Read Online Out of Orange by Cleary Wolters - Free Book Online Page B

at Spoleto but of taking another trip instead. I calculated how long I could live on the money I would make without all the expenses of moving and buying the computer and what not. If I behaved this time and was more frugal, I could make the same amount of money last so much longer than I had this time. Now that I knew how fast even that much money could vanish, surely just one more trip wouldn’t hurt.
    My crazy thinking started with trying to figure out how Phillip could do it. Phillip had been clear about his desire to be invited on a trip. I thought maybe he could go with Bradley and I could get the three-thousand-dollar finder’s fee Alajeh had promised if we knew anyone we trusted enough to bring to him. But I realized Bradley would have to lie for me and say Phillip was his friend, not mine; we couldn’t bring someone else’s trusted friend. Bradley would have to train Phillip too. That wouldn’t work. Bradley wouldn’t give up that money if he had to do all the work and take all the risk. Then Istarted thinking about doing it myself and taking Phillip, and that actually sounded like a fun adventure.
    The only hitch in this idea was that for Phillip to work for Alajeh, he had to meet him. I would have to return to Africa again myself. I had to be there with my new recruit and personally vouch for Phillip, and I also had to be the one to train him. Alajeh also had to do his weird voodoo mumbo jumbo, have his marabout priests pray for his blessings, and Alajeh had to “look into his face.” I don’t know what that meant; it just had to be done before he would allow someone to smuggle his drugs. One of my sister’s roommates had recruited me, and Henry had trained me. My being Hester’s sister made me an exception to the rule. My sister was still pissed at them for that one—not because she didn’t get the finder’s fee for her own sister but that they had recruited me at all.
    I remembered the night in January when Henry walked me into a restaurant in Paris and Hester didn’t know I was coming. She thought I was in Chicago with my cats and Phillip, hopefully getting my shit together and selling ads in the magazine Phillip and I had gone there to start, with her financial help. She had paid for printing these beautiful posters we were hanging all over Chicago. But nobody wanted to buy ads in a magazine that didn’t yet exist. I was broke, so when her roommate gave me the chance to work, I jumped on it. Hester nearly kicked my ass all the way back to Chicago, but I’m stubborn, and if she could do it, so could I. Of course, I hadn’t learned what exactly that meant yet. My poor sister had been trying to save my stupid butt, not deprive me of some great adventure.
    At first, the idea of returning to Africa was unthinkable, though I had obviously thought it through. Then Alajeh started calling me. These were the days before cell phones. Connecting with someone who didn’t have a landline or voice mail was all but impossible, even for “God.”
    I had recently had a phone installed, never dreaming that Alajeh was trying to reach me and had gotten my number from either Bradley or Henry. I could hear his frustration in the message heleft on my new recorder. My respite was over. The reality was, all this vacillating over whether or not I would do it again had been wasted energy. Alajeh’s assumption had always been that I knew he would not waste all that time on someone for only one trip. He was trying to get me to confirm when I would be able to go again, not if.
    Bradley answered the phone in Chicago one night when I was trying to reach my sister. Hester wasn’t home, but he was eager to tell me all about his second trip. He had made eighteen grand on this latest trip because he had carried an additional jacket home. He was pretty pleased with himself for taking the extra jacket. He had figured out that taking the additional jacket wouldn’t make any difference, except in the amount he was paid. He would