I will probably grow very rich and very old at the Equatorial before any member of my family ever visits me here. It’s true! They never have. Leah is right over there in Kinshasa, which is just a hop, skip, and jump away. When they had that fight down there with Muhammad Ali and George Foreman we had tons of tourists from that. They came over to Africa for the fight and then crossed the river and toured around in French Congo, since the roads and everything are so much nicer in general over here. I knew we’d get a slew of people, the minute they announced they were having that fight. I’ve always had a sixth sense for spotting a trend coming, and I was right on the ball. I finished up the second-floor bathroom I’d been having trouble with, and redecorated the bar with a boxing theme. I even went through hell and high water trying to get an authentic advertising poster from the fight, but sometimes you just have to make do with what you have. I got one of the boys to fashion little miniature boxing gloves out of dried plantain leaves sewn together, -which turned out very realistic, and had them dangling down from all the lights and fans. I hate to brag but if I do say so myself they were cute as a button.

I kept thinking, everyone is in such a festive mood, and Leah is just not that far away, in miles. Mother and Adah keep saying they might come over to visit, and if they could cross an entire ocean, you would think Leah could stoop to taking a bus. Plus, supposedly Father is still over there wandering about in the jungle, and honestly, what else does he have to do? He could get cleaned up and pay a visit on his eldest daughter. Oh, I dreamed of a true class reunion of our family. Just imagine all their faces, if they saw this place. Which, I might add, none of them came.

I suppose I should just give up, but in the back of my mind I still think about it. I picture myself taking Leah and Adah on the grand tour, sweeping my hand over the elegant mahogany paneling in the bar, Ta-dah! Or grandly opening the door to the upstairs bathrooms, which have mirrors edged in faux gold (I could afford real, but it would peel right off in this humidity!) and give the overall effect of appearing very continental, -with toilet and bidet. How astonished my sisters would be to see what all I have accomplished, starting with practically nothing. I don’t care if they’re gifted and know every word in the dictionary, they still have to give credit for hard work.

“Why, Rachel,” Leah would say, “you run this place with such genialness and vivacity! I never knew you had such an exemplary talent for the hospitality business!

“Adah would, of course, say something more droll, such as “Why, Rachel, your interest in personal hygiene has truly become a higher calling.”

If you ask me, that’s exactly why they don’t come—they’re afraid they would have to start respecting me finally. I’m sure they’d rather go on thinking they are the brains of the family and I am the dumb blonde. They have always been very high up on their horses, which is fine, although if you ask me they have shot their own career ladders in the foot. Adah evidently got famous for being a brain in college and going to medical school (Mother sent me newspaper clippings for Adah winning some prize practically every time she took a crap), and she could have done very well for herself as a lady doctor. But what I gather from what Mother writes me now is that she works night and day wearing a horrid white coat in some dreary big-deal place in Atlanta where they study disease organisms. Well, fine! I guess somebody has to do it!

Now, Leah, though. That one I will never understand. After all this time I can certainly work with the Africans as well as anybody can, mainly by not leading them into temptation. But to marry one? And have children? It doesn’t seem natural. I can’t see how those boys are any kin to me.

I wouldn’t say so to her face, of course. I swear I haven’t said a word in all these years. Not that it’s hard, since we don’t write all that often. She only sends Christmas cards, which generally get here just in the nick of time for Easter. I think the mailmen over in Zaire must be lazy or drunk half the time. And when I do get a letter, it’s always a great disappointment. Just: Oh how are you, I had another baby named whatsit or whosis. She could at least give them names in plain English, you would think. She never asks about the hotel at all.

We’re all keeping our hopes up for family relations, I guess, but our true family fell apart after Ruth May’s tragic death. You could spend your whole life feeling bad about it, and I get the idea Mother especially is still moping around. And Leah’s decided to pay for it by becoming the Bride of Africa. Adah, now she could probably get her a halfway decent boyfriend since she’s finally gotten her problem fixed, but no, she has to throw her prime of life down the test tube of a disease organism.