Chapter 2: The Pull
Alice did not think about Mike Mbewe. That was what she told herself, of course, the following morning, standing at her kitchen counter in Kabulonga, waiting for her kettle to boil. She did not think about the way he had caught her without hesitation when she almost fell during that day, when they had their first encounter. She did not think about the steadiness in his eyes or the handkerchief still sitting on her counter with its two neat initials. She was a businesswoman with a strong pitch to follow up on, three supplier calls to make before noon, and absolutely no time to think about a stranger she had collided with on a wet pavement on Cairo Road.
The kettle boiled. She made her tea and thought about him anyway.
The pitch had gone well. Better than well. The investors had loved her proposal for expanding Nyambe Interiors into corporate office spaces. Chanda, her business friend, was the one who had finished up the pitch, and she had sent seventeen exclamation marks in a row when the email confirmation came through. Alice had smiled at her phone, ordered herself a quiet celebration glass of wine at Latitude 15 that evening, and sat alone at a corner table watching Lusaka's well dressed Friday night crowd fill the room.
She was on her second glass when she saw him.
Mike Mbewe. The same guy she had bumped into. He walked in like he had been there before and owned a quiet piece of it. He was with another man, older, laughing loudly at something. And he was dressed differently now. Dark trousers, a simple white shirt, no tie, sleeves folded to the elbow. More relaxed. More dangerous somehow, she thought to herself, and then immediately questioned why she had used that word.
He didn't see her.
She watched him settle at the bar, order something without looking at the menu, lean back on the stool with the easy confidence of a man entirely comfortable in his own skin. His companion kept talking. Mike listened with full attention, nodding occasionally, saying very little. A man who understood that listening was its own kind of power.
Alice looked back at her wine. She would finish her drink, go home, sleep well, and forget. That was the plan.
"You're staring," he said.
She looked up sharply. Mike Mbewe was standing beside her table, a glass of whiskey in hand, an expression on his face that was almost but not quite a smile. Up close, without the rain and the chaos and the shock of the collision, he was even more. She searched for a neutral word. Present. Like a room with better lighting.
"I wasn't staring," she said.
"You were," he said simply. No accusation in it. Just fact, delivered the way she imagined he delivered facts in court. "May I sit?"
She should have said no. She had wine to finish and thoughts to organize and a perfectly good early night waiting for her at home.
"Briefly," she said.
He sat. For a moment neither of them spoke. The bar filled the silence with its music and low conversation and the clink of glasses. Alice turned her wine slowly on the table.
"How's the knee?" he asked.
"Healed," Alice answered. "It wasn't serious."
"And the phone?"
"Cracked corner. Still works."
He nodded. Then, "I looked up Nyambe Interiors."
She glanced at him. "Why?"
"Curiosity. You've grown it significantly in three years. From a one woman operation to twelve employees. That's not easy in this economy."
Alice began to study him. There was no flattery in his tone, no attempt to impress her with the research. He said it the way someone states something they simply found interesting. It unsettled her in a way she couldn't immediately explain.
"You looked me up," she said.
"Yes."
"That's forward."
"Is it?" He tilted his head slightly. "I prefer to know who and what I'm thinking about."
The words landed quietly between them. Alice felt something shift in the air, subtle, like a change in pressure before rain. She reached for her wine and took a slow sip.
"And what conclusions did you draw?" she asked, keeping her voice even.
"That you're disciplined," he said. "That you don't take shortcuts. That you care about the work more than the appearance of the work." He paused. "And that you had a contract dispute with Meridian Suppliers eighteen months ago that you handled without a lawyer. Which was either very brave or very stubborn."
"Both," she said, before she could stop herself.
That was when he smiled. Fully, finally, and it changed his face entirely. Warmer. Younger somehow. Like a window opening in a room that had been closed too long.
Alice looked away first.
"I have to go," she said, reaching for her bag.
"You said that yesterday," he said.
"And I meant it yesterday too."
She stood. He stood with her, automatic, unhurried, the kind of manners that came from habit rather than performance. He was close. Closer than the small table had suggested. She was aware of the warmth of him, the faint clean scent of him, and the fact that she was very deliberately not acknowledging either of those things.
"Alice," he said quietly.
She looked up at him. A mistake, perhaps. His eyes were very steady and very dark and entirely focused on her in a way that made the busy bar feel suddenly far away.
"Mike," she replied, her voice steady.
He reached into his pocket and placed something on the table beside her empty wine glass. A business card. "In case you decide the cracked screen on your phone needs replacing after all," he said.
Then he walked back to his friend at the bar without looking back.
Alice stood there for a moment. Then she picked up the card, slipped it into her bag, and walked out into the warm Lusaka night. In the car on the way home she told herself she would throw it away when she got in.
She did not throw it away.