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He then took a bottle of hydrogen peroxide out of the cabinet and cleaned off the bite.
"I hate to see you go away for the weekend," he said, his voice soft. "I'm so jealous right now that the bastard is going to be there instead of me."
I smiled. "I wish you were going to be there instead of him, too," I said and kissed him. "But you don't have to be jealous. I plan on studiously ignoring him all weekend."
"Still, this is something I don't share with you. I'm jealous that any man gets to see your work before I do, watch you draw and paint."
I threaded my arms around his neck. "You have no reason to be jealous. He's just one of the instructors."
We kissed long and deep at the door when he was ready to leave for work and I felt sad that I was going away for the weekend without him.
"I'll miss you," he said, kissing me over and over again as if unwilling to let me go. "I love you."
"I'll miss you," I replied, my eyes filled with tears at the thought we'd be sleeping apart and I wouldn't see him for three days. "I love you."
"Oh, Ms. Bennet," he said and squeezed me, lifting me up off the floor. "What would I do without you?"
As he set me back down, he brushed his thumb over my bottom lip and gave me a little smile. Then he was gone.
I cancelled my class on Friday because of the safari. A sleek Humvee bus picked me up at my door, the other seven people from Nairobi going on the safari already on board. I hauled my carryon bag to the bus driver, who put it in a compartment. Claire got off the bus to greet me, taking my hand and leading me to the back, where Sefton and two other students I recognized from his class were seated. He smiled at me in greeting but said nothing, however the look in his eye said everything, as if he'd won some kind of victory.
Claire introduced me to the small group, including the two students from Sefton's class. How Claire knew everyone, I'll never know but she seemed to be that kind of person. One student was from Sefton's home town in South Africa while the other was a native of Kenya, but who spent most of her childhood in England with her parents. She moved back to Nairobi to live with her grandmother and study art at the Institute. I said hello and we discussed the safari, what we expected and what we would likely encounter.
The bus took us to an airport where a small passenger plane waited, the pilot and copilot dressed in crisp white uniforms, making them look as if they were straight out of British Imperial Kenya. We boarded the plane, and I sat at a window seat and watched as our baggage was loaded, butterflies in my stomach at the prospect of seeing the savannah. Claire sat beside me on the inside seat and Sefton took the aisle seat on the other side of her. The two seemed really friendly with each other and I wondered if Sefton knew Claire from home.
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sp; "Did you two know each other in South Africa?" I asked, keeping my focus on Claire rather than Sefton.
Of course, he leaned over the aisle, smiling at me. "Not personally, but our families go a long way back and Claire is active in the arts community here and there. She was the one to encourage the Institute to appoint me as the artist in residence. I owe it all to her." He leaned closer at that and kissed Claire on the cheek. I swear Claire blushed hard and almost giggled, which I thought was so out of character for her, but I had to admit that Sefton was extremely good looking – intimidatingly so. Put him in a set of camo and he could be an actor in a big budget action film, whether a warrior or pirate or outlaw. His muscles almost strained at the khaki shirt he wore.
I turned away, trying to push him and his grin out of my mind, focusing instead on the land surrounding the small airport. It was lush, the trees green against a clear blue sky. What I had come to expect for weather in Nairobi.
Finally, after about twenty minutes of waiting, the plane started to taxi down the runway and we took off, the roar of the twin propellers momentarily deafening during the ascent. We leveled off and I looked out the window at the scenery below. Thin wispy white clouds wafted by and the sun glinted off the wingtip. I took out the brochure and examined it, barely listening as Sefton and Claire talked about their former lives in Johannesburg.
Our camp was in the Masai Mara National Reserve on the banks of the Mara River. On the first day, we would be taken to watch wildlife from a distance, take photographs or sketch. We would do this all Friday, Saturday and then most of the day Sunday, when we would return to Nairobi. The camp was made up of permanent facilities, with huge tents accommodating two to four people, a shared bathroom in each tent with hot and cold running water, and a common tent where we would eat. The food would be first-rate, there would be activities once we were done for the day, including games and music. Late in the evening, there would be an outing to watch the stars, and people could take astrophotography, if they desired, at a site specially designed for it.
The site was well-established and had been in business for nearly forty years, so I relaxed and let the very expert guides take care of us. I felt I was in good hands. The only irritant, besides the mosquitoes, would be Sefton with his grin. Like the mosquitoes, there was nothing to do about him but ignore as best you could, although I read that the mosquitoes were worse at dawn and dusk. I wasn’t so sure that there would be any relief from Sefton…
We landed at a small regional airport and then took buses the rest of the way down well-worn roads, finally arriving at our camp about two hours later. After we set our bags in the tent that Claire and I shared, which looked out over the Mara River, we had a light lunch in the dining tent. Even for lunch, we sat at tables dressed with white linen tablecloths, crystal and china, flowers and candles.
The landscape was lush, green, and the weather was perfect – cool in the morning according to our guides, but warmer in the afternoon, so we were advised to wear layers that could be added or removed depending on the temperature. After lunch, Claire and I put on our safari clothes, our DEET to ward off the mosquitoes, and then we were off in small Jeeps with our guide, who helped us load our art supplies.
Claire was an amateur photographer so she would go with the group of people there to take photographs. It would mean we would be separated for the afternoon, and that I would be spending my time with Sefton and his two students, but there was nothing to be done about it.
What I most longed to see – and draw – were the elephants. Ever since I was a child, I had a love of African elephants and had wanted to see them up close and draw them. Now was my chance and I didn't want to miss it. Excitement built in me that we would soon arrive at the location where we would set up for the afternoon.
We found our spot at the edge of a forest where a small family of elephants stood. They seemed quite unconcerned about our presence – perhaps used to the many safari groups who came to the area. We set up our easels and I began sketching on my pad of paper, wishing I could get closer so I could see them in detail.
"Is this as close as we can get?" I asked our guide. He nodded, and pointed to several guards who had rifles in hand, standing as sentries.
I wanted to do a closer study, but instead, would have to settle for more of a landscape with the small group of elephants located off center to create a pleasing composition.
Sefton came over to me and handed me a pair of binoculars. I had my own smaller pair, which I'd purchased before we left, but Sefton's were superior.
"Here," he said. "Take these. You can see the detail better with them. This is as close as we can get without putting ourselves in danger. You could cheat and take a photograph of them, zoomed so you can see them more clearly and use it to draw from."
"That's a good idea," I said. I used my cell phone camera to capture a pleasing composition of a mother elephant and her offspring, which looked to be several years old or more due to its size. I knew from the brochure that African elephants gave birth every four or five years, so this one was a few years old. I thanked Sefton for the binoculars, and set about to sketch the background onto which I would transpose the elephants. I planned to draw the elephants larger and in more detail.
