June laughed loudly, as she pushed open the door to her apartment. One could be forgiven for thinking that she was drunk. In truth, we had had nothing more than tea and croissants at the Naivas Riruta cafe, but she was in a very cheerful mood.
That afternoon I had arrived at her office to collect the final leases for my new units in the Tsavo developments. Her boss the owner of the lawyers' firm, had served our family for more than a decade, having handled my father's estate after his demise. He had overseen the granting of letters of administration to my mother, and later when she wanted to bring the whole process to a conclusion, he had handled the passing on of the properties to each of us as per her wishes.
June had joined the firm some two years earlier and at first had been very businesslike to me when I went to see Oscar Muriu, the lawyer. A dark woman, her beauty was not evident when she was stern and serious, showing none of her very white teeth. But once she had happened to smile at me, and I was struck by how beautiful she really was. Her eyes glowed out of her dark face, bright and shining; her lips had curled up prettily making her whole face radiant.
"My goodness, why have you never shown me those teeth before?" I exclaimed.
"Why?" she asked with a puzzled frown.
"When you smile it shows what a lovely woman you are!" I returned.
The frown vanished in a trice, and the radiant smile came back, if possible at double its power. "Thank you so much!" But she went on to deny that she had put on a forbidding attitude towards me.
Once, when signing a batch of documents, I asked for a thick-pointed pen. She said they did not have one. I ended up using the thickest one she could produce, but she suggested that next time I came in, I could bring a pen I would want to use.
"I would keep it safe for you," she offered.
"Oh, wow! Would you really do that?"
"Yes, and you can use it every time you need to."
So I did. She would bring it to me holding it almost reverently, and once I was done signing she would take it back to the drawer in which she kept it.
Once Oscar noted that June and I could work together, he handed many of the tasks relating to my project to her, only needing to speak to me on complex issues. She handled the more routine matters, which I enjoyed doing very much. On these occasions I was careful to bring her a small present.
One afternoon it was a small chocolate. As soon as I handed it to her she closed her eyes and exhaled heavily. She kept her head lowered for a moment more, before looking up at me.
"A chocolate! I love chocolates so much!" she exulted. "Thank you, thank you!"
I wished it was a larger one, or one of those with special flavours. 'I would have surely brought it instead,' I thought.
Her warmth towards me increased exponentially after that. We worked even better together. I could call her ahead if needing to come to the office, and sometimes not. Often it was she who phoned me when something needing my attention had come from Tsavo's lawyers, and sometimes not. I became a little naughty, sometimes popping in when I had no real need to, especially on a Monday when Oscar was not likely to be in the office. But once he found me sitting in the boardroom working furiously on my tablet. He wished me a good morning and we chatted briefly before he went off to his corner office. I wondered why I had bothered to avoid him before, since he had more or less handed me off to June, showing that he had confidence in his assistant, and that he had no qualms about me working closely with her.
As the process moved forward so did our liking for each other grow. There had been occasions when we had gone out for coffee after she had left work in the evening, such as the one when she was laughing so cheerfully, almost as if she had imbibed a strong drink. I exulted to think that I had helped bring about that joyful spirit, from the days when she had been all too somber. Now armed with my leases, the process was at an end, causing both of us a slight regret that we would not be seeing as much of each other as we had become used to.
We entered her beautifully furnished abode. The carpet was patterned in black, deep red, grey and vast swathes of white. Facing us was a black leather sofa set against the far wall. A door beside it led off to what I took to be her bedroom, since the only other door was on the right and led to the bathroom. The well-appointed kitchenette was in the left corner marked off with a hip-height wall. The curtains echoed the colors of the carpet, as did various ornaments strategically placed around the room.
