Behold the Dreamers (14 page)

Neni couldn't tell if Clark had spent that night there, but she knew that the next morning he was gone, as was Cindy's ceaseless smile from the evening before. When Neni asked Mighty during lunch where his father was, Mighty, without looking up from his plate, had said only one word: work. He had finished his lunch in silence and, as Neni was clearing his plate, muttered, “I hope he loses his job.” Neni had shaken her head, unable to decipher Clark Edwards. Why was he always working? How could anyone love work that much? Working nonstop made no sense whatsoever, especially when a man had such a nice family at home. Clark had to know what he was doing to his family and why he was doing it … but still, it would be good for him to know how unhappy his wife was, because that had to be the reason she was drinking excessively. Neni's mother had told her that unhappiness was the
only
reason people drank too much, and that it was the reason her uncle drank too much, though no one could understand how he could be so unhappy when he had two wives and eleven children.

“Go talk to him now,” Anna whispered to Neni. “After dessert, everyone start to leave.”

Neni nodded and began walking toward the living room. She wasn't going to tell Mr. Edwards anything about the pills. That had to be Cindy's deepest secret, and she had to keep the promise she made. She was going to say only what Anna had told her to say. Tell Mr. Edwards about the wine. Nothing more and nothing less.

But then, as she was about to enter the living room, she remembered something: Jende. She turned around and went back to Anna. “Jende will kill me,” she said.

“For what?”

“For putting my mouth in their business. He never stops warning me to just do my work and leave, and never say anything that doesn't concern me.”

“Then don't tell him nothing. This is only me and you. Go.”

Clark was standing alone by the window, looking outside either at traffic on West End or kayakers on the Hudson River.

Neni picked up a tray of scones and walked toward him. “Hi, Mr. Edwards,” she said. “Sorry I did not say good morning to you yet.”

“Hi, Neni,” Clark said. “Thanks for helping out.” He looked down at the scones. “I'm going to pass on that, thanks.”

“Should I bring you another kind of dessert?”

He shook his head. Two weeks since she'd last seen him and he appeared to be a different man: His hair seemed to have gone thinner, his face was unshaven, and he looked as if he needed a hug, a cozy bed, and at least fifteen hours blocked out to do nothing but sleep. He turned his face back to the window and continued looking outside.

Neni stood with the tray, staring at the blank white wall to the left of the window, unsure of how to say what she wanted to say. Cindy was at the other end of the room, chatting on the sofa with two of her friends; the husbands were thumbing their BlackBerrys and iPhones; the children were in another room—the timing and setting for her to tell Clark was ideal.

“Er … Mr. Edwards, I, er …” she began.

“Yeah,” Clark said, still looking out the window.

“I was … I just needed to ask you a question.”

“Sure,” he said, without turning around to face her.

“It's just that … er … I have always wanted to know … are you related to John Edwards?”

Clark turned around, chuckling. “No, not that I know of. But that's funny. You're the first person to ask me that.”

“I just think that, maybe he looks like you a little bit,” Neni said, rubbing her elbow against her belly at the spot where the baby was kicking her, perhaps for being so boneheaded.

“That's funny,” Clark said, before suggesting that she go offer the scones to others in case they were interested in trying it. Neni nodded and ran back to the kitchen.

“How did it go?” Anna asked her.

Neni shook her head and buried her face against the refrigerator.

“You don't tell him?”

She sighed, shook her head again.

“Well,” Anna said, “we tried.”

S
HE
SPENT
THE
DAY
CLEANING
THE
APARTMENT,
SHOPPING
FOR
GROCER
ies, and preparing a five-course farewell dinner for Vince. All afternoon she stayed in the kitchen, making
egusi
stew with smoked turkey,
garri
and okra soup, fried ripe plantains and beans,
jollof
rice with chicken gizzard, and
ekwang,
which took two hours to make because she had to peel the cocoyams, grate them, tightly and painstakingly wrap teaspoons of the grated cocoyam into spinach leaves, then simmer in a pot with palm oil, dried fish, crayfish, salt, pepper,
maggi,
and bush onions, for an hour. She would have preferred if Jende had given her more time to prepare, but he'd told her only the night before that Vince was coming over. He had asked Clark, while dropping him off at home, if it was okay for him and Neni to have Vince over for a little dinner, just to wish him well and have him eat some Cameroonian food, which he'd said he'd love to try, and Clark had said he had no objection if Vince was interested. He and Cindy were taking Vince and Mighty out to dinner on Sunday but it was unlikely it was going to be a festive farewell dinner, so Vince might as well go somewhere where there would be more merrymaking. When Jende had called Vince to invite him, Vince had said sure, he would actually be free for a couple of hours in the evening, so he would be down for some sweet Cameroonian food, thanks man.

At three o'clock, two hours before Vince was supposed to arrive, Jende's phone rang, and it was Vince.

“I don't know, Vince,” Neni heard Jende saying in the living room. “Let me first ask my wife what she thinks.”

His hands over the mouthpiece, Jende came to Neni in the kitchen. “Vince wants to know if it's okay for him to bring Mighty.”

“No!”

“That's what I told him.”

“God forbid! You want Mrs. Edwards to kill us? Her baby in Harlem? In the evening? Please, God, oh, I'm not participating. No, no, no. I don't want any trouble whatsoever.”

Jende went back into the living room, spoke to Vince for a half minute, and came back. “He says his parents don't have to know. Mr. Edwards is at work and Mrs. Edwards is at a dinner something and they're not going to know anything. He says Mighty had a playdate, but the playdate canceled, so he's just going to spend all evening sitting at home with his nanny.”

“Let him do that, then.”

Jende turned to walk away but hesitated. “Let the child come, Neni,” he said.

“I said no.”

“He's never been on the subway, he's never been to Harlem. Let his brother bring him. Vince is leaving next week, and they will not see each other again for who knows how long? And it's only for one hour.”

“And you don't think something bad can happen in one hour?” Neni said, sweating over the stove as she scrubbed off the grime from all the cooking and frying.

“If something happens, it'll be on Vince's head. I'll tell him that.”

“That's what you're going to say when they try to put us in prison?”

“Don't worry, I'll go to prison alone for both of us,” he said, winking at her.

Neni turned her face away and continued scrubbing the stove with greater fervor. Just like him to think he knew the answers. She heard him tell Vince that it was okay, they were all excited to see them at five o'clock, and later tell Liomi that the special guest they'd spoken about was bringing another guest, so he better go change into even nicer clothes. By the time Vince and Mighty arrived, Neni had showered and changed her clothes, too, and her mood was far more excited than fearful.

“Neni!” Mighty said when she opened the door, rushing to hug her.

“What are you guys doing in my house?” she teased them as Vince gave her a hug and stooped to high-five Liomi.

“I can't believe I'm in Harlem!” Mighty said. “Did you make
puff-puff
?”

Neni and Jende laughed. “That's for breakfast,” Jende said. “This evening we have food that you will eat and your belly will get so full it will explode.”

“Cool!”

If the Edwards boys were fazed by the obvious signs of poverty in the apartment (the worn-out brown carpet; the retro TV sitting on a coffee table across from the sofa; the fan in the corner struggling to do the job of an AC; the fake flowers hanging on the wall and doing nothing to brighten the living room), they did not show it. They acted as if they were in any of the apartments they visited on Park or Madison, as if it were just a different kind of beautiful apartment in a different kind of nice neighborhood. Mighty ran to the bedroom with Liomi to see his toys and called out to his brother that wow, everyone gets to sleep in the same bedroom here, how cool! Vince sat with Jende on the faded green sofa, drinking Malta and eating roasted peanuts with him, talking about America the good country, America the bad country, America the country that no one could argue was the most powerful country in the world.

When Neni was done putting the food in serving dishes and placing them on the table, Jende announced it was time to eat.

“We are going to eat Cameroon style,” he said to Vince and Mighty. “In Cameroon we do not usually sit around the table, like you do in America. Everyone takes their food and sits where they like, on a chair, on the floor. They eat how they like, with a spoon or a fork or with their hands—”

“I wanna sit on the floor and eat with my hands!” Mighty said, and Liomi immediately added that he wanted to do the same thing. So Neni put a tablecloth on the floor, moved the food from the table, and they all sat in a circle on the floor and ate, laughing out loud with full mouths as Jende told them stories from his boyhood, like how he and Winston used to go stealing mangoes when they were eleven and how one time his foot got caught in an animal trap and he had to run all the way back home with a trap stuck to his foot, only to arrive and have his father beat him before going to fetch the man who owned the trap to come take it off. Vince chuckled, and Mighty and Liomi laughed so hard they almost choked, but Neni only rolled her eyes because she'd heard the story before and every time the story had a different ending.

“Papa has the best stories!” Liomi exclaimed.

“I wanna hear more!” Mighty said.

Vince looked at his watch, then at Jende and Neni, and shook his head. “I'm sorry, bud, we've got to leave now.”

“Why?”

“I'm sorry, I've got other plans. I've got to take you back home to Stacy.”

“But Neni!” Mighty cried, looking at Neni, who averted her gaze. Vince stood up and walked to the kitchen to wash his hands.

“I don't wanna go back just yet,” Mighty said to Jende and Neni, looking beseechingly from one to the other. “Please, can I stay a little longer?”

“Your mother and father will not be happy, Mighty,” Jende said.

“But they won't even be back home till after midnight. Dad may not even come back till tomorrow, and Mom said she might not be home till after two in the morning. I heard her tell Stacy that. So I can stay till ten or eleven and they won't even know it.”

“I'm sorry, bud,” Vince said, coming out of the kitchen. “I've got other plans. This was fun, right? I'll pick you up Monday evening and we'll do something fun again, okay?”

Mighty did not respond. He pouted and turned his face away, rubbing his fingers, which were fully covered with palm oil from the
ekwang
.

“Maybe I'll come to your house for a playdate, too,” Liomi said to Mighty, perhaps in an attempt to cheer him up or perhaps because Mighty had mentioned that he had the latest and cooler model of some of the toys Liomi had, most of which Cindy had given Neni. Whatever his intention, he said it so sweetly and sincerely that Neni almost laughed but, seeing how upset Mighty was, thought it best not to openly laugh at her child's innocence in believing he would someday get an invite to a playdate at the Edwardses'. But then, she thought, she couldn't be so sure Cindy wouldn't invite Liomi over. Without ever meeting Liomi, Cindy had been sending him toys and clothes, some of them brand-new. When Liomi had come down with a case of pneumonia barely a month after Jende started working for them, Cindy had sent Jende home one evening with a basket of fruits and teas and healthy snacks. She'd written Liomi a letter, after he sent her a handmade thank-you card, praising his handwriting and saying Jende must be doing a great job raising him.

“Why can't Jende take me home later?” Mighty asked, still pouting and ignoring Vince's pleas to stand up and wash his hands. “I'm going to go home, and it's going to be boring sitting—”

“But you told me you have fun with Stacy,” Neni said.

“Yeah, but not this kind. Please, Neni. We didn't even get to make
puff-puff
.”

“Maybe I'll come back to the Hamptons next summer,” Neni said. “Then we'll get to do everything all over again, right?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Jende stood up and held out his hand to Mighty to help him stand up. “There will be another time, Mighty,” he said to the boy. “By the grace of God, there will be many more times.”

Mighty stood up and followed Jende to the kitchen sink, where he washed his hands.

After an hour and a half of fun, the Jongas hugged the Edwards boys goodbye and wished Vince a good time in India, and the Edwards boys thanked the Jongas for a really cool dinner party.

As they were about to leave, Mighty remembered something.

“How's there going to be another time like this when Vince is leaving?” he asked Neni. “My mom and dad are never going to bring me here.”

Smiling, Neni told him that he was going to have to take the subway and come all by himself then, which made Mighty grin—the idea of taking the subway alone from the Upper East Side to Harlem to have Cameroonian food must have sounded totally awesome.