Behold the Dreamers (20 page)

I
T
WOULD
BE
NOTHING
BUT
A
BLIP
IN
A
LONG
PERIOD
OF
ENNUI,
A
BRIEF
reprieve from the agony of putrid unions. Two days after the gala at the Waldorf Astoria, a story would appear in a daily tabloid, and the butterfly their marriage was turning into would morph back into a caterpillar.

It was a story that, in ordinary times, would have been dismissed as rubbish. Because, really, no one with a true sense of the world could be naïve enough to think such things didn't happen. If there had been no collective desire to find the presumed architects of the financial crisis despicable, few would have cared to read the story. Its regurgitation on newspapers of record and blogs of repute would have been another reminder why the American society as a whole could never call itself highbrow, why the easy availability of stories on the private life of others was turning adults, who would otherwise be enriching their minds with worthwhile knowledge, into juveniles who needed the satisfaction of knowing that others were more pathetic than them.

But the story, though it first appeared in an ignoble tabloid, was not dismissed. Rather, it was talked about in barbershops and on playground benches, forwarded to neighbors and classmates. It was a time of agony in New York City, and those who put the story on the front page knew where they wanted the rage of the agonized to flow.

“Did you see it?” Leah said to Jende after he had seen her missed call and called her back during his lunch break.

“See what?” Jende asked.

“The story from the prostitute. It's juicy!”

“Juicy?”

“Poor Clark! I really hope he's not—”

“I don't know what you are talking about, Leah.”

“Oh, honey, you obviously haven't read it,” Leah said excitedly. “Well, you won't believe it, but this woman, this escort—I hate when they use such fancy words for prostitutes—anyway, she claims she has a lot of clients from Barclays, and, listen to this, her clients are paying for her service with bailout money!”

“Bailout money?”

“Bailout money! Can you believe it?”

Jende shook his head but didn't reply. The bailout thing was in the news every day, but he still didn't understand if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

“And you want to hear the crazy part?” Leah went on, her voice getting pitchier in excitement. “One of the executives she mentions as her frequent client is Clark!”

“No,” Jende immediately said. “It's not true.”

“She says it right here.”

“It's not true.”

“How do you know it's not true?”

“She wrote his name down?”

“No, she only mentions them by title, and I know Clark's title.”

Jende chuckled to himself. “Ah, Leah,” he said. “You should not believe everything you read in the newspaper. People write all kinds of things—”

“Oh, I believe this one, honey. I know those men, what they do … No one's going to make me think this is impossible—”

“There is no way it can be true—Mr. Edwards would never use bailout money for his own things. And even if the other men at Barclays use this prostitute, how does she know which pocket the money came out of? Mr. Edwards has his own money. He would never touch government money.”

“Maybe not, but what about touching prostitutes? You think he's never used one or two or a hundred? I bet you've seen him—”

“I've never seen anything.”

“Poor Cindy.”

“Poor her for what?”

“For when she reads this. She's going to go crazy!”

“She is not going to believe any of this,” Jende said, getting upset and wondering if Leah was excited about the downfall of a family or just loving the gossip. “It is funny in this country, how people write lies about other people. It is not right. In my country, we gossip a lot, but no one would ever write it down the way they do in America.”

“Oh, Jende,” Leah said, laughing. “You really believe in Clark, huh?”

“I don't like it when people make up stories about other people,” Jende said, getting increasingly agitated at Leah's glee. “And how does this woman even know what Mr. Edwards's title is?”

“Yeah, that's the one thing that's funny, right? The madams don't give the name of the clients to the girls. The girls are just told the time and place to show up and … Please, honey, don't ask me how I know all this.” Leah laughed at herself. Jende did not join her.

“But Cindy,” Leah went on, “she's not going to care about any of that. That woman is paranoid to a T, and, let me warn you, she's going to be asking you lots of questions. She used to pepper me with questions whenever she had a chance, and I had to tell her, ‘Woman, I don't work for you, you can't take twenty minutes of my time—' ”

“What is she going to ask me?”

“Oh, tons of stuff, honey,” Leah said, and Jende could sense her smiling, perhaps delighting herself with the thought of the entertaining drama that was likely to unfold. “She's going to ask you if you ever took him to a hotel, if you ever saw one of those bimbos. I'd be really careful if I were you, because—”

“Ah, Leah, please stop worrying yourself for me,” Jende said, forcing himself to sound nonchalant. “If she has any questions, she'll ask her husband.”

“The poor woman. I'd hate to be in her shoes. Any of their shoes. Now you see why I never bothered getting married?”

Actually, Jende thought, you didn't get married because no one wanted to marry you, or you didn't find anyone you loved enough to marry, because no woman with a brain intact will say no to a man she loves if the man wants to marry her. Women enjoy making noise about independence, but every woman, American or not, appreciates a good man. If that wasn't the case why did so many movies end with a woman smiling because she finally got a man?

“I mean, marriage is good, don't get me wrong,” Leah went on, as Jende barely listened because he was praying the story was fake and Cindy would be able to tell that someone was out to hurt men like Clark. “They've been through a lot, you know. Clark almost died one time—ruptured his appendix so bad it burst; he had to be rushed into emergency surgery. And I think, if I remember clearly, that was the year Mighty was born a preemie. Apparently, Cindy only wanted one child, and they didn't plan for Mighty—at least that's what I heard. Though I bet Cindy is thanking her lucky stars she had a second child, now that Vince has run off to India and Mighty's the only one left … Anyway, the poor thing spent a whole month in the hospital. Clark and Cindy, God bless them, they pulled through together. But that's marriage, right? He tells me to send her calls to voicemail, but when you see them at company parties, you'd think they're the happiest couple in—”

“I'm sorry, Leah—” Jende said, looking at the clock and starting the car.

“Some people are real good at covering up their shit, and these people, if you weren't in my position, you wouldn't know a thing judging from how they're laughing and—”

“I'm sorry, Leah,” Jende interjected again, “I really have to go get Mighty.”

“Oh, sorry, honey!” Leah chimed. “Go on, but promise you're going to call me and tell me what happens when Cindy finds out. I'm dying to know!”

Jende dismissively promised to do so and quickly hung up, remembering only minutes later that he hadn't asked her how her job search was going. The last time they'd spoken, Leah had sounded depressed about not getting any calls back after sending out over fifty résumés, but today she'd sounded cheerful, thanks to sordid details about the lives of others. Women and gossip.

But what if Leah wasn't just making up gossip to pass the time? He called Winston as he drove uptown, hoping to ask him to read the story online and advise him on what he needed to do, but Winston didn't pick up. He thought about calling Neni but decided it would be unwise—what would she say besides something along the lines of what Leah had said?

He needed to decide what he was going to say to Cindy when he picked her up at five. He had to assume she'd read the story. He had to imagine that she would have questions for him as they drove to Lincoln Center, where she was to meet a friend for dinner and the opera. He had to be prepared to assure her again and again that he had never seen Clark with a prostitute, and that was the truth: He had never seen Mr. Edwards with a prostitute with his own eyes. He had to be ready for Cindy to doubt him, but he had to try as hard as he could to convince her that he knew nothing about it and everything he'd written in the blue notebook was the absolute truth.

“Good evening, madam,” he said as he held the car door open for her.

She did not reply. Her countenance was as hard as marble, her eyes covered with sunglasses in the light darkness, her lips pursed so tightly it was unimaginable they had ever broken into a smile.

“Lincoln Center, madam?”

“Take me home.”

“Yes, madam.”

He waited for her questions, but nothing came—not one word during the forty-minute traffic-laden ride to the Sapphire, not even a word on her phone. He imagined she had turned her phone off, and he couldn't blame her for silencing the world at such a time—her friends were probably trying to reach her to express their shock, tell her how awfully sorry they were, say all manner of things that would do nothing to take away her disgrace. What good would it do her to listen to all that? And if they weren't calling her, they were calling each other to say, can you believe it? Clark of all people? Poor Cindy must be utterly devastated! But how could he? Do you think the story is true? What's she going to do now? And they would go on and on, saying the same kind of things his mother's friends used to say in their kitchen in Limbe when one of their mates' husbands had been caught atop a spread-eagled woman. In New Town, in New York, the women all seemed to agree that the friend had to find a way to move on, forgetting that the wreckage of so devastating a betrayal cannot easily be cleared away.

As they approached the Sapphire, Jende looked at Cindy in the rearview mirror, hoping she would say something, anything, to open up the opportunity for him to profess his innocence, but she remained silent. He had not anticipated this silence and, even if he had, he wouldn't have imagined it would be more dread-inducing than the questions.

They got within a block of the Sapphire and still she remained silent, her face fully drawn down and turned toward the window and the cold dark world outside.

“I'm taking you to the office at eleven-thirty tomorrow, madam?” he asked as he pulled in front of the building.

She did not respond.

“I have the book with all the entries for the day, madam,” he said as he held the car door open for her to exit. “I wrote down everything he—”

“Keep it,” she said as she walked away. “I've got no use for it anymore.”

F
IRST
HE
THOUGHT
IT
WAS
JUST
A
COLD—THE
BOY
HAD
BEEN
SNIFFLING
ever since they pulled out from in front of the Sapphire. Then he thought Mighty was making playful sounds to amuse himself, so he asked no questions. Most mornings Jende would have asked him how he was feeling, if he was all right, but today his mind was on nothing but the quagmire in which he was wobbling and the adversities that were certain to engulf him if he couldn't extricate himself from the Edwards's marriage and protect his job. He had to talk to Winston as soon as he was alone in the car, get advice on what to say or do, or not say or not do, when he picked up Cindy later in the morning.

“Do you have any tissues?” Mighty asked him at a traffic light.

Jende pulled one out of the glove compartment and turned to give it to him.

“Mighty,” he said, surprised to see a tear running down the boy's left cheek. “What is wrong? What happened?”

“Nothing,” Mighty whispered, wiping his eyes.

“Oh, no, Mighty, please tell me. Are you okay?”

Mighty nodded.

Jende pulled to the side of the street. They needed to be at the school in ten minutes to avoid being late, but he wasn't going to let a child go to school crying. His father once did that to him, let him cry all the way to school when he was eight, the day after his grandfather died. He had begged his father to let him stay home for that one day, but his father had refused: Sitting at home and not learning how to read and write is not going to bring your
mbamba
back, Pa Jonga had said to Jende and his brothers as he left the house with other male relatives to go dig a grave. Jende had begged his mother to let him stay home after his father left, but his mother, never one to disobey her husband, had dried her son's eyes and told him to go to school. Even now, thirty years later, he still remembered the despondency of that day: wiping his eyes with the hem of his uniform as he walked up Church Street with his
mukuta
school bag; friends telling him
“ashia ya”
over and over, which made him cry even more; floundering in grief as he watched his classmates excitedly raise their hands to answer arithmetic questions and tell the teacher who discovered Cameroon (“The Portuguese!”); sitting under the cashew tree during recess, thinking of his
mbamba
while other boys played football.

He turned off the car and got into the backseat. “Tell me what is wrong, Mighty,” he said. “Please.”

Mighty closed his eyes to squeeze out his tears.

“Did someone say something to you? Is someone bothering you at school?”

“We're not going anymore …,” Mighty said. “We're not going to St. Barths.”

“Oh, I am so very sorry to hear that, Mighty. Your mother just told you that?”

He shook his head. “They didn't tell me. I just … I can tell. I heard everything last night.”

“You heard what?”

“Everything … her screaming … she was crying …” His face was fully red, his nose flaring and unflaring as he struggled to compose himself and handle his heartache with as much dignity as a ten-year-old could. “I stood outside their door. I heard Mom crying and Dad saying that … that maybe it was time to stop everything, that he couldn't play games anymore … and Mom, she was just crying and screaming so loud …”

Jende took the tissue Mighty had in his hand. “Married people fight all the time, Mighty,” he said as he wiped the tears rolling down Mighty's cheeks. “You know that, right? Just the other night me and Neni, we had a fight, but the next morning we were friends again. You know your mommy and daddy are going to be friends again, right?”

Mighty shook his head.

“I will not worry myself too much if I was you. They will become friends again, I promise you. You will go to St. Barths, and I will hear about all the fun—”

“It's going to be the worst Christmas ever!”

“Oh, Mighty,” Jende said, pulling the child to his chest. He thought for a moment that someone might see him and call the police—a black man with a white boy against his chest, inside a luxury car, on the side of a street on the Upper East Side—but he hoped no one would, because he wasn't going to push the child away as his tears ran full force. He was going to let Mighty have a good cry, because sometimes all a person needs to feel better is a really good cry.

“Can I come visit you and Neni this weekend?” Mighty asked, wiping his nose with the back of his hand after he'd finished his cry and Jende had dried his eyes again.

“Me and Neni would be so glad to have you, Mighty. That is a very good idea. But your parents, we cannot lie to them.”

“Please, Jende, just for a little bit?”

“I am sorry, Mighty. I would really like for you to come, but I cannot do something like that.”

“Not even for one hour? Maybe Stacy could come, too?”

Jende shook his head.

Mighty nodded sadly, wiping the last of the fluids on his face.

“But you know what we could do?” Jende said, smiling. “Neni could make you some
puff-puff
and fried ripe plantains, and I will bring it to you tomorrow. Maybe you can eat some in the car going to school and eat the rest coming back home. Will that make you happy?”

The boy looked up at him, nodded, and smiled.