Up on the tip of her toes, she reaches further still and grabs that pinkish gold ripe peach in the palm of her hand— nirvana. She pulls down, hard. Bad move. She topples over the fence and into her neighbor’ s yard. Golden ripe peach secure in her hand, she takes a calming breath with her eyes closed.
A giant shadow falls across her face. She opens her eyes and is met by the stern gaze of a pair of bluish gray eyes, shrouded by a set of bushy eyebrows that belong to the giant of a man poised at the crown of her head. In a flash, she’ s on her backside, her back against the tree. He glances down at her hand; she follows his gaze. The peach! She shoves it into her mouth, bites hard, swallows, gags, and shoves some more, until there’ s nothing of the peach left. She spits out the pit, and“ sits” her ground. The neighbor turns on his heels and walks into his house. Almost immediately, he returns with a bowl and places it on Anaisa’ s outstretched legs. He reaches up above her seated self, plucks peach after peach, and drops them into the bowl‘ til it overflows. He helps Anaisa up without a word, places the few peaches that missed the bowl on top of the heap, and walks back into his house. Anaisa stands frozen to her spot. For a moment, she eyes the wire fence, but thinks better about it and opts for the front gate instead.
Back inside her kitchen, she sets the overflowing bowl of peaches down on the table set for two, sits on her floor, and wraps her arms around her knees. Orlando lies next to her. His face on his paws, he reflects her somber mood. The butterfly, watching from its usual place on her windowsill, flutters into the kitchen, and perches softly on the crest rail of one of the chairs at the table set for two. Anaisa stares harder at the bowl of peaches and in a flash, she’ s on her feet. Startled, Orlando does the same. He prances around in circles, tail wagging.
Anaisa’ s a woman on a mission. One after another, cabinets fly open; ingredients land on the kitchen counter; bowls, tin foils, rolling pins, fly out of cabinets beneath the counter, above the counter, the fridge, the pantry; and a few minutes later, the oven door shuts. Anaisa is covered from head to toe in flour. Orlando’ s coat is a whiter shade of gold. His face, buried in a bowl licked almost clean of pie batter. The kitchen looks like a tornado went through it. An hour later, a mouthwatering, golden brown, peach cobbler finds its way out of the oven. Anaisa is a vision in her yellow dress. She turns to her window and smoothes down her locks. It cascades down her neck in neat large waves. She picks up the pie, and finds herself in front of her neighbor’ s door. His eyes land on the pie Anaisa holds up to his face. What man can resist a pie that good looking? He ushers her in.
His house is like something out of C. S. Lewis’ imagination. Books and antiques line the walls, shelves, and coffee tables from the narrow hallway to that of the living room. He clears a space on a table littered with even more books, sets the pie down, and rushes out of the room. Anaisa runs her fingers over the spine of one book after another, all wrapped in brown construction paper, with obscure hand written words and Roman numerals on them. The neighbor returns with paper plates and utensils. Anaisa joins him. He clears a seat for her, hands her a set of plastic utensils, and sets about the business of eating pie. He serves her first, then himself, and settles into a chair.
Anaisa takes a bite of hers. He does the same. She quietly takes another. He does the same. She gently slides one of the brown paper covered books over to him and points to the spine. He puts down his fork and writes on its top cover: This Side of Paradise. She flips open the book cover and sure enough, it’ s F. Scott’ s Fitzgerald’ s masterpiece. She slides over another. He pencils in Of Human Bondage. She opens it, correct again! Her excitement overtakes her. She digs into disordered heaps of brown paper covers, running back and forth from shelves on walls with book after book. The Pearl, Exodus, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Love in the Time of Cholera, Things Fall Apart. He’ s half way through the pie when Anaisa dashes off for another book, on the topmost shelf. She hops on the ladder propped against the shelves and reaches for two rather large volumes. He looks up from his pie just in time to see her teeter and fall backwards off the ladder. Books scatter, he breaks her fall. He’ s a quick one, this man. She looks up at him and chuckles, he shakes his head; she turns the spine of the volume in her hand to him. With eyes fixed on her beautiful face, he responds On Love and Loneliness. african Voices 29