Read Online Beverly Hills Maasai by Eric Walters - Free Book Online Page B

once again so I could see behind the car instead of into the back seat.
    “Keep an eye on them,” I whispered to Olivia, and she nodded.
    Olivia sat sideways in her seat so she could watch our Maasai passengers. I looked in the rear-view and the side-view, shoulder-checked, and then eased into traffic when there was a gap.
    “I really appreciate your coming along today,” I told Olivia.
    “I wouldn’t want to miss this.”
    “Well, it’s not going to be that interesting. We’re just bringing the guys down to register for the race.”
    She laughed. “Something tells me that walking in with these three is going to be pretty interesting, no matter what.”
    “I guess you’re right. Still, you know … thanks.”
    “Hey, that’s what friends do.”
    Olivia
was
my friend. A
real
friend. Not just somebody who was in my class or went to my school or who I shopped with or went to the same parties with—although she was all of those. She was more.
    Before I went to Africa I would have told you that I had dozens and dozens of friends. And Olivia certainly wouldn’t have ranked very high on that food chain. But when I came back I saw things through new eyes. All that stupid shopping, the desperate need forjust the right thing to wear, the cars, the parties, the pettiness, the gossip—everybody talking but nobody actually saying anything—the fascination over such meaningless nonsense, the … the … everything.
    I think—no, I
know
—that I felt disgusted by it all. After seeing people who survived on so little—and seemed so happy despite it all—I had no time for people who had everything but didn’t seem to be happy.
    For the first month I was back I didn’t even shop. I didn’t set foot in a mall or even go down to Rodeo Drive, once known to me as the happiest place in the world, forget Disneyland. I hardly wore any makeup, stopped watching reality TV and reading the celebrity mags. I went to parties, but I didn’t really enjoy myself. I had absolutely
nothing
in common with the people I was hanging out with. And I told them.
    I told them about the poverty and problems in Africa. I told them about what they could do about it. I told them about the things they were doing that were wrong, or shallow, or silly—and that was pretty well everything. But nobody wanted to hear about starving children when they were eating their sushi. Nobody wanted to be told about people who didn’t have fresh drinking water while they were sipping on a double-shot latte with cinnamon sprinkles. Nobody wanted to be told about people who didn’t have shoes when they were so delighted that they’d finally got their hands on the new Birkin bag. I knew all that because I was the one telling them those things. Time and time again.
    Looking back with the insight of a few passing months, I realized that the post-Africa version of me was, without a doubt, the most annoying, pretentious, obnoxious person imaginable. And believe me, I could have been accused of those same faults before I went away, only in a different way.
    In those first four weeks I lost a lot of friends. Well, really, I didn’t lose
any
friends. What I lost were a lot of people who I’d thought were my friends but really only occupied the same physical space as me. And through it all, no matter what a pain I was, regardless of how preachy I became, Olivia was still there standing by me.
    So she was right; I did care about her. She was a good person—sometimes a good person hidden beneath a layer of designer clothes, expensive makeup, and a shield of the most pretentious accessories money could buy—but still, a good person, and my best friend.
    And I think through her I sort of found my balance. I would never forget what I had seen and experienced—the people I’d met in Africa and the way they lived their lives—but there was no point in telling everybody about it … well,
lecturing
them about it, all the time.
    Even worse, I couldn’t tell anyone about my