The Best of Friends by Sara James

Author:Sara James
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061844669
Publisher: HarperCollins

19

GINGER (1996)

IT WAS 1 A.M., and I couldn’t sleep. If I had been in New York with Sara, I might just be getting back from a night out with her friends at some exotic restaurant, about to peel out of my little black dress. But I wasn’t in New York. I was in Etosha, where I was once again babysitting in the bush. I heard the sound of branches breaking, feet stomping, the fence giving way. The toddler in my charge was having one massive temper tantrum, wrecking my backyard. I rolled over, put the pillow over my head, and moaned. “Elee, please. Stop it. I’m trying to sleep.”

I tried fading to black, counting sheep. All I saw were elephants. I tried listing all the things I loved about my life. Space. Not having to answer to a boss. Learning new animal languages. Freedom. Capturing beautiful images on film. Drifting naked down a flowing river. Investigative work into animal behavior. Driving out onto the plains at sunrise. Still being there at sunset. Storytelling. I loved my life, I truly did. I had fought hard for it. But at 1 A.M. with my thoughts clouded by sleep deprivation, suddenly my friend Sara’s life looked better.

She owned her own apartment. I lived in a government house. She could write a Zagat restaurant guide to dining out in New York, London, and L.A. My cookbook would be called 300 Ways to Cook Pasta for Under $1 a Serving. She could order takeout, a different cuisine delivered to her doorstep every night. I brought food supplies in monthly bulk with no one to cook but me or Nad. She had a substantial salary that would come in month after month, year after year, without break while she developed new story ideas. Not an assurance in the freelance world. She had benefits—hospitalization, dentist, stock options. Not me. She could keep an audience riveted with the stories of her travels, the knowledge she’d plumbed from years on the road from the White House to Whitehall. I talked about baboons. My life was removed, completely out of touch. Sometimes I felt like I had only one story, one life, while my friend had many and each was more interesting than my own. Sometimes it was hard not to compare. And many times I longed to trade places with Sara…for a night or two…or two thousand and two.

“Dammit, stop it, Elee!” Starting with tonight.

The next morning I refocused on my life, conjuring up all the magical elements that had drawn me to the bush and kept me there. There was this great wild world to explore, ephemeral bonds formed with animals which could turn on you in a flash but didn’t—moments of clarity when, after years of observation, an animal’s behavior suddenly made sense and a story took shape. Unique to my world, these were gifts I never would have discovered in New York. And there were more. There were gifts with names and faces—baboons like Pandora, Smudge,

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