Nairobi Dreaming - Complete!

Chapter 10: What's with all the hand sanitizer?

Lunch, when it came, began as a delicate, well choreographed dance. Everyone in the dining room was smiling and chatting but they were doing it around Abigail, or so carefully with Abigail that I suspected I wasn't the only one who knew about what she had done. Either that or she had managed, in the two hours since, to do more strangely awful things to more people.

I sat down between James and Kay. Kay had been pretty much sleeping since we arrived and I hadn't seen James till just then. Kay yawned at me groggily, her excitement at the seating arrangements transparent through her sleepiness, and James smiled at me warmly enough to give me butterflies.

"Hey," He said softly, his voice smooth and low. He looked at me through his eyelashes, his brown wavy hair displaced.

I smiled back at him reflexively and then wished I hadn't. It was stupid but I wanted to be in control, to make him wonder if I was still at all interested and so I turned away immediately, discouraging further conversation, only to have my attention immediately absorbed by Abigail's expression. Whereas the rest of us were saying positive things about the delicious smelling food on the table Abigail was glaring at it like it meant to do her harm. Her expression was so severe, so over the top it was nearly comical, a caricature of a person stewing, the lines around her mouth and eyes overdone, her mouth twisted into a strange, unnatural shape.

"This is Kenyan Pilau," Atieno said, gesturing at a rice dish that was light orange in colour. "It has cardamon, cinnamon and cloves in it and it goes really well with the beef stew which has potatoes, carrots and peas in it. Please, help yourselves, family style."

My stomach rumbled with anticipation.I stood up, angling for the big wooden serving spoon in the stew.

"Is this all organic?" Abigail asked. Her tone was polite but there was an undercurrent of awful beneath it, like she was just waiting for the wrong answer so she would have an excuse to explode. The whole table paused like we were a group of dancers waiting for our next queue. My fingers hovered above the serving spoon. I realized I was holding my breath.

Atieno's high wattage smile flickered but then expanded, brighter than ever and when she spoke she sounded genuinely unphased. "Of course. It's all grown out here by small farmers with nothing but water and the Kenyan sun."

Abigail continued to glare at the pot of stew in front of her and movement returned to the table.

I filled my plate with stew, noticing when Abigail's gaze shifted ever so slightly to the food on my plate. When I moved from the stew to the rice her judgement was so palpable I felt compelled to add a spiteful, extra spoonful before handing the spoon off to Essie. Abigail leaned forward, moving so quickly it was as though her daughter had been about to touch something scalding or poisonous. She swatted Essie's hand away with enough force to knock her hand into her empty plates. "Don't follow her example. That's not for you," She snapped. "You can have the stew, but in moderation and no potatoes."

Essie withdrew, holding her hand, her cheeks flushed red, tears pressing at the corners of her eyes and I could feel the table take a collective breath. All side conversations halted but no one said anything about what was happening. Kay caught my gaze as though to say, see, told you.

"Fatso," Tovah sung, her tiny voice shrill and gleeful. "That's what you get."

"Tovah!" Abigail said, almost playfully. Tovah smiled to herself and I realized that it was the first time I had seen the girl smile at all. It was a cold little gesture that made her blue eyes harden into sapphires.

"Is your daughter on one of those trendy low carb diets?" James asked. I could hear the subtle disdain beneath the polite, posh British accent but I wasn't sure Abigail caught it.