?”

“Same reason I didn’t spell out all the options from now until my end of life! I could change my mind. Realistically, from a financial standpoint, you’d probably be a bit better off if I were dead.” Then he emphasized, “Probably. But don’t go doing the math just yet.”

“I don’t know for sure you’d leave me anything,” she said. “Not that I’d want the publishing company. I wouldn’t want those headaches.”

“Why not? We’re not looking for new titles, and the backlist is selling. The catalog is on the website, the ordering and fulfillment are automated, and we’ve stopped accepting returns. It makes money while we sleep.”

“I’ve told you before. I don’t. Want. The job.”

“No, I get that you don’t. My parents — my father, particularly — would say the situation calls for self-reliance. Sadly, you didn’t know him. But it won’t come as news when I tell you he wasn’t my favorite person. Maybe I’m just making the same mistakes he did. But I don’t think it will make you a better person if you start thinking about how much you stand to inherit. If, God forbid, I have to go into assisted living one day, there might not be anything left by the time I’m finally gone. And don’t trust me to shoot myself when I get the diagnosis to spare you the expense.”

She sighed and looked away. “Why do I bother?”

“Maybe you think I didn’t do right by your mother. I tried to be there, which is about all you can do in the end when they don’t have a clue who you are. When my father died, my mother had him cremated and promptly took off with the maître d’ from their favorite restaurant. Have I stood by you? Perhaps you’d say not enough. When and if I come back, maybe you’ll have an answer.”

She sulked. He turned her to face him and assured her, “The cell service isn’t bad, even in the rural areas. Safaricom. All the hotels have Wi-Fi. Another thing I learned, everybody’s using w******p. So you could be hearing from me more than you want to. Electronic postcards. Stupid selfies. Pictures of my lavish dinners — hopefully, before I’ve eaten them.” He looked at her squarely and said, “I’m sure you’re not saying you don’t want me to go.”

“I’m not saying that. I just don’t know where I stand.”

“This is going to sound harsh. But the reason you don’t know where you stand is because I’m worried about where you’re standing. And who with. I’ve never told you what to do — or at least not since about the seventh grade. But if I’m out of the picture — however temporarily — maybe your choices will be clearer.”

“It’s only three weeks. Why am I thinking it’s forever?”

“Because now you’ve got me thinking maybe it could be.”