Behold the Dreamers(81)

“Anything else?” Cindy asked, looking up at her.

“Yes … yes, madam,” Neni said. “I also came to talk to you about something, madam.”

“Yes?”

Deciding she had to be brave if she was to say what she had come to say, Neni walked to the sofa and sat down next to Cindy. Cindy’s eyes widened at her former housekeeper’s audacity, but she said nothing.

“I came here, madam, to see if you can help my husband,” Neni said. Her head was tilted, her eyes narrowed to implore in ways her words couldn’t. “If you could please help my husband … if you could help him get his job back with Mr. Edwards.”

Cindy turned her face away and looked toward the window. While the thousand different sounds of New York City blended outside, Neni waited for a response.

“You’re funny, you know,” Cindy said, turning to face Neni. She was not smiling. “You’re a very funny girl. You’re coming to ask me to help your husband?”

Neni nodded.

“Why? What do you think I can do for him?”

“Anything, madam.”

“Your husband lost his job because Clark no longer needs his services. There’s nothing I can do about that.”

“But madam,” Neni said, her head still tilted, her eyes still beseeching, “maybe you can help him get another job? Maybe you know someone, or one of your friends, maybe they need a chauffeur?”

Cindy scoffed. “What do you think I am?” she asked. “An employment agency? Why can’t he go out there and get a job like everybody else?”

“It’s not that he can’t get a job by himself, madam. He found a little something, washing dishes at restaurants, but it is not easy, too many hours, and his feet hurt every night. It’s so hard out there, madam. Too … very hard to get a good job now, and it is hard for me and the children, too, with him not having a good job that can take care of us well.”

“I’m sorry,” Cindy said, picking up her book. “It’s a tough world.”

Neni’s throat tightened and she swallowed hard. “But back in the Hamptons, madam,” she said, “you told me to help you. Remember how I promised you, madam? As woman to woman. As a mother to a mother. I am asking the same from you today. Please, Mrs. Edwards. To help me any way that you can help me.”

Cindy continued reading.

“In any way, madam. Even if it’s a job for me. Even if—”

“I’m sorry, okay? I really can’t help you. I wish I could, but I can’t.”

“Please, madam—”

“If you could leave so I can continue my reading, I’ll appreciate it.”

But she didn’t leave. Neni Jonga wasn’t going to leave until she got what she wanted. She turned around, picked up her purse from the floor, and pulled out her cell phone. She opened it, and there, in the picture folder, she found what she was looking for. Her moment had arrived.

“That day, madam,” she said, her head no longer tilted, “I took a picture.”

Cindy looked up from her book.

“That day in the Hamptons,” Neni whispered, moving nearer to Cindy and holding her Motorola RAZR close to Cindy’s face, “I took this.”

Cindy looked at the photo. In an instant her face turned from gaunt to ghostly as she stared at an image of herself in a stupor, her mouth half open, drool running down her chin, her upper body splayed against the headboard, a bottle of pills and a half-empty bottle of wine on the nightstand.

“How dare you!”

Neni pulled back the phone and closed it.

“You think you can blackmail me? Who do you think you are?”

“I’m just a mother like you, madam,” Neni said, putting the phone back in her purse. “I’m only trying to do what I have to do for my family.”

“Get out of my house right now!”

Neni did not move.

Cindy stood up and repeated the command.

Neni remained seated and silent.

“Is everything okay?” Anna asked, running into the living room with a duster. She was talking to Cindy but looking at Neni, giving her an angry What the hell are you doing? look. Neni ignored her. This had nothing to do with her.

“Call 911!” Cindy shouted.

Still Neni did not budge. She chuckled and shook her head.

“Yes,” Anna said, rushing to the kitchen before stopping halfway. “What should I say?”

“An intruder! Hurry. Get me the phone! You want to learn a lesson, I’ll teach you a lesson!”

Neni remained seated. “I Googled it all, madam,” she said, smirking.

“Googled what!”

“Googled how to do this well … what to say when the police comes.”

“You useless piece of shit!”

“I know what the police will ask me. What I will say. Before the police comes I will delete the picture. When they come, I will say I don’t know what you’re talking about. Police will think you’re a crazy woman and they’ll call your husband. Or your friends. Then you will have to tell them. Is that what you want, Mrs. Edwards?”

“Anna! Phone!”

Anna ran to the living room with the kitchen phone and handed it to Cindy.

“Leave us,” Cindy said to Anna, who gave Neni another dirty look before hurrying out of the living room.