Worldly

She was not interested in dating.  

At first Sarah was just reciting a fact in her mind, just stating the obvious to herself. When she finally realized that Drake, the father of one of her daughter’s little friends, might be expressing interest with his small talk in the school pick up line each day – yeah, no. She was not interested in dating. 

She braced herself, ready with an excuse when he greeted her each day with a smile, asking about her day. But he just kept – being nice.  It turned out they did have more in common than both being single parents with daughters in the third grade, and getting to the school pick up line about the same time each day.  Both worked in banks, although in different departments. Both enjoyed historical dramas.  

“Wait – Botswana? When were you in Botswana?” he asked her. They were lounging against their cars at the front of the pick up line on the first Monday in April. Another thing they had in common was they would both rather get there early and wait a few minutes than be in the traffic jam after school let out.  

“Right after high school – I was in the Peace Corps. Botswana, and then Kenya,” she replied.

“Wow! That’s amazing! What was that like?” He was fascinated, and she found it flattering to have this handsome, charming man so interested in what she had to say. She had been to Luxemburg, too, for a student exchange year in high school, and once on a trip to Chihuahua, Mexico with her parents, he was delighted to learn, and wanted to hear all about it. 

She didn’t dwell on the fact that that was the last time she was out of the country. She got married, had two kids and divorced all in one place, this small town in Ohio.  

“I went to Chicago once!” Drake said, as if bragging, but his smile was wide. “And Marie and I took the kids to Disney. That’s it! I had to get to work right after high school to help the folks, then Marie and kids and college at night.  No chance to get travel. Man, I’d love to get out of town.”  

“It’s never too late,” she said. “Where would you go first?” That lead to a few delightful line-wait days of planning trips, spinning stories of where in the world they would love to go.   

She loved who she got to be with him. Worldly, traveled, sophisticated. And worth listening to! That was a new and intoxicating experience.    

When Drake finally asked her out, she was thrilled, her heart beating hard, feeling as giddy as when Jonathan Johnson passed her a note in sixth grade.     

“Where would you like to go?” he asked.

“Oh, anywhere,” she replied, which was mostly true and was also the instinctive response to any question where the answer might inconvenience anyone else.

“Oh, come on,” he chided, grinning. “All the traveling you’ve done? All the places you’ve been? What’s your favorite?” 

Italian, she was about to say, but she was already mad at herself about saying “Oh, anywhere.” What happened the worldly woman he thought she was? “Bolivian,” she said. “Or Pho. Burmese is fun. Or Kenyan. I love what they do with plantains.”  

There was a long pause. “Really,” he finally said.  

“Yep.” She lifted her chin and looked him in the eye. “There’s a lot of great African cuisines. Not so much Scotland, though,” she said thoughtfully. “I never did figure out the appeal of haggis.” 

A slow grin spread across his face. “I was thinking Italian, but you got it. Let’s see what we can do.” 

So a week later here she was, sitting in front of a plate of kadzora. Roasted mice. 

She swallowed hard. “I didn’t even know we had a Kenyan restaurant in town.” 

“Me neither!” Drake sipped his special Kenyan rum and honey cocktail. “I couldn’t believe all the crazy places I found once I started looking. You know what, I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere more exotic than Red Lobster, but I’m kind of intrigued. I wonder what I’ve been missing.” 

Drake was having irio, which was mashed peas and potatoes and looked positively normal next her to her little mice carcasses, each on its own kebob stick. 

Drake had told the waiter she loved Kenyan food and he wanted to get her something special, so with their drinks out bustled the owner, a tall thin dark-skinned smiling man. He pointed at the menu, describing each dish and what he would do to make it extra special. He was very insistent on the mice – or baby rats, maybe, but she was pretty sure he meant mice. They were specially bred, not house mice, very healthy, very tasty.  

Her parents, her mom especially, loved to try unusual foods, and Sarah had tried snake and kangaroo and alligator in her childhood, all of which tasted more or less like chicken. She had tried tripe and goat in Botswana all those years ago, and she remembered that had been okay. So she thought, why not? She pictured a nice stew, the meat indistinguishable from any other, but she couldn’t even stand to pick up a single skewer with its crucified little mouse, its whole charred hairless body stuck on a stick as if by a miniature Vlad the Impaler. 

They both had pilau, spiced rice, with their entrees, and she picked at that and downed her rum cocktail while she tried to carry on a conversation and not look at her plate. She was willing to admit she had played and lost and wasn’t nearly as worldly as she had led Drake to believe, but she didn’t know how to get out of this. 

After the second cocktail, she worked up the nerve. Worldly Sarah was not going to give in to Small Town Sarah.  She finally picked up a stick with its little body. The skin was crispy and brown. The head was gone, thank God, but she could still see the little feet and tail. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to just eat it off the stick like a chicken leg, but decided she needed to see what she was getting into. She put it down again and started poking with the knife and fork, pulling the crisp skin apart. She finally found a morsel of meat between all the little bones. It was dark and glistening. Without thinking any further, she popped it in her mouth. 

She managed to not gag, but just barely. And she wasn’t going to spit it out in front of Drake. It had a weird oily feel and was really gamy. It was definitely not like chicken. She washed it down as quickly as she could with the rest of her cocktail. 

She looked up, queasy. “How is it?” Drake asked.

“Um,” she swallowed hard and drained her water glass. “It’s ok. Not as good as when I was in Kenya, of course.” She put her hands in her lap and stared at her plate.

Drake grinned at over his pea and potato mash. “You don’t have to eat that,” he finally said. 

“Oh, thank God!” She immediately pushed the plate back and dropped her napkin on it. “Those poor little guys!”   

Drake was laughing so hard he had to wipe away tears, and after only a few seconds Sarah joined in. They ended up holding hands over the table, gasping for air. 

“You – you are way braver than me,” he finally said. “I could barely look at it.  You are amazing.”  

She felt a warm glow. Even with her lying about mice, he still – liked her? “You wanna go get some burgers?” she asked. 

“You bet!”  He paid the bill, she complimented the mice to the smiling owner, and they went off on a new adventure.