Behold the Dreamers(58)
Theirs was as solid a bond as could be between a man and his chauffeur, but not solid enough for the chauffeur to venture into a delicate territory. Which was why Jende said no more than was necessary the night Clark returned to the car without his tie on.
On any other day, Jende wouldn’t have noticed the tie’s disappearance, since he cared little about ties. Winston had given him one—after Jende told him what Clark had said at the job interview, about him getting a real tie if he hoped to further his career—but he’d rejected Winston’s offer to teach him how to tie it, believing he still remembered how to do it from the couple of times he’d worn one in Limbe. On the morning of his first day on the job, though, neither he nor Neni could figure out how to tie it. Neni had suggested they Google it but he didn’t have the time for that. He’d gone to work with a clip-on, and Clark had complimented his “more professional look,” which Jende took as a validation of everything he was wearing. Later that week, Winston had again offered to teach him, but he’d declined because he found it unnecessary and, besides, why did a man have to tie his neck like a goat? Few ties seemed worth the discomfort, but Mr. Edwards’s blue tie had gotten his attention that morning, when he picked him up.
It was a tie of many flags, and at a stoplight Jende had looked at it through the rearview mirror and recognized the British Union Jack, the American Stars and Stripes, the Drapeau Tricolore of France, il Tricolore of Italy—flags he knew from years of watching the World Cup. He had searched for the Cameroonian green, red, and yellow flag with a yellow star on the red, but it wasn’t there, though the Malian flag was there, for some reason. While waiting for Clark in front of the Chelsea Hotel that night, he considered making conversation about the tie when the boss reentered the car, partly to diffuse the awkwardness that often sat between them in the first minutes after Clark returned, and partly because if he was going to spend money on a real tie, he wanted it to be something notable, and he was hoping Mr. Edwards could tell him where he could get a cheap version of his tie, since his was probably from one of those rich-people stores on Fifth Avenue.
But Clark had returned to the car without the tie.
Jende had opened his mouth to say something and immediately shut it. He had no right to comment on the boss’s appearance. And it wasn’t his place to speculate where the tie could be, though he couldn’t stop himself from wondering. It couldn’t be in Clark’s briefcase—he never took the briefcase into the hotel. It couldn’t be in his pocket—that would make no sense. And he couldn’t have given it to whomever he had just …
“Back to the office, sir?” Jende asked as he pulled out of a parking spot in front of the hotel, wondering how much pleasure the man must have received for him to forget his tie.
“No, home.”
“Home, sir?”
“That’s what I said.”
Immediately, Jende could see how this was going to play out. Clark was going to walk into the house, and Cindy, being a woman and being as inquisitive as women couldn’t help being, was going to ask him where the tie was. Clark was going to stammer and quickly mutter a lie, which Cindy would not believe. Cindy would start a fight, maybe their third fight of the day, and tomorrow Jende’s ears would be subjected to more cringe-inducing details about their marriage. And poor Clark, as if he wasn’t suffering enough, would have one more battle to fight.
Or maybe Cindy wouldn’t notice.
It was already ten o’clock, and she might be sleeping. Clark would return home, undress, take a shower, and, thankfully, the poor woman wouldn’t know a thing.
Twenty-nine
CINDY ASKED HIM TO COME UPSTAIRS ON AN EVENING EARLY IN NOVEMBER, a week after the tie went missing. It was three days after Barack Obama had been elected president and New Yorkers had danced in Times Square, three days after he and Neni had jumped all around the living room and shed euphoric tears that the son of an African now ruled the world. It was a day after Clark had told him that he would be getting a two-thousand-dollar raise for having been an exceptional employee for one full year.
“Please have a seat,” Cindy said, pointing to a chair at the kitchen table.
Jende lowered himself onto the black leather dining chair. There was a clear vase of fresh purple calla lilies on the rectangular marble table; a blue notebook sat next to it. Jende glanced at the leather-bound book, and then Cindy. He could tell: She had noticed the tie. She must have noticed the tie. They must have fought about it or about something else. It must have been a big fight, maybe a fight like the one Neni had told him they’d had in the Hamptons over Vince moving to India. It was always easy to tell when a married person had had an ugly fight with their spouse—they looked as if the whole world had deserted them, as if they had nothing and no one. That was how Cindy looked that evening.
She no longer looked like the gorgeous Mrs. Edwards from when he started working for them. Her skin was still beautiful, wrinkle-free and spotless, but there was an emptiness in her eyes, which even her well-done mascara and eyeliner could not conceal, and he could see that something had happened to the madam, something was happening to her. Even with the loose waves of her glossy strawberry blond hair lying on one side of her face, her pearls sitting on her chest, her lips painted red, it was clear to Jende how much pain she was in and how badly she needed something to happen to bring her peace.