hadn’t really enjoyed exercise in years, despite the fact I had been @FitspoFrankie. I exercised this time not to track it and log it and post about it, but for me, and me alone.
My days felt so full of stuff now. Real stuff. With real people. I’d even discovered my love of reading again. I hadn’t read in years. I had associated it with the lonely time, but now I was enjoying those moments alone where I could get lost in a book.
But the highlight of the week was definitely the rehearsal for the festival. And I must admit that, as much as I was rolling my eyes about this whole thing, I was actually enjoying it. There was this sense of community and camaraderie that I’d never experienced in real life before. And it was far better than anything I’d ever experienced online. Sure, the whole thing was completely ridiculous if you had to zoom out and look from the outside. A motley group of us walking down Main Street, trying to reenact scenes from this great trek that the Ackerman family had taken to get here. Ian and I were also getting along well, despite our shaky start. He’d spent extra time working with me, teaching me the moves I needed to perform when fighting off the jackal with a stick. I’d laughed the entire time he was teaching me, but laughed even more when Faizel let go of the sheep he was meant to be herding, who then made a bolt for it. He chased the thing down the main road for ages before finally catching up to it, drenched in sweat. But what was really nice about the rehearsals was that I was meeting people and was starting to feel at home in this small place. I was making connections here. Little dots in my life were being joined together to form a web of things that I hadn’t known I’d wanted, until now.
And at work I was learning so much from Samirah. It had been great, except for that day when a stray feral kitten had come in. It had been picked up on the side of the road and Samirah had spent an hour on the phone, calling people in town and asking them if anyone wanted a kitten, then she’d called the SPCA which was three hours away, but they were sadly full. She’d even contemplated keeping it herself, but couldn’t, what with her five dogs. I’d then offered to take it home, only to discover that Mark was deathly allergic to cats—red-faced, gasping-for-air allergic—and I’d had to run him to the town doctor for a shot of strong antihistamines. By the end of the day, after trying absolutely everything to home it, we were left with no other option. I’d cried the entire time. So had Samirah. And, when it was over, we’d sat on the veranda drinking tea and talking for hours about the sanctuary she wanted to start, so that kittens like this one could get a chance at life. I’d gone home that night and cried while Mark had held and comforted me.
And then, before I knew it, another week rolled past. Another week that Mark and I spent together, another week with Samirah, another week I’d spent submerging myself in the town and all its strange happenings. But this weekend was different. We couldn’t go fynbos picking and gin making, because on Sunday it was the festival. And today we had to go and try on our costumes.
CHAPTER 68
“Seriously, is this it?” I asked, looking at myself in the mirror. “This is it?” I turned around to get a better look at myself. My dress was long and heavy, hanging all the way to the ground. My feet were squeezed into pointy boots that were more uncomfortable than heels, and I was wearing a bonnet that, when I looked at it, I couldn’t help but say “Under his eye” in my head. I looked terrible. But Mark looked worse in that long jacket with the puffy shoulders that made him seem like he didn’t have a neck.
“What the hell?” I burst out laughing when I saw him. “We look terrible.”
Mark smiled at me. “Nah, I think you look sexy as hell.” I laughed as he walked over to me and laid a hand on my waist.
“Back off, I still need to pin her in.” Ian came over with a pin and pushed Mark away. “But before I pin