Behold the Dreamers(49)

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 them. 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 shook her head again.

“Well,” Anna said, “we tried.”





Twenty-five


SHE SPENT THE DAY CLEANING THE APARTMENT, SHOPPING FOR GROCERIES, 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.