(still no wedding band, he observed) at this table and that table. When the owner, a gaunt, papery-skinned man with a long English jaw, stopped by to pay his respects and make recommendations, Fitzhugh began to feel more at ease. Diana’s standing was such that she probably could have walked in here arm in arm with a Masai chief in full tribal regalia and not done herself or the chief any harm: an aristocrat who could get away with things prohibited to a woman of the hoi polloi. She asked the owner to give her very best to Rick in the kitchen. In a few moments Rick-in-the-kitchen dispatched a waiter to tell her that he’d just received a shipment of fresh prawns from the coast and would be delighted to prepare them especially for her and her guest in a garlic, butter, and white wine sauce, to be preceded by his signature dish, capellini primavera.
“Brilliant!”
When the waiter handed her the wine list, Fitzhugh gave up all notions of exercising any masculine authority. He was in her world.
“I think a Montrachet would be nice, don’t you?”
“Brilliant,” he said.
Over Rick-in-the-kitchen’s signature dish, he told her about the meeting with Adid, and that the man made him uncomfortable with his piercing look. He related his thoughts as he passed by the university, his memories of his unsuccessful stab at playing angry young man, when he’d led a protest march in honor of J. M. Kariuki, who’d been murdered by his political rivals. Those recollections had probably moved him to cancel out on Doug’s dinner plans—
“Fitz, dear,” she interrupted, and drew her face closer to whisper teasingly, “you are supposed to say that what moved you was an overwhelming desire for the pleasure of my company.”
He didn’t take it in the lighthearted spirit she’d meant it, and he protested that he had longed for the pleasure of her company, really, he had—but he couldn’t deny that he’d also dreaded, with a dread equal to the longing, listening to more talk about business plans and market share. In recent weeks he’d sensed that he was drawing further and further away from the man he used to be, and the outraged nineteen-year-old who’d led a protest march now seemed so far away as to be someone else. One more hour in the wabenzi’s presence would have made the distance feel all the greater. And yes, he added by way of epilogue, he was aware of the irony of his speaking this way in this place, sipping Montrachet and dining on capellini primavera with a beautiful woman.
Delivering the compliment caused his heart to stutter again, but Diana did not react. She only fixed him with her dark blue eyes—they looked indigo in the sconce’s hooded light—and daubed her lips with her napkin as the plates were cleared away.
“I must sound like I’m in a psychiatrist’s office,” he said, fearful of her silence.
“Not at all.” Again covering his hand, though in a more maternal way. “But if I can play amateur analyst, I’d say you suffer from a common delusion. You equate poverty with virtue, but it isn’t virtue. It’s just poverty.”
He shrugged one shoulder, screwed up a corner of his mouth.
“Oh, yes. You could go to any bush village right now, find the smartest kid there, send him to school, and make him a success, and he won’t be likely to turn out any better than anyone else, and maybe worse. You can bet he’ll forget where he comes from and everyone there. He’ll distance himself from the people who helped him on his way because he’ll need to believe he did it all on his own.”
“This sounds like the voice of experience.”
“It damned well is.” She sipped her wine. “But better that than to leave the kid there. And there’s always the chance you’ll find the one in a thousand who doesn’t forget and who makes a difference.”
“That’s it, Diana! That’s what I was saying. All I’ve wanted to do is to make a difference, not make money.”
The prawns arrived, twice the size of a man’s thumb, curled up pink in their shells.
“Fitz, there’s more of that nineteen-year-old in you than you know. The one does not necessarily preclude the other.”
She peeled one of the shellfish, stabbed it with her fork, and bit it in half; the sauce glistening on her lips made him want to bite them.
Searching for a lighter topic of conversation, he patted his midriff and joked that the expanding distance from his