“Service entrance,” the man said, motioning toward the garage on the right.
Her heart pumped faster than usual as she walked down the dim-lighted hall to apartment 25A. What if Mrs. Edwards wasn’t home? she thought. What if Anna changed her mind and refused to let her in? Anna had told her that Mrs. Edwards might be in the master bedroom and not want to be disturbed, but Neni could stop by, try her luck.
“You lucky,” Anna whispered as she opened the door. “She just came back out to living room.”
Neni took off her shoes in the foyer and followed Anna into the kitchen.
“What you want to see her for?” Anna asked, looking at Neni curiously.
“I just want to give her a gift.”
“I give it to her for you,” Anna said, extending her hand.
“No, I want to give it to her myself,” Neni said, putting the bag behind her back. She couldn’t share her plan with Anna—Anna would definitely try to discourage her.
Anna had called two days after Jende lost his job to say how sorry she was and how much she feared she would be next, because Cindy was acting like a madwoman these days (barely eating; rarely going out; stumbling around the apartment some mornings with puffy, bloodshot eyes), and Anna couldn’t tell Clark anything about the alcohol now because if Cindy suspected she was talking about her, all the years she’d worked for the family would mean nothing. Now, Anna said, she was secretly calling housekeeping agencies to see if she could get a new job, while jumping even higher at every word Cindy uttered so Cindy wouldn’t find any reason to fire her, because she badly needed a job, especially now that her daughter was in college and her oldest son’s construction business was failing and he and his wife and three children had moved in with her. Neni, still discombobulated and uninterested in talking about someone potentially losing a job when her husband had already lost his, had aloofly assured Anna that Cindy wasn’t going to fire her after twenty-two years of service, but Anna had said over and over that you never know, sometimes people do funny things, so you just never know.
“Wait here,” Anna said. “I go see if she wants to see you.”
For minutes, Neni stood alone in the kitchen, looking around at the stainless steel appliances and the cream-colored cabinetry with brass handles; the ultraclean kitchen island with a bowl of perfect-looking apples and bananas; the black marble table and vase of fresh pink calla lilies; the Wolf stove, with its frantically loud red buttons. The kitchen was more beautiful than the one in Southampton, which Neni had been certain couldn’t be surpassed in beauty. She wondered if Cindy cooked here often, or if she used it only occasionally, to make a special recipe for the boys or give detailed directions to the help during party preparations, the way she’d done over the summer.
“Go to living room now,” Anna whispered to her. “Do it quick and leave.”
Neni stepped into the Edwardses’ Upper East Side living room for the first time, and for a lengthy second all she saw was the view of Manhattan beyond the window—a panorama of steel and concrete buildings tightly packed like the brick and caraboat houses of New Town, Limbe. The room smelled of the softest, sweetest intermingling of baby powder and perfume, and she realized, like Jende had said, that everything in it was white or gray: the large chandelier (white crystals, gleaming silvery finish); the floor (glossy marble and gray); the plush carpet (snow white); the sofa and love seat (white); the armchairs (gray with white throws); the textured wall coverings (four shades of gray); the glass center table and the silver vases on it; the candlesticks standing in the four corners of the room (silver); the ottoman (striped gray); the twin wall frames behind the sofa, with line-drawn portraits of a naked woman lying on her back and side (white canvas), and the window curtains and valance (silver).
“Anna says you came to give me something?” Cindy said. She did not lift her eyes from the book she was reading.
“Yes, madam,” Neni said. “Good morning, madam.”
Cindy stretched out her hand to receive the bag.
“It was made by my mother in Cameroon, madam,” Neni said, handing it over. “I thought you would like it, because you said you liked when I wore the same kind of dress in the Hamptons.”
Cindy peered into the bag and put it aside, on the floor. “Thank you,” she said. “Tell Jende I say hello.”
Neni stood in the same spot, confounded.
She hadn’t imagined the meeting would begin and end this way. Not considering how much Cindy had seemed to like her in her last days in Southampton, and how well they had parted (with a hug, albeit an awkward one, which she’d felt compelled to give the madam as gratitude for the gifts and bonus money). Cindy had asked about Liomi at the brunch in June’s apartment, and told Neni that she’d be sending him a couple of Mighty’s old winter jackets through Jende, which she did three days later. But the happy Mrs. Edwards of that Sunday was not the same Mrs. Edwards sitting in her living room that Tuesday. Anna had mentioned that Cindy had lost at least ten pounds since Clark moved to the hotel the day after Christmas, and Neni could tell, from how gaunt her face looked even beneath her makeup.
“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.