Behold the Dreamers(15)
“Me, too, Leah,” Jende said, smiling back and handing her the folder. “I was wondering if you were going to know it was me.”
“Of course I was going to know it was you,” Leah said. “You look very African, and I mean that in the nicest way, honey. Most Americans can’t tell Africans from Islanders, but I can pick out an African from a Jamaican any day. I just know these things.”
Jende chuckled nervously and said nothing, waiting for Leah to say goodbye and leave, which she didn’t. What was she going to say next? he thought. She seemed nice, but she was most likely one of those American women whose knowledge of Africa was based largely on movies and National Geographic and thirdhand information from someone who knew someone who had been to somewhere on the continent, usually Kenya or South Africa. Whenever Jende met such women (at Liomi’s school; at Marcus Garvey Park; in the livery cab he used to drive), they often said something like, oh my God, I saw this really crazy show about such-and-such in Africa. Or, my cousin/friend/neighbor used to date an African man, and he was a really nice guy. Or, even worse, if they asked him where in Africa he was from and he said Cameroon, they proceeded to tell him that a friend’s daughter once went to Tanzania or Uganda. This comment used to irk him until Winston gave him the perfect response: Tell them your friend’s uncle lives in Toronto. Which was what he now did every time someone mentioned some other African country in response to him saying he was from Cameroon. Oh yeah, he would say in response to something said about Senegal, I watched a show the other day about San Antonio. Or, one day I hope to visit Montreal. Or, I hear Miami is a nice city. And every time he did this, he cracked up inside as the Americans’ faces scrunched up in confusion because they couldn’t understand what Toronto/San Antonio/Montreal/Miami had to do with New York.
“So, how do you like working for Clark?” Leah asked, wisely skipping all the questions about Africa.
“I like it very much,” Jende replied. “He is a good man.”
Leah nodded, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from her purse and moving to lean against the car next to Jende. “Mind if I smoke?”
Jende shook his head.
“He’s a good man to work for,” Leah said, puffing out a straight line of smoke. “He’s got his bad days, when he gets on my nerves and I just wanna throw him out the window. Otherwise, I’ve got no complaints. He’s treated me very well. Never thought about leaving him.”
“You have been his secretary for a long time?”
“Fifteen years, honey,” Leah said, “though I can’t say I’ve got too many left, with the way this company is going … The whole place is a big stinky mess.”
Jende nodded and looked toward the building’s entrance, at the twentysomething-year-old young man in a black suit who was pacing to the right of the doors, his anxiety apparent in the way he paused every few steps to stare at the ground. Jende imagined he was on his way to a job interview. Or spending his first day at the company. Or his last.
“Ever since the subprime unit fell apart,” Leah went on, flicking the ashes off her cigarette, “everyone’s been nervous like crazy. And I hate being nervous. Life’s much too short.”
Jende thought about asking her what the subprime unit was and why it had fallen apart but decided it was best not to ask about things he most certainly wouldn’t understand, even if someone illustrated it to him with pictures. “I see how busy Mr. Edwards is,” he said instead.
“Oh, everyone’s busy,” Leah said. “But Clark and his friends up there, they don’t have any reason to be nervous. When it’s time to lay off people, do you think they’re the ones who’ll be going? No, honey, it’ll be us, the little people. That’s why some people are already sending out résumés; I don’t blame them. You can’t ever trust these people.”
“I do not think Mr. Edwards will let you go anywhere, Leah. You are his right-hand woman.”
Leah laughed. “You’re sweet,” she said, smiling and revealing neatly arranged smoke-stained teeth. “But no, I don’t think it’ll be his decision. And you know what? I don’t give a damn. I can’t lose sleep over this company. Everyone’s gossiping, talking about stock prices going down, profits going down, all kinds of stinky things happening in the boardroom, but the top guys won’t tell us squat. They’re lying to us that everything’s gonna be fine, but I see Clark’s emails sometimes, and well, pardon mon fran?ais, but there’s a lot of dirty shit they’re hiding.”
“I am sorry to hear, Leah.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, too, honey,” she said, shrugging and pulling another cigarette from her purse. “And you know the worst part,” she went on, moving closer to Jende and lowering her voice, “one of the VPs I’m friendly with told me there’s talk that there may be some Enron-type stuff going on, too.”
“Enron?” Jende asked, shifting his head to let Leah’s smoke sail by.
“Yeah, Enron.”
“Er … who was that, Leah?”
“Who?”
“This person, Enron … I don’t know who he was.”
Leah burst out laughing. She laughed so hard Jende feared she was going to choke on her smoke. “Oh, honey!” she said, still laughing. “You really just came to this country, huh?”