📚 Academic Appetite + 🥨 Love at First Bite

Hinga convinced himself that his taking a life didn’t influence his decision to settle miles from the crime scene. He liked to tell those who urged him to “see someone” that he was doing fine. Honestly, he’d rather not go back there at all. His parents had wandered back into each other’s beds, and he had a little sister on the way. His older brother was at the university studying Medicine, obviously also intent on burying the past. And Shosh, a fixture at the servant’s quarters of his childhood home, was now getting a brand-new farmhouse courtesy of some rich uncle with hazy business dealings. Life was looking up. He won a Culinary Arts scholarship via the American embassy.

It isn’t easy to love people from a distance, but Hinga could’ve never predicted that his parents’ affection would morph into scrutiny.

“How far are you from graduating?” ”Have you met a nice girl up there yet?” ”What was your Finals grade?” ”Send us photos of your dorm room. We want to see how you’re living.” “Do you really think anyone will hire an African chef anywhere in that discriminatory country?” “Medicine or law would’ve served you better.”

He wasn’t sure which he hated more: Their use of Gikuyu or their nagging. He did know that he had asked himself these questions long before they intervened. He could either succeed at what brought him to this distant place or hate himself forever. Shosh was always a sensible mediator, relaying their concerns while displaying complete confidence in him and how they had raised him. She continued to be the parent his parents couldn’t.

For her, Hinga knocked down his goals like pins in a clean bowling strike. He graduated top of his class from Cape Atlantic, a feat that surprised exactly no one; his being in school was always just a formality. He secured a waiter role at Crabbages, a mom-and-pop diner. While it was a relatively lowly position, he gratefully sat like a sponge at the chefs’ feet. Getting restless a year into it, he tried to leverage his established networks to reach out to managers at local first-class restaurants. Waiting was great, but he was itching to be in the eye of the storm: a kitchen.

That turned out to be another exercise in waiting. He met Stevie as he filled in for the head waiter one evening. Sparks flew despite them both already being spoken for. Remarkably, everyone involved was OK to share. Thus began a “but you’re my favorite one” whirlwind romance. Hinga and Stevie couldn’t be more dissimilar. She was Southern. He was Kenyan. She had grown up in a wealthy, loving home. He had killed a man just to return to ground zero. He lit up a room. She hated the lights. A furious love for the bottle, though, they shared and protected jealously.

It's never alcoholism when you have treasure troves of tales about all the amusing ways the night ran away from you. And even when the fun hampered reliability and punctuality, Hinga and Stevie found avenues to vindication. At least they weren’t junkies. Uncle Sam knows what he’s doing putting alcohol and drugs in separate categories.

Given Stevie’s social awkwardness, they mostly kept the liquor to themselves and their few mutual friends. The only thing they did in moderation was moderation. These are some of the few times Hinga could take off the frills and ornaments.

“My parents were right. Coming here was a big waste,” he laid bare.

“I don’t think those were their exact words.”

“Might as well have been.”

“America can be the land of dreams, but it’s also an unforgiving jungle you’ve navigated with impressive grace.”

“Easy for you to say. There are no existential threats attached to your bookstore’s performance.”

“Would the world end if you couldn’t become a chef?”

“I can’t go back home empty-handed, Stevie.”

“I’d hardly call a summa cum larde and a wealth of connections and experience ‘empty.’ You can land on your feet anywhere.”

“Like a cat jumping out of a burning building.”

“The arsonists being all the talent-blind managers who don’t know what they’re missing not hiring you.”

“Are you chasing me away? Because it kinda feels like you’re chasing me away.”

“I’m offended. I’d'a used way more tact if that was my plan.”

Such conversations Hinga could only recall in fragments changed the course of his life. Who knew not wanting something anymore was a viable way to get it? So he lugged himself and his accomplishments back to Kenya, unwittingly stealing a long-hidden anti-manifestation strategy from the motivation industry.