Read Beverly Hills Maasai for Free Online Page A

have them here. We can’t have that, now, can we?”
    I shrugged. She was making a pretty good point.
    “I can’t wait to meet your friends.” She started walking again.
    I reached out and grabbed her a second time. I put myself between her and the guest house.
    “Actually, only one of them is really my friend. You know … from before,” I said.
    “Is it Ruth?” she asked.
    Ruth was the Maasai girl I’d become good friends with when I was in Kenya. I wished it were Ruth. I missed our time together, our conversations.
    “Not Ruth, but from the same tribe as—”
    “Oh, my goodness!” my mother gasped, her eyes widening in surprise, and all of the colour drained from her face.
    I hardly needed to turn around because I knew what I was going to see. Slowly I looked over my shoulder. Olivia and the three Maasai had come out of the guest house.
    “They … they … they’re …”
    “They’re our guests.”
    “But they’re … they’re …”
    “Maasai. They’re Maasai, like Ruth.”
    “But why are they here?”
    I was impressed. She’d recovered enough to ask a full question.
    “They’re going to run in the Beverly Hills Marathon.”
    “And … and they’re going to stay
here?”
    “They’re my friends. I want you to meet them.”
    I took her by the hand and led her toward our guests. Koyati and Samuel had both squatted down at the edge of the pool and were talking so excitedly that they didn’t even seem to notice us. Nebala did. He offered a big, friendly smile in greeting.
    “You are Alexandria’s mother?” he asked.
    “Yes … I’m Rachel Hyatt.”
    He turned to the other two and barked out something in Swahili. They both quickly got to their feet and flanked him, facing us.
    “We have been asked to pass on the gratitude of our tribe for what you have done,” Nebala said. “It is a great thing.”
    “It’s nothing … a few days in the guest house.”
    He shook his head. “Not for now. For before. For the clinic.”
    “Oh, the clinic!”
    When I’d returned from Africa I’d told my parents about how the people of the village had to travel long distances to get medical treatment, and how people were dying because of the distance. My parents decided to donate money to set up a clinic—money they’d set aside to buy me a very expensive car for my sixteenth birthday. I’d suggested they buy me a Mustang instead, so the villagers got their clinic.
    Nebala and Koyati exchanged words and then Koyati stepped forward. My mother stumbled back slightly—his expression was so serious and so fierce. Didn’t this guy ever smile?
    Koyati said something to my mother and then reached out and grabbed her hand in both of his. She looked terrified and tried desperately to pull her hand away, but he held her in place.
    “He says his family owes you a great debt. Because of your gift, the life of one of his sons was spared.”
    “It was nothing,” my mother said.
    “No, no,” Nebala said. “It was everything. It was his
oldest
son.”
    “I’m … I’m so glad … glad to hear that,” my mother sputtered. “What I meant was that the money wasn’t that much. It wasn’t much at all.”
    Koyati said something else. He was still holding my mother’s hand in his.
    “He says that he has to offer his thanks to your husband as well.”
    “He’s not here right now,” I blurted out before my mother could answer.
    “He doesn’t live here anymore,” my mother said icily.
    Nebala looked confused.
    “My parents are separated.”
    He still looked confused.
    “He’s gone.”
    “He is dead?” Nebala asked.
    “Not dead!”
    “I wish,” my mother mumbled under her breath.
    I shot her a dirty look.
    “Sorry,” she added. “That wasn’t fair or kind.”
    “My parents are divorced,” I said, trying to explain it further. “They are no longer married.”
    He still looked confused. Maybe Maasai didn’t get divorced. Maybe he didn’t even know what it meant.
    “When a husband and wife