Half the Day Is Night (11 page)

“Secrets?” Saad said, catching her off guard.

He was watching her, too.

Tim looked down, puzzled, and in that moment something must have happened on the court because the crowd around them erupted. She stood up and cheered, too, sliding out from under Saad's gaze. The player in black and green walked to the side to pick up a towel and wipe his face—stage business that athletes use when they are in the spotlight. Off to the side stood the player in red, streamers hanging motionless. He looked bemused.

She knew how he felt.

*   *   *

Saad was back two days later to talk about the hospital and clinic loan. She had the loan of an office by then, and was started on the business of the MaTE deal.

“Hi,” he said from the door, “just who you wanted to see, right?” She rolled her eyes in mock disgust and he came in and sat down. “Ms. Ling,” he said, “my most favorite person in the whole world.”

“Not because I'm going to give you a sizable chunk of money,” she said.

“Of course not,” he said.

His office had received quotes from construction firms and he had a change in some of the figures. She plugged the figures into the system. It wasn't a complicated loan at all.

Saad sat in a chair beside the desk, craning a bit to watch her. “Is that all?” he asked.

“That's it,” she said.

“That's slap,” he said. American slang, she knew it from the vid.

“What can I say?” she said.

“You're amazing,” he said, mock serious.

“Your English is amazing.”

He shrugged. Apparently he knew his English was good. It was casual and fast, and he always caught what she was saying. Bilingual. She wanted to know where he learned.

“I studied it at home, in Pakistan, and I lived in the U.S. for awhile,” off hand, slightly embarrassed.

“Oh yeah?” she asked, “where did you live?”

“Cincinnati, Ohio,” he said, and she laughed at the unexpectedness of it.

“That's funny?” he asked.

“Why Cincinnati, Ohio?”

“Actually,” he said, “I lived in Los Angeles for a year, and then the company I worked for transferred me to Cincinnati. I liked Cincinnati.” That sounded a little defensive. But he was smiling, he knew she had expected him to say someplace like New York or Miami.

“I'm sure it's a lovely town,” she said.

“It is,” he said, emphatic. “Believe it or not, I want to go back there. I want to go back to Cincinnati, Ohio, marry a blonde American girl, and have three perfect blonde daughters.”

She shook her head. “Genetics are not on your side.”

He sighed. “Biology is destiny, I know.”

“So why did you leave?” she asked. “Did you get transferred here?” Marincite could have a subsidiary in Cincinnati, Ohio.

“No,” he said, “the U.S. Immigration Department informed me that my presence in the U.S. was no longer an asset.”

That surprised her, since he'd had a job.

“The U.S. says that you can't take jobs from American citizens. You have to be an engineer or a scientist or something, then they let you stay because there are never enough of those people. But not an administrator, a manager of a finance department.” He looked down at his hands, now made pensive. She was sorry she had asked.

“Well,” she said, “if those are the only changes to the loan you have, then we're still on our way. I'll have papers any time you want.”

“I'll take them now,” he said. “I can bring them back tomorrow with signatures.”

She hadn't expected that, it was too easy. “You want them now?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said. He sounded so American.

She printed them out and handed them to him. That was it? No catch? Saad Shamsi
was
odd if there wasn't a catch.

He looked through them and she felt her shoulders tense, waiting for him to say casually, “I have a friend.…”

“Looks good,” he said.

“Do you foresee any problems?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Getting signatures?”

He looked puzzled. “It's a pretty straightforward loan, isn't it?”

It was. Of course it was. Or would be in a place like the U.S. where people didn't pay each other to do business. “Unless someone wouldn't be in or something,” she said.

“Oh,” he said, “no, no problems. We've got a meeting tomorrow on the clinic so I can get this taken care of then. If I can't get all the signatures tomorrow I can bring the papers back to you Friday, can't I?”

Of course he could.

That was it. All this time she had been waiting and that was it. The jai alai, reading motives into everything he did and said … he was just a nice guy. Oh,
Madre de Diós,
was she blushing? It wasn't her fault. It was the way business usually happened in Julia, she wasn't accustomed to Marincite. She had always heard Marincite was worse than Julia, but maybe that wasn't true at all, with the Uncles around keeping watch.

He stood up and buttoned his jacket. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she echoed. “What?”

“Would you like to go to dinner with me, tonight?”

Would she like to go to dinner with Saad-rhymes-with-odd Shamsi? Well, sure. Why not? She hadn't been exactly fair to him. “Okay,” she said. “That would be nice.”

“Great,” he said, “absolutely slap.”

She laughed. What a decent, nice guy, she thought when he left. A date. How long had it been since she'd had a date? Months, maybe over a year. Not that she expected anything, she couldn't expect anything, he lived in Marincite and she lived in Julia and a relationship would be impossible over that distance. Besides, it was stupid to even start thinking about a relationship when he had just asked her for dinner.

It would solve all of her problems with Tim if she were dating. He would give up and leave. David wouldn't care, and he wanted to leave anyway.

Insane, all these thoughts running through her head, worrying about the equation of Saad, Tim and David. It was just a dinner date. Nothing more.

It would be wonderful to be out on a date.

*   *   *

Mayla was unprepared for how she felt when she saw him at the door to the suite. She smiled too much, she was too happy. “Hi, come in a moment.” She wished this were over with, that this were the second or even the third time they were going out. It would all be easier then. “I'm sorry, David has to go with us,” she said. Quickly, “He doesn't have to eat with us, just go—” Saad looked taken aback, “—because of the insurance and all of that.”

“No problem,” he said. Sweet relief.

Still awkward, though, to go out with Saad and have David in tow. She had never had to worry about that before because until she had been promoted she had never been required to have security. At least David wasn't Tim. David was quiet.

David stood just behind them on the people mover, his body angled away, watching the bright shops—in Central the lights were dimmed at second shift to simulate dusk.

She wished Saad Shamsi would take her hand. She wanted a hug. It was too soon, and if he had taken her hand then her longing would be destroyed because he would be forward, he would be pressuring her into an intimacy that didn't exist yet. He would destroy all trust. And besides, David was behind them, a chaperon carefully not watching them. She was too lonely, it was dangerous to go out to dinner with this man when she was so lonely.

She was thinking about what if something developed between her and Saad. She was thinking it was possible, he was in some ways so North American. Not a Caribbean male who would be threatened by her own success. And she liked him, he was funny and smart. She hadn't been fair to him at first. Some day she would tell him that. He would come to Julia some weekends and stay with her, she would come to Marincite some weekends and stay with him.

Maybe she would move to Marincite. She could imagine living here, and she could probably get a job with Marincite Corp.

She wondered what kind of family he had back in Pakistan. A gaggle of doe-eyed sisters in saris who spoke no English? Was he a cultural stranger to his family? Were they cosmopolitan?

She knew they were just going out to dinner.

She wasn't really having these thoughts one at a time, they were kind of all jumbled up with standing here next to Saad, who was quiet because her bodyguard was standing behind them, pretending not to pay attention to them.

The restaurant was American. She wasn't really surprised.

“I will wait there,” David pointed to a bench on the street. He showed her his book, something in French.

While they were waiting to be seated Saad said, “Isn't he allowed to eat?”

“He ate before we came,” Mayla said.

Saad nodded.

“It's his job,” she said.

“That's why there are two of them?” Saad said. “Days and evenings?”

“Well, no,” she said. “Tim is quitting. David is taking over.”

“Tim is getting a different job?”

“Tim isn't really security. It's complicated,” she said. She wasn't going to explain Tim to Saad, certainly not now.

The dinner lurched along. They neither of them seemed to know how to conduct a conversation. It's a first date, Mayla thought. How could they save this? Through the menu bound in hunter green, and the too-expensive chowder and her glass of wine and his beer and crippling onward. He wasn't funny or quick and her head was empty.

It was her, he was usually different. Things had started wrong by having David come along. She should get things back to the way they had been in the afternoon when Saad had been easy to talk to but she didn't know how.

“Do you like Marincite?” she asked.

“It's all right,” he said.

“It's not Cincinnati, Ohio,” she said.

“No,” he said. That was all, just “no.” No quip.

“It's not like Julia, either,” she said. “In some ways it's more like the U.S.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, it's sort of better organized. There's less bribery, maybe.” Like you, she thought, although she didn't dare say it. He didn't understand, how could he? “In Julia, everything is paybacks and kickbacks and somebody has his hand in someone else's pocket. I know that happens in Marincite, too, but Marincite is different.”

“I don't think Marincite is like the U.S.”

“It's not, really,” she said. “It's run by Marincite Corp., you're really not allowed to breathe without permission—”

“Air tax,” he said, grinning. The old joke, in Caribe you even had to pay for the air you breathe.

“But Marincite keeps everybody running by company regulations, which is kind of honest. Julia's not like that.”

“Sure,” he said, although she couldn't tell if he really agreed with her or was just being agreeable.

“I was thinking of moving here,” she said, “you know, getting a job with Marincite Corp.” Which was stupid, because if she moved here, she would have to have a job with Marincite Corp. “I've been having some trouble in Julia, I've become a target of some, you know, political people.”

“You?” Saad said. “I mean, not that you don't have a good job, but, I mean.…”

“I'm not important,” she said. “Don't worry, I'm not insulted.”

He grinned. “I mean, I think you're important, after all, you're doing this loan for me.”

She felt her face crinkle with pleasure at his joke. “Well, my grandfather started First Hawaiian, that's the only angle that the police can come up with. But I guess that Marincite isn't really any safer than Julia. Look what happened to poor Tumipamba.”

Saad had to think a second. “Oh, yeah. Right, the guy, the CFO.”

She nodded. “If politicals could get to him.…”

“If it was politicals,” Saad said.

“Yeah?” she said. “I heard something about gambling debts.”

“I didn't hear that. But I think there's a shakedown going on at the upper levels of Marincite Corp.”

“You think they're killing their own execs?”

“Hey,” Saad said, “I don't know. And the walls have ears.”

Another dead space. Too serious, she thought. She should have kept things light.

When dinner arrived she was grateful for the business of putting sour cream and butter on her potato. For the occupation of eating.

“I ah, I hate to bring up business at dinner,” Saad said, “but I have a friend and he and I are trying to get something started and I was wondering if we might be able to talk to you about a loan?”

“A loan?”

He nodded.

“What kind of loan?” she asked, gone still inside. Suspended and waiting.

“For a business,” he said. “I was wondering if maybe you could come with me and meet my friend, we could talk about it at the shop.”

Not an answer, she thought, which was a different kind of answer. “Why don't we talk about this at the office tomorrow?”

“The shop isn't far,” he said.

“I don't usually do business away from the office.”

“We could get it over with.”

“When?” she said. Maybe she wasn't being fair again. Maybe he would say Saturday or Monday, after the papers for the clinic loan would be signed.

“Tonight?” he was eager. “Would that be all right? It wouldn't take long.”

No, she thought. No no no. “How about Friday?” she said. Hoping he would say “sure.”

“Really,” he said. “Tonight might be a better time.”

“Or there might be trouble getting signatures on the loan papers?” she said. Rude, angry with him.

He didn't say anything, but it was true.

“Goddamn you,” she said. And then, “Goddamn you, you have a lot of nerve.”

“Yeah,” he said. No explanation, no apology.