American Fairytale (Dreamers)

by Adriana Herrera

  I shook my head again, struggling to come up with everything that was going through my mind at the moment. “It’s good he didn’t spill the beans on me choking down his cock at the party, sure, but that doesn’t mean I’m free and clear. He wants to be closely involved in the initial stages of the project, Ayako!” I stood up and started pacing again as I talked. “Apparently he’s giving the money for personal reasons. The plan is for us to meet once a week, so I can keep him updated on the project.”

  Ayako burst out laughing.

  “Oh shit, Camilo. This could only happen to you! Of course the guy you decide to suck off at a party turns out to be the millionaire who wants to fix the shelter. You can’t make this shit up!” She cackled some more while I glared at her, hating my life.

  “What am I going to do, Ayako? I can’t jeopardize this project and I honestly have no clue how to handle this. What if this guy wants to turn me into his sex toy? Or tries to fuck with me because he has all the leverage?”

  Ayako’s face got serious then. “Melissa would never let that happen, she’d tell him to take his money and fuck off if he tried anything like that.” She held up her hand. “But we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves. Let’s not jump to conclusions. He didn’t say anything about Friday at the meeting, and you said he tried to put you at ease. I mean you’re both adults, these things happen. You can work together, it’s not like you were involved with him or anything. It was a onetime thing.”

  A lot of what she was saying made sense, but I was still coiled up in knots. Tom Hughes was too much of a temptation to underestimate the possibility of disaster.

  “From what we know from this guy so far, he seems to be a decent person, who’s extremely invested in giving away a lot of money to causes you care about.”

  That was true.

  So far, the one thing I knew for sure about Tom was that he was a very generous man who cared about things which were very important to me. He also had an enormous cock I’d been dreaming about since the party on Friday, but I digressed.

  “We need to take this whole thing to Dr. Google,” Ayako snapped, bringing me out of my thoughts.

  “Here,” she said as she pivoted her desktop monitor so I could see it. “Let’s look him up.”

  I gave her his full name, and as soon as she typed it in we saw there was a ton of information about Tom on the internet. Ayako clicked on a link to a Forbes magazine article and we both started to read in silence. After a couple of minutes Ayako whistled.

  “Damn, Camilo, this dude is a legit zillionaire. Holy fuck.”

  Apparently, Thomas Hughes, age forty-one, was a legend in the entrepreneurial world. Thirteen years ago, when he was twenty-eight, he’d started his company, Nuntius, while attending business school at MIT. Tom and his two best friends from the program created a service through which immigrants living overseas could pay their families’ bills back home.

  If you lived in New York City and needed to pay your mom’s rent and electric bill in the Dominican Republic you could go to the Nuntius website and for a fee, have a messenger service go take care of the payments without wiring money or having a relative lift a finger on the other side. You could do anything, pay for school or medical fees, even pay their groceries. It was like Postmates, but for bills, and it worked all over the world.

  It was brilliant.

  They initially piloted the model in the trio’s hometowns: Santo Domingo, New Delhi and Addis Ababa. Within five years of them starting the company, smartphones made their way around the world and the Nuntius app blew up. By year six, they were operating in more than sixty countries and booming. The article Ayako and I read was written three years ago when Tom and his partners sold Nuntius to PayPal for just over a billion dollars.

  I let out the long breath I’d been holding after reading the sum of money for the third time, still unable to make words. Ayako looked up from the screen and flinched when she saw my face.

  “Okay this is pretty intense, and I can tell from how stiff you are right now that you’re freaking out. But I just want to point out a couple of things before you do or say something over the top.” I just stared at her in silence, because the screaming inside my head was too loud for me to speak.

  She held up a finger. “One. Even on Friday when we knew nothing about him, we both thought he was charming and very low-key.” Another finger joined the first one. “Two. It seems this guy made his money working. Also I don’t know about you, but I think this whole story is amazing. Three immigrant kids starting a company in grad school and selling it for hundreds of millions. You have to admit it’s pretty great.” I nodded slowly at that because she was right, this was the kind of story I loved. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of this guy before.

  My mom didn’t really have any family left in Cuba, so we didn’t send money there. But I was sure my best friends Nesto and Patrice who had family back in DR and Haiti had probably heard of Nuntius.

  I held up my hands in defeat. “Okay fine, he’s a gorgeous, smart and generous guy who started a billion dollar company in his twenties.” I covered my face with my hands. “I should just tell Melissa, so she can deal with him herself.”

  I heard teeth sucking from the direction where Ayako was sitting and even though I couldn’t see her, I could tell she was losing her patience with my whining.

  “I’m not going to tell you what to do, Camilo, but I would at least give him the benefit of the doubt and go to the first meeting.” Exasperation was quickly edging the sympathetic tone from earlier. “You already said you would do it. If he ends up getting an email from Melissa saying you’re bailing, it’s really going to get awkward. Especially since even if you don’t meet with him regularly, you’ll still have to be in touch. It’s your project.”

  She was right, making a thing out of it was just going to make it worse. Tom had handled things like an adult, and I could too.

  I exhaled and stared at the ceiling again.

  “Fine. I’ll just have to make sure to stay off his cock the next time.”

  Ayako gave me her best “I have faith in you” face and squeezed my hand.

  “You got this, babe.”

  I was glad at least one of us thought so.

  Tom

  “How was the meeting?” Priya asked with enthusiasm as she munched on a graham cracker. After her snack, we’d sat Libe down for thirty minutes of TV, so Sanjay, Priya and I finally had a moment to chat.

  “I’m so excited to hear about it! I was telling my colleague Anne at the hospital what you were doing and she raved about New Beginning. She said her friend volunteered for them and they do amazing work.”

  I nodded, desperate to give them the news about running into Camilo.

  “Yes, they’re great.” I swallowed. “Something funny happened at the meeting though.”

  “Oh?” Sanjay looked skeptical and Priya gave me a worried look.

  “Nothing bad, it’s just today I was supposed to meet with the director of the residential program. Since he’ll be my point person at the agency once the project gets going. And um, it turns out he’s the guy from the party on Friday.” I broke eye contact then, knowing I had to be turning red. “You know Milo? The guy I was talking to before you guys got there.”

  Priya’s cackle was epic and Sanjay just shook his head.

  “Oh my god, Tom. The one time you cut loose a little at a party. What did you do?” This was from Sanjay, who I knew was feeling my pain.

  “Did he freak out? You made sure he knew you weren’t going to make a big deal out of it, right?” Priya the advocate.

  I moved to grab a cracker and tried to reassure her I had not acted like a clueless ass. “As much as I could, given the situation. I mean there wasn’t any time to have a conversation about it, because the executive director of the agency was there too. But I tried to make it clear I wouldn’t be bringin
g it up. He looked pretty spooked though.” I covered my face with my hands. “I sort of requested he and I meet weekly for the foreseeable future to discuss the progress, which is completely unnecessary.”

  Both Priya and Sanjay looked at me with amusement.

  “I just couldn’t resist. Was that a horrible abuse of power?”

  I was mostly asking Priya. She entertained no bullshit, and she would give it to me straight.

  Priya is as tough as they come.

  She came from India on her own at eighteen on a full scholarship to Yale and was from a family without the financial means to support her while she was in school. She worked multiple jobs under the table all four years of college. She met Sanjay there in their sophomore year, when she was working as a server at one of the local Indian restaurants. I had enormous respect for her and also knew she would not let me get away with being a creepy asshole.

  She raised an eyebrow at me like she could read my mind. “Wow, this is a big deal, huh? Normally I would’ve reamed you out for being a manipulative jerk, but I know you too well to dismiss that you going this far means something.” She held up a finger at me. “What I will say is this, please be respectful and careful. He is in a very precarious position. You have all the power, and I’m sure he’s nervous. So when you meet him make sure you clear the air and let him know how aware you are of your position.”

  I nodded in agreement, feeling relieved that she didn’t think I’d crossed a line. “I was planning to, I don’t want him to think I’d take advantage. But when I had the chance to see him again, I just took it.”

  Priya’s face softened again. “He’s certainly made an impression. It’s time to take some chances with your heart again.” Her smile was genuine and I’d bet anything she was thinking about our conversation this morning. “I think you should see where it goes.”

  I was about to say something to the effect of, “I hope all of this doesn’t end blowing up in my face,” when the email alert on my phone pinged. I looked at the screen and saw I had an email from Camilo S. Briggs. I quickly opened it to see what he’d said, my heart fluttering all over my chest. After a second I looked up at Priya and Sanjay.

  “Looks like Camilo is available to meet next Wednesday afternoon.”

  Priya laughed and looked over at where Libe was zoned out watching Peppa Pig.

  “How convenient that he can meet on the night you have the house to yourself.”

  She was giving me and my prowess way too much credit, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get a small thrill at the possibility of having some alone time with Camilo.

  Chapter Six

  Camilo

  I shook my head as the smell of stale cigarettes hit me in the hallway of my mother’s apartment. I rang the bell before I pushed my key in to open her door, so I didn’t startle her, and braced myself for whatever mood I’d find her in. I suspected it wouldn’t be good if she was feeling so out of sorts she was smoking inside the apartment.

  As I walked in, I felt a wave of relief when I saw she was up, dressed in jeans and a sweater, and pulling something out the fridge in her tiny kitchen. “Mama. ¿Como estas?” I greeted her as I put down the bagels and lox I’d brought on her breakfast counter.

  “Milito, hijo.” She turned around and walked to me with her arms wide-open to give me a tight hug and kiss. As she enveloped me in her slender arms I smelled the peppermint castile soap and the almond oil lotion she used. She’d showered too, so things couldn’t be that bad.

  She leaned back and the lines on the corners of her eyes pulled up as she smiled at me. “Hola, mi corazon.” I squeezed her hand, grateful to find her in a good mood.

  My mother struggled with depression. It was tough but manageable most of the time. But every once in a while she’d hit a rough patch and get leveled by it. It was just her and me, so I made sure I paid attention when I came to see her.

  “Hey, Ma, you’re looking good today. How was the hospital this week?” She shrugged as she got out the stuff to make the coffee. She turned around, holding up the old stovetop espresso maker she’d had ever since I could remember.

  “¿Quieres café?”

  I nodded enthusiastically in response. My mother’s Cortadito was the best Cuban coffee in New York City, full stop. “Si, por favor.” She came over to the stool I was perched on and kissed my forehead.

  “Okay, mi amor.”

  I watched as she efficiently worked on the coffee, scooping out heaping spoonfuls of Bustelo from the yellow can and pressing them into the metal funnel before setting the coffee on the stove. When she was done, she turned around, sighing heavily.

  “The hospital is all right. You know how it is, now with all this uncertainty with health care, every week it’s something different. We keep working and taking care of the patients, but it’s stressful right now, and you know the nurses’ aides aren’t exactly a part of the conversations when decisions are made.”

  She shook her head again and went for her pack of cigarettes, looked at me and put it back down. She knew I worried when she started smoking, but she was an adult and I was not going to tell her how to live. Besides I knew it was a sign she wasn’t doing great and I didn’t want to push.

  “How are you feeling, Mama?” I asked as I glanced at the pack.

  She leaned against the counter and looked at me with tired gray eyes exactly like mine. My mother was very fair skinned with fine light brown hair she’d let go gray. I was a complete mix between her and my dad. He’d been tall and strapping while she was petite and slim. I had her body type and her eyes, but my skin was brown and my hair a mess of dark brown curls. She smiled sadly as she reached for one, tucking it behind my ear.

  “It was our anniversary Thursday.”

  Fuck.

  I forgot to call her. My father passed away twenty-four years ago, and my mom still mourned for him on significant dates like it happened six months ago. I knew it was because he’d been the only person in her life to ever give her refuge, but seeing her still be brought so low by the past was hard to watch at times.

  “Mama, I’m sorry, I forgot to call you. This week has been so busy.”

  “You don’t have to apologize, papi. I know you’ve got a lot going on. Besides, it’s not a big deal. I just remembered that’s all. I lit a candle for him.” She smiled sadly and turned around to fix my coffee.

  I felt like an ass. “Did you go to Mass?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “I didn’t feel like going out. I just came home after work.”

  I worried about my mom. She’d never really wanted to deal with all the traumatic shit she’d been through and I knew eventually it would wear her down. She was a Marielita. One of the thousands of Cuban refugees who’d left from Mariel harbor in 1980 to come to the U.S. That year Fidel Castro lifted all restrictions to leaving the island and told the Cuban people that anyone who wanted to leave was free to go. Within days, hundreds of makeshift boats filled with people looking for asylum had arrived in Miami, and my mother had been in one of them.

  As I watched her fiddle around making our breakfast in her little South Bronx kitchen it was still hard to imagine my mother, at twenty-two years old, getting on one of those boats on her own. She’d told me once she’d left Cuba with only the clothes on her back, a roll of old twenty dollar bills her father had given her before he died and a few family photos.

  Once she arrived she’d been held in a detainment camp for months before settling in Miami. I knew very little about what that experience had been like for her, because she rarely mentioned it. She would always jump right over all of it and talked about how her life had changed when she met my dad.

  As a teen I’d read about the Marielitos obsessively trying to get a sense of what she’d gone through to make it to the States. Everything I’d read suggested she’d probably experienced unthinkable trauma to come to this country. On top
of whatever pushed her to get on a makeshift boat alone and cross the ocean to get here. As much as I tried, I could not imagine how terrified and how desperate I’d have to be to do that. But my mother had done it and she’d survived.

  “M’ijo ¿A donde te fuiste?” My mother’s concerned voice pulled me back from my errant thoughts.

  I stood up and went over to kiss her on the cheek. “I didn’t go anywhere, Ma. Just thinking,” I said as I pointed at the old photo of my dad, my mom and me at Disney World she kept on a little table in the living room. “Just thinking about the story of how you guys met.”

  My mom smiled at that and put down the bread knife she’d been using to slice our bagels. My dad had come to the States from Jamaica with his mom as a little boy. Back then there were lots of jobs for nurses and my grandmother came over to work at a hospital. Like my mom and I, it had just been the two of them for a long time, until my mom joined their little family.

  “He was so handsome.” My mom’s eyes always sparkled when she talked about my dad. It made me sad that my memories of him were fuzzy at best. “Every day I would get on the bus to go from my little efficiency to the English classes at the church, and he’d be sitting at the driver’s seat, so tall and strong in his uniform, and I could barely breathe.” She actually blushed, still, after all these years. “I practiced for weeks before I worked up the courage to talk to him, because I wanted him to understand me when I spoke to him. I didn’t want to embarrass myself.”

  She lifted a shoulder then, a soft smile on her lips. “I didn’t have to worry. We didn’t need English, from the first moment your father and I had a connection that was...undeniable.”

  “I love hearing about you and Dad,” I said trying hard not to sound too maudlin.

  She sighed and started working on our brunch again. I leaned on the counter and watched her preparing our bagels. She was slicing avocado to put on top of mine, just how I liked it.

  I thought about what she’d said about the connection she and my dad had, and it made me think about Thomas Hughes. How drawn I was to him, how no matter how much I knew I shouldn’t, I kept going back to that first night we’d met and the pull I’d felt for him. How incredible it had been to be completely myself. How hot it was to know that everything I’d done that night turned Tom on that much more. Too bad getting involved with him was ill-advised in every way possible.