"Great." she said swinging her leg casually. The act was casual and he had seen lots of women doing it, the problem was that he never imagined their legs wrapped around him the way he imagined her legs. Tebogo stared at her swinging leg, fascinated.
"That means he can appear in court?"
"Court?" Tebogo heard himself ask. At least a small portion of his brain was still working.
"On the 22nd." she said getting off the bed, to his disappointment. "I had a talk with the judge and we both feel it will be better for him to be there as he is the father." She said smiling and coming towards him again. "And I came over to give you the witness list. Tebogo raised his eyebrows.
"Witness list?" So that was what was in the file. He looked at it. "You and your sisters plan to be witnesses?" He asked finally taking the file from her.
"Not at all." she said. A knock at the door interrupted them. They both look at the door. "May I?" She asked already heading for the door. She was a control freak and for reason unknown to him, he didn't mind. His mother was a control freak and he couldn't stand her. He didn't pause to wonder why he kept on comparing Mandisa to his mother or why Mandisa's character traits didn't bother him as much as his mother did. Mandisa opened the door and allowed a waiter to push in a trolley. Tebogo didn't pay attention as he was busy looking through her file. Mandisa thanked the waiter, tipped him and closed the door behind him.
"You have fifteen names here." He said. "Seven are circled, four are highlighted in green and two in red." He looked up at her. "Is there some significance to that?"
"Very observant of you Mr. Motsepe." She said pouring the champagne in two tall glasses.
"The Name is Tebogo." He said. He called her by her name or rather he used a nickname he thought best suited for her. Her sisters called her Mandy which was short for Mandisa but she didn't look like a Mandy to him. The Mandys he knew were airheads and she was far from that. She was a bit of a tomboy in a sense that she was strong, bullheaded and thought she could fix everything. And that was the difference between her and his mother. Rose Motsepe loved being dependent, soft and having him fix all her problems while Mandisa loved being independent, strong and fix other people's problems. To him she was Man-nie and he wasn't going to call her anything else.