Blue (21 page)

At that point the Doctor reached over and tore off a piece of the brown paper on the side of the building, revealing the sign with the clinic’s name and the names of all the doctors that would be practicing there, as the crowd broke out into applause again.

“And we know that without the help of our community, this clinic would have never become a reality. So thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for the opportunity to provide our community with a much needed service. I would like to introduce you to the man that ultimately made this project a reality. I would like to introduce Commissioner Inali of the Practice of Blue. Without members of our communities like Inali, and the financial and legislative support from different organizations like the Practice of Blue, this law would have possibly never been passed. Thousands of women wouldn’t be able to receive the quality care that they will now be able to obtain at our facility. Please welcome with gratitude, Commissioner Inali,” Dr. Prescott said, motioning to the door of the clinic as Inali walked out.

Anytha felt a catch form in her throat at the shocking sight of Inali, and she reached out to stabilize herself on Ari’s arm. Ari covered her hand with his and rubbed her back with his other hand. It had been so long since she had seen him in person, and she couldn’t keep the memory of his hand creeping up her thigh from flooding over her.

“I swear, I didn’t know he was going to be here,” Ari whispered into her ear. “I would have never brought you here.”

“It’s okay,” Anytha said, nodding at him and rubbing his hand. “I know you wouldn’t have.”

Inali walked up to the podium as the crowd erupted into whistles and applause.

“Thank you. Thank you so much, everyone, for the opportunity to come out today to celebrate this monumental day in the history of South Africa. I am honored to have been able to play a part in bringing equal rights to women all across South Africa. This day has been a distant dream for years, but today it has finally come—the day that women will have the power to make decisions of what to do with their own bodies. It is a day to celebrate indeed,” Inali said, pausing as the crowd clapped again.

“It is in celebration of this day that my camp at the Pretoria branch of the Practice of Blue wanted to donate a piece of artwork to the first Women’s Health Clinic to open in South Africa. A few months ago, I asked our camp members to bring in pictures of themselves living out their dreams. Some families brought in pictures of themselves holding their newborn babies. Some people brought in pictures from their wedding day. Some people brought in pictures of themselves traveling in exotic places throughout the world. Everyone has their own dream, and this clinic is a small way for us to ensure that no woman has to give up her dreams when confronted with an unplanned pregnancy. We took the best of these pictures, and had an artist in our camp compile them together into what will now grace the side of this clinic for years to come. It is with great pleasure that I reveal to you the fruit of all of those dreams. We hope and pray that this artwork will give women hope, as they make the difficult decisions that sometimes need to be made to protect their dreams,” Inali said, as a young man tore the brown paper off the side of the building.

In large, yellow, metal letters that covered what seemed like at least a dozen square feet of the side of the building, the words “Follow Your Dreams” protruded out of the side of the building. The crowd erupted into applause at the sight of the artwork.

“Our hope is that this art piece empowers women of South Africa to follow their dreams, gives them the courage to stand up for what they believe in, and prove to the world that they are deserving, loved, beautiful, and worthy of respect. In closing, I would encourage each of you to come up and take a look at this piece up close, to see the smiles of our camp members following their dreams, in hope that they might inspire others to do the same. Thank you,” Inali said, walking away from the podium and back into the clinic.

Anytha let go of Ari’s arm, feeling relieved that Inali hadn’t seemed to have seen her in the crowd. Ari walked toward the front of the crowd with his camera in hand.

“I’m just going to go take some pictures of it really quick,” Ari said. “You don’t have to come.”

“No. It’s ok. I’ll go with you,” Anytha said, following behind him.

Anytha walked up and ran her finger along the smooth metal edge of the letters. The outline of the letters was glazed with yellow paint, and between the outline was clear glass, behind which were hundreds of pictures of people from her old camp. She couldn’t help but smile at some of the pictures of the people that she remembered with sweet memories—seeing the smiles on their faces as they were caught up in living their dreams. Ari walked ahead of her, snapping pictures of every letter in the piece.

“Do you know any of these people, Anytha?” Ari asked.

“Actually, yeah, most of them,” Anytha said.

Anytha ran her fingers over the letters, taking in all the pictures of the people that used to be such a big part of her life, while Ari continued snapping pictures.

“Hey, this is the girl I saw at the compound,” Ari said, snapping a picture of a portion of one of the letters. “She was the one I saw with Inali at Humanity the other day. I mean, she wasn’t pregnant when I saw her, though.”

Anytha walked over and looked at the picture that Ari pointed to from afar. A young woman, hugely pregnant, and a man stood in front of a Jacaranda tree with buds that were just beginning to bloom. They were smiling from ear to ear. Anytha leaned in close to see that the tree behind them was the one from her front yard.

“Do you know her?” Ari asked.

Anytha squinted and turned to Ari, swallowing hard.

“That’s my mom.”

C h a p t e r 
18

Tabitha awoke in her room, still completely dark other than the light of the lamp on her bedside table. She sat up as the towel that had been wrapped around her head slid off, exposing her still damp hair as she looked around the room again. She noticed that there was a digital alarm clock on the nightstand, and she laughed a little at the fact that she was just waking up at noon. She walked over to the window and pulled back on the thick curtains, letting sunlight flood the room.

She ran her fingers through her hair and wiggled her toes into the plush carpet as she stood staring out her window. Her room must be facing the outside of the new compound walls, because all she could see was a large decorative concrete wall and behind it, desert as far as the eye could see. Looking straight down out the window, she could see the plush grass that she had seen by the light of the flashlight along the path they had taken to Dormitory D.

She then walked over to the dressing table that faced her bed and pulled out the stool to take a seat. Her hair had taken on a wavy texture that she had never seen it take before, and she decided that she kind of liked it. She parted it down the side and scrunched it up in her hands, trying to make the curls form better.

Tabitha reached for the knob of the top drawer of the dressing table, fully expecting the drawers to be empty. She slid it open as some contents rattled inside. The drawer was lined with a fabric drawer organizer that formed little rectangular pockets. All kinds of beauty treasures were stored inside. Tabitha paused for a moment, staring at the drawer in disbelief, then picked up a tube of mauve lipstick and twisted off the cap. She sat at the dressing table testing out every color of eye shadow, lipstick, and blush with the tips of her fingers and cleansing them every so often on a cotton ball from the drawer. She rubbed some of her favorites onto her face, pursed her lips together, and ran her fingers through her hair as she stood up from the dressing table.

The white, fluffy robe that she wore seemed too big for her small frame, and since the drawer of her dressing table was stocked, she began to wonder if her closet would be the same. She walked over to the dresser beside her bed, pulled open the top drawer, and thumbed through stacks of cotton underwear, bras, and socks. She picked out a pair of panties and a sports bra and slipped them on.

Next she walked over to the closet door and opened it. Tabitha gasped as she saw the wardrobe that they had put together for her. She thumbed through the beautiful blouses and dresses, all seemingly sized perfectly for her. She grabbed a pair of blue jeans and a white slouchy t-shirt from the closet and slipped them on, looking to the floor to find rows of shoeboxes. She flipped the lids off of a few of them, until she found a pair of black leather sandals, and slipped them onto her feet. They fit perfectly.

She stood up and heard her stomach growling loudly. She realized then that it had been almost twenty-four hours since she had eaten anything, and decided that she should probably go down to eat something before they stopped serving lunch. She opened the door, hearing the tape rip, and walked out into the hallway. The hallway was bright and clean, and the little wooden heels on her sandals clicked on the slick floor as she walked down the stairs and out the front door of the dorm.

As the door clicked closed behind her, she felt the warmth of the sun on her face for the first time in what seemed like years. She breathed in deeply as she took in her first real glimpse of the compound in which she would be living from now on. She wondered to herself if she could even consider it a compound; it was unlike anything she had ever seen before. The dorms looked more like houses in an affluent neighborhood rather than dormitories, each of them with a different façade made out of different materials, each magnificent in its own way. Tabitha couldn’t help thinking that to the unknowing eye, this didn’t look like a compound at all. Tabitha walked along the brick sidewalk that connected the dorms, looking down at the grass beside the walkway as her shoes clicked underneath her. The grass had visible seams, and Tabitha could tell that it was sod that had been recently laid. She began to wonder how long this neighborhood had even existed if the grass hadn’t had a chance to lay its roots.

She counted the dorms as she walked past them. There were seven houses along the circular curve of the sidewalk on her side of the street, and the same amount on the other side, making fourteen in all, arranged in a semi-circle. The doorways of every dorm faced the center, where freshly planted trees surrounded a magnificent building in the center of it all.

Tabitha remembered them standing outside of a large building the night before, but the darkness concealed the actual size of it. It was a rectangular building, standing at least three stories tall, and resembled what Tabitha imagined the courthouse of a small town would look like—large ivory columns, polished stone and bricks, and a dome-shaped, white roof with a steeple that pointed to the sky.

Tabitha walked up the slick steps to the front of the building and heard quick clicking of shoes behind her coming up the pathway.

“Hey, I must have just missed you. I was kinda waiting for you to get up. I didn’t want to walk to lunch by myself,” Alyssa said.

“Sorry. I got caught up digging through my closet and realized that I was starving, so I headed over,” Tabitha said.

“I did too. I’m still in shock over this place. I can’t even comprehend why we’re here. It’s so over-the-top. To go from literally a hole in the ground to something like this overnight, it’s really pretty strange,” Alyssa said. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining, but it’s just unexpected.”

Tabitha just looked at Alyssa, refraining with all she had from voicing her conspiratorial ideas about why they might be here. She reached the large, wooden door of the building and pulled it open.

Tabitha couldn’t help but gasp. It was as if they walked into an even more fanciful world than the dorms. The foyer of the building was lined with columns, the ceiling slightly lowered. Behind the foyer was what could only be described as a ballroom, with crystal chandeliers hanging from golden chains under a thick, intricate molding, weaving in and out in a grid across the ceiling.

“Whoa,” Alyssa said, rubbing her hand along the molding around the doorway, seemingly frozen in her tracks.

“Look,” Tabitha said, pointing to a sign with an arrow that pointed to the left through some wooden french doors. “That must be the cafeteria.”

They walked across the slick, marble floor, hearing the echo of their steps across the cavernous room. As they approached the doors, they began to hear the voices of other young girls excitedly talking to each other and the clinking of plates and utensils.

They walked through the door that had been cracked open, and saw almost all of the girls from Humanity seated at a carved, wooden table that almost stretched the entire length of the room, with more than enough seats for all of them to sit comfortably. The girls were all dressed in the best from their closets, and they had obviously taken just as much time as Tabitha in getting ready this morning. They sat around the table chatting and laughing, admiring each other’s new looks.

Tabitha and Alyssa walked over to where it seemed the rest of the girls were getting their breakfast. She saw Marguerite setting out a tray of french toast in a metal warmer and slipping it down into a long buffet of food that had been set up for them.

“This is all for us?” Tabitha asked Marguerite, pointing and waving her finger up and down the buffet.

“Yep. Hope you enjoy it,” Marguerite said, looking carefully at Alyssa and noticing that she was looking away. She shook her head at Tabitha and gave her a worried look as she turned and headed back into the kitchen.

Tabitha reached for a white plate at the end of the buffet and started down the line, filling it with scoops of scrambled eggs, and slices of thick, crispy bacon. She had never seen so much delicious food in her life, and she couldn’t help wondering about how much fun Marguerite must have had cooking with such great ingredients, regardless of how skeptical she might be about why or how they had been obtained.

The girls sat down at the table and began eating, when a woman staff member walked into the room and asked everyone to stay in the dining hall until they were told to leave.

A few more girls walked into the hall and up to the buffet after Tabitha and Alyssa. After they came in, Tabitha saw a woman come in and stand in the corner, counting all the girls in the room with her finger in the air. Tabitha thought she must have reached the number she was trying to reach, and she left the room. A few minutes later, Dr. Hance walked through the door and clapped his hands.

“Alright, girls. I’m sure you’re all very curious about your new home. I hope that everyone enjoyed their first night here, and your first brunch. I wanted to introduce you guys to the person that has made this all possible,” Dr. Hance said, lifting his hand over his head and pivoting his body, displaying the dining hall to everyone, as a large, dark-skinned man in a tailored suit walked in through the side door of the dining hall.

“Ladies, I introduce to you, from the Practice of Blue, Commissioner Inali. Give him a round of applause.”

Tabitha clapped her hands, searching the room for Marguerite and catching her eye in the corner of the room as she stared blankly back at her. The look in her eye was as if she had been waiting hours for Tabitha to look at her, to validate the fear they both felt.