“No,” said Angela, annoyed. Why did Tara always get all the male attention? “If you must know, she thinks you’re a cheese ball.”
“Does she, now?”
Gabe put down his drink. Marching over to Tara, he demanded: “Do you always judge a man before you’ve spoken to him?”
On closer inspection, Gabe could see that the girl wasn’t classically beautiful. She had an upturned nose. Her eyes were set slightly too wide. She was tall and strong. The word strapping sprang to mind. And yet there was something compelling about her, something that set her apart from the Vogue beauties he usually dated.
“Not always, no. But in your case…well.”
“Well what?”
“It’s obvious.”
“What is?”
“You!” Tara laughed. “Come on. The overpriced champagne? The Rolex watch? Your little harem over there? What do you drive? Don’t tell me.” She closed her eyes in mock concentration. “A Ferrari, right? Or…no. An Aston Martin! I’ll bet you fancy yourself as a regular little James Bond.”
“As a matter of fact, I drive a perfectly ordinary Range Rover,” said Gabe, making a mental note to put his Vanquish up for sale tomorrow morning. “Give me your number and I’ll take you out for dinner in it.”
“No thanks.”
“Why not? I’m a nice guy.”
“You’re not my type.”
“What’s your type? I can change.”
“For heaven’s sake, I’m not your type.” Tara gestured to the nineteen-year-old Heidi Klum clones blowing Gabe kisses while they took turns warming his bar stool. “Take some friendly advice and quit while you’re ahead.”
But Gabe didn’t quit. He found out where Tara worked-she was a doctor at a Red Cross AIDS clinic in one of the shantytowns-and had dozens of roses delivered to her every day. He asked her out on countless dates, sent her theater tickets, books, even jewelry. Everything was firmly but politely returned.
After three months, Gabe was on the point of giving up hope when he received an unexpected e-mail from Tara, sent to his work address. When her boss discovered one of his doctors was being pursued by one of the owners of Phoenix, he’d practically frog-marched Tara to the clinic’s computer.
“Do you have any idea how much that company is worth? One donation from this McGregor guy and we could buy enough antivirals to see us through the next five years.”
“But I’m not interested in him.”
“Bugger ‘not interested’! People are dying out there, Tara, I don’t need to tell you. Now you flutter your eyelashes, and you get Gabriel McGregor back in here with his checkbook, pronto.”
“Or what?” Tara laughed. She loved her boss, especially when he tried to lay down the law, bless him.
“Or I’ll send you to your room without any supper, you cheeky cow. TYPE!”
Gabe’s visit to the Red Cross AIDS clinic at Joe Slovo Shantytown changed his life forever.
Gabe had lived in camps himself. With Dia, he had seen firsthand the hopeless, crushing poverty of the slums. But nothing had prepared him for the depths of human misery at Joe Slovo.
Baby girls as young as two were brought in daily by female relatives after their uncles or fathers had raped them. Apparently the widely held belief that HIV could be “cured” by having sex with a virgin had mutated into a the-younger-the-better theory. Most of the children died from their internal injuries long before they could develop AIDS, their tiny, fragile bodies shattered from the force of penetration.
“Twenty rand buys ten of these child-rape kits,” Tara told a clearly shaken Gabe. She handed him a plastic bag with a picture of Winnie the Pooh on the front. Inside was a sanitary napkin, a pair of child’s panties, some sterile wipes and a sugar lollipop.
“That’s it? A little kid gets raped and that’s what you give her?”
Tara shrugged. “They get drugs if we have them. Children are first in line for antivirals. There’s nothing else we can do.”
After an hour touring the wards-dying girls in their twenties pleading with nurses to save their babies, young men shrunk to skeletons staring listlessly at the ceiling-Gabe excused himself. Tara found him sitting outside, tears streaming down his face. For the first time, she wondered if perhaps she’d been too hard on him. He was so bloody handsome it was hard not to distrust him. But his distress around the kids was obviously genuine.
“I’m sorry. I shocked you.”
“It’s okay.” Gabe’s hands were shaking. “I needed to be shocked. What can I do? What do you need?”
“Everything. We need everything. You name it, we need it. Drugs, beds, toys, food, syringes, condoms. We need a miracle.”
Gabe reached into his pocket and pulled out a checkbook. Without thinking, he scribbled down a number, signed it, and handed it to Tara.
“I can’t do miracles, I’m afraid. But maybe this will help. Just till I can work out something more long-term.”
Tara looked at the number and burst into tears.
Their first date was a disaster. Hoping to impress her as a serious-minded citizen, not just another rich playboy, Gabe got them tickets to the premiere of a political documentary that had gotten rave reviews. Tara loved the movie. It was the additional sound track of Gabe’s snores she objected to.
“I’m sorry! But you have to admit it was dull.”
“Dull? You know it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.”
“Palm Bore more like it,” muttered Gabe.