American Love Story (Dreamers)

by Adriana Herrera

  I shook my head and smiled at him because no matter how crazy he made me, I really fucking liked Easton Archer. In fact the more I knew, the more I wanted him. There was no telling myself any different on that.

  “Easton, I’m just trying to get into this building without starting some fuckboy drama with you. I want this place and I—”

  This I wasn’t sure how to say without going into weirdness territory.

  “I like you. Like as a friend, and I’m going to be here for a while.” I sagged after getting the words out, and he looked at me like he knew what was coming.

  “I get it. If you want this place, it’s yours, and I will keep my thirsty ass in shape.”

  I shook my head at him, biting back a smile, wanting to also say my piece. The thought of Easton walking away from this feeling hurt was not sitting right with me.

  “Listen, you’re obviously not the only thirsty one in this situation.” I glanced up to the steel beams in the ceiling, hoping to word this right and not offend him because he had been nothing but decent to me. “I just don’t want to ruin the chances for us actually being friends. I don’t do very well as a lover in the long term, but I am a decent friend. Hearing about your college experience, I don’t know, it makes me want to get to know you better, without our dicks being involved.”

  Easton deflated like I was making too much sense and he might have to agree with me, but he didn’t have to like it. “You might have gone with the wrong career, because I’m thinking you would have made a hell of a lawyer.”

  An unexpected bark of laughter came out of me, a regular occurrence whenever Easton was around, but I was grateful for the shift in the conversation. “Pssh, being an economist is much better. We don’t even try to argue, we just manipulate the data until we can tell everyone how to think. So...”

  Easton extended a hand to me as if to seal the deal. “Welcome to 611 Cayuga, Professor Denis.”

  I smiled wide as we shook on it. “Thank you, Mr. Archer.”

  Easton

  Patrice wanted to be friends? Fine, I could do friends.

  I was sitting at my desk Monday morning thinking about Saturday and how easy it was to be with Patrice. How wanting him was all I could think about when he was close. But it wasn’t just that. I wanted to know about Patrice, about the reasons why he was so careful.

  “What are you frowning about now? That’s your permanent expression these days.”

  Cindy.

  I lifted my eyes from the monitor I’d been blankly staring at for the last twenty minutes and tried my best to smile for her.

  She wasn’t buying it.

  “Hey. What are you doing here so early? Aren’t you supposed to be on medical leave? It’s not even 7:00 a.m.”

  Cindy waved me off as she sat in one of the chairs across from my desk. “I wanted to check in, and I needed to get out of the house.” Things were still tense from the stop last week, and as far as Ron and I could tell not much had happened in the way of addressing it. Day had been evasive as hell and Cindy had stayed away.

  “I’m so fucking tired of being cooped up. You’d think recovering from heart surgery wouldn’t make you homicidal, but I’m getting there.”

  I shook my head at her, trying to keep a straight face. Her humor had always been pretty dark, but after her heart attack, it was getting grimmer. Still she was pushing it, and I wasn’t sure her checking in was going to help matters.

  “I’m calling Lorraine and letting her know you came here instead of going to the rehab place which is what you probably told her, again.”

  She looked down at herself and her workout clothes, then back at me. “You wouldn’t.”

  I scoffed and gestured toward my phone. “Oh yeah, I would.”

  She’d scared the shit out of all of us in the summer when she collapsed walking out of court, and there was no way I would enable her to go right back to not taking proper care of herself.

  I pointed at the clock on the wall. “Thirty minutes. We can talk about what’s been going on and then you are going to your PT. You need to take care of yourself, Cin. We need you back.” I lamented. “I’m not built for all this administrative bullshit. I’m court guy, trial guy. Not a paperwork guy, and I’m starting to confirm I’m definitely not a politics guy. This sitting on my hands bullshit is not pleasant for me.”

  I looked toward the hallway where the investigators usually worked. “Ron says that traffic stop was barely a bleep at the Sheriff’s department, meanwhile social media was on fire for days with community members demanding a response. This is going to escalate.”

  Cindy’s shook her head, that stubborn set to her chin telling me she had not changed her mind. “First of all, you would be an outstanding DA and I really want that for this county and for you.”

  I sighed, too frustrated to argue about this with her, or entertain the run-for-DA conversation.

  “About the stop, I understand it’s not ideal, Easton, but we need to give it time. So far nothing else has happened, and we have to work with these people. Overzealousness won’t work in our favor in the long run. How are things going with the Suarez case? Are you going over all the stuff from his previous arrest?” She could not have been more obvious about changing the subject. I would let it go, for now.

  I gestured at the enormous pile of papers accumulating on my desk and sighed. “Yes, I am and it’s already a mess.” She made a face at that. “His family already started a smear campaign on her and the grand jury barely gave the indictment. They’re going to drag her through the mud. After what that motherfucker did to her.”

  Cindy shook her head in disgust. “I heard his mom remortgaged her house to pay for a defense attorney from Rochester. Like that’s going to help him. You have to nail him to the wall, Easton.”

  I slumped against my chair, thinking about the horrific details of that case and how even with all the evidence it was still going to be precarious, because the perp was a “nice guy, who grew up in town,” and the woman was young and Latina and had only been in Ithaca for few months when he broke into her home and brutally assaulted her.

  This case was going to be awful for everyone involved, but I would do whatever I needed to in order to get that asshole behind bars, even though there were people in town still defending him.

  Sometimes it amazed me that things seemed so black and white to me were all gray for some people. That just made me go back to thinking about the stops. The niggling feeling that we were not doing nearly enough eating at me. This was new territory for me, feeling like my hands were tied.

  “What?” Cindy’s voice snapped me out of my fretting.

  “Other than the various fires actively burning in town, you mean?”

  Cindy’s eyebrows dipped and she leaned in, trying to figure me out. “No. There is always a lot of shit going on. This place is a madhouse on a good day.” That was true, but this felt different. “There’s something up with you and it’s not just the work.” She attempted to scrutinize my face for another minute while I tried to keep cool under her stare and then her whole body perked up.

  “Oh my god.” She gasped, looking genuinely contrite. “How could I forget to ask? How’s your stunner? Is he still giving you the runaround?” I could tell she was worried about me. Probably because she’d never seen me actually thinking about anything or anyone in the romance department for more than a second, and I was now closing in on fifteen months of pining for Patrice Denis.

  “Nope, we’re just friends, and I wasn’t just thinking about that,” I said as I started grabbing folders from the mountain of shit I had piled over my desk.

  “Easton.”

  I sighed and looked up at Cindy, annoyed at myself for wanting to talk about this when I’d told Patrice that I was done with lusting after him.

  “It’s stupid, okay? He said he’s a better friend than a lover and since w
e’ll be neighbors—”

  “Wait. Neighbors?” She tipped her head to the side, confused. “When did that happen?”

  I looked up, because this was another new symptom of my Patrice “ailment.” Everything felt monumental, like it needed to be dissected and analyzed and it was fucking exhausting.

  “I saw him at Nesto and Jude’s last week and he mentioned he was having trouble with the place he rented, so I let him know I had two units at 611 Cayuga. He came to see the place with two bedrooms, he liked it and he’s moving in a couple of days.”

  Cindy was shaking her head, a big grin on her face.

  I held up my hand, annoyed. “Why does everyone think I’m a manipulative asshole who only does shit to further my getting laid agenda?”

  She balked at that. “I never said that.”

  “You’re right, you didn’t. I don’t know.” I sagged. “He’s a nice guy and this job is a big deal for him. You should’ve seen his face when he told me he still couldn’t believe that he could afford the rent. Like it was the most amazing thing in the world for him to be able to live in that apartment. He doesn’t want drama, Cindy. He wants to do his job, which he worked his ass off to get, and enjoy this new place, without his landlord trying to get into his bed.”

  Cindy was now fully in Mama Bear mode and I was about to crawl out of my skin.

  “Easton. Why do you put yourself down like that? I get that he’s not looking to get involved, but you’re not drama. You’re not some guy. You are a good man. If he can’t see it then that’s one thing, but anyone would be lucky to have you.”

  “It’s not that simple, Cindy. I get why Patrice wants to keep things friendly, and I have enough going on here. I shouldn’t be getting distracted with a love life that’s going nowhere and focus on my damn job,” I said, feeling guilty that my need to talk about Patrice detracted me from the conversation about the stops. I stood up from my desk and was about to suggest we go out for coffee so I could clear my head a bit when Ron walked into the office looking pissed.

  Before he even opened his mouth, my heart sank.

  “It happened again. This time it was two kids driving home after a late shift at the French bistro in town.” He shook his head and started tapping something on his phone and then handed it to me to look at. The headline said it all.

  Sheriff’s Department’s Racially Biased Traffic Stops: New Ithaca Trend?

  “I knew it. I fucking knew this would happen,” I said through gritted teeth. Cindy looked at the phone and sighed.

  Ron gave her a hard look and took his phone back. “We need to do something. Day clearly has not dealt with this at all if it happened again in less than two weeks.”

  I ran my hands over my head, intensely aware that Cindy had so far not said a word.

  “Cin, go to the gym. I’ll deal with this.” My tone was sharp, but I was starting to run out of patience at how nonchalant she was being. Were we supposed to just let this escalate and do nothing?

  “Do not do anything impulsive, Easton.”

  That one hurt, because even if in my personal life I was a bit reactive, I never ever did anything that could hurt my work. But again, she was the boss, not me. “I will be cautious of how I approach this, but I need to sit down with Day.” By this point I was mostly talking to Ron. “I’m still convinced there is a way to address this without blowing everything up.”

  She looked from me to Ron, who seemed like he was actively trying not to punch a wall. “Fine. I need to get out of there before I break all the promises I made to Lorainne about taking it easy. Please do not make any statements on behalf of this office until we’ve spoken with Day. Again, these are routine traffic stops.”

  Ron scoffed at that, earning an unfriendly look from Cindy. “You’re entitled to your opinion, Ron, but while you are speaking for this office you will refrain from making statements about the sheriff’s department actions.” I squeezed the back of my neck hard, hoping this didn’t turn into a shouting match, but after a moment Ron nodded.

  “Yes ma’am, but it’s not my imagination that this sudden hike in stops of black and brown kids is a very concerning trend.”

  Cindy stopped at the door and sighed again. “We agree on that.” She turned to me. “Easton, set up a meeting with Day. We need to at least hear from him about what the fuck he’s planning to do with these assholes in his department.”

  Ron cracked a smile at that, and I waved her off. “I’ll call Day, and this time he’s going to have to talk to me.” With that Cindy walked out. I turned to look at Ron who had his phone screen practically pressed to his face.

  “Oh shit.”

  “What?” I asked, as I moved over to see what he was looking at with a weird mix of dread and delight.

  “Look at this.”

  He handed me his phone. I wasn’t really on social media, so when I saw Patrice’s face in the tiny circle on the left side of the screen my heart started pounding. His handle was @AyitienProf and his tweet with a timestamp from ten minutes ago was incendiary.

  Fuck.

  Young black and brown men continue to be harassed on the roads of this county as they try to work and study.

  Those of you who are responsible for putting a stop to this: do your jobs. We’re waiting.

  “What is this?”

  Ron looked at me like I needed to get with the program.

  “That’s Patrice Denis, he’s—”

  “I know who he is, Ron! I’m just asking what that tweet is about. I mean obviously it’s about the stops, but—You know what? Never mind. I get it.”

  Ron seemed a bit put off by my outburst, but he just talked over me.

  “You need to get on Twitter. Denis is pretty well known on Black Twitter.”

  “What?”

  Ron sighed and I couldn’t tell if he was losing his patience or just felt sorry for my lack of social media prowess.

  “It is not a separate Twitter, it’s just there are a lot of writers, journalists, academics or just people who tweet about racial justice and Denis has been pretty active in the past couple of years. He has a big following, and he does not mince words. He was pretty vocal about some of the stuff happening in New York City when he was down there, and it looks like he’s not shutting down his account now that he’s up here.” He sounded a little bit too giddy at that prospect as my own mood sank some more.

  Excellent.

  Looked like this would put even the possibility of friendship out the window.

  And how unprofessional was that? I needed to be thinking about how to deal with a situation that was escalating, not how I would stay friends with Patrice.

  I handed Ron his phone back and went to my desk.

  “If Day doesn’t take my call I’m going to go see him. I’m not impressed at all with his ghosting us.” Day and I had worked together for years and he was usually a reliable guy, or at least honest about what he could and could not do. This disappearing act was extremely concerning and not a good look.

  Ron nodded as he moved to the door. “I’ll do a little more digging around and ask the IPD guys what they’ve heard of who’s being problematic. I’ll call up Tony too.”

  Tony was a deputy sheriff we worked closely with on our sexual abuse cases and he was definitely going to have some insight on what was going on.

  “That sounds good. Thanks. I hope we can deal with this before it happens again.”

  The look he gave me clearly said, “You and me both.”

  Chapter Five

  Patrice

  “Bruh, the school’s paying for the movers? Damn. You stuntin’ for real.”

  I smiled at Nesto as we stood in my apartment watching two guys place my new couch in the middle of the living room. It was Wednesday afternoon and I’d been dealing with movers since I’d finished my morning class.

 
“They told me a set amount I can spend. They don’t give me cash, just reimburse receipts. So, I figured I might as well spend it and get some professionals instead of trying to bribe you, Jude and Ari with beer and pizza,” I said after I handed one of them a tip and thanked them for hauling all my stuff for the last couple of hours.

  Nesto chuckled and looked over at Ari and Yin, who were in my kitchen unpacking plates and glasses. My mom had gone a little overboard with getting me stuff for the apartment once I got the job, and before I left New York I had boxes of housewares from her. Not that I was complaining—I hated shopping and she had great taste.

  Nesto must have guessed what I was thinking because he grinned at me and started for the kitchen. “Odette really did the most, damn,” he said, as he peered into one of the boxes on the kitchen island. “Are those champagne flutes?”

  I nodded as he gently picked up one of my twelve brand-new glasses. “Yep, she got me a dozen. You know how she is.”

  My mother. I loved her, but she was a lot. She was always so preoccupied with appearances. I knew it was her way of showing people that she was worthy of respect, that she wasn’t relying on the government or whatever. Her way of making people think twice before they made assumptions about her or me.

  It was endless though. The house had to look perfect, she had to look perfect, son had to be perfect. She made sure that there was never a reason for someone to look down on her, if she could help it. Before they could focus on her black skin and make judgements, they’d see her lovely clothes and perfect makeup. They’d hear about her son the Cornell professor and her thriving business.

  They’d see her immaculate home.

  It was how she coped with everything we’d been through when we first got here. As long as she could shut people up by showing them who she was, she would do it. It was an exhausting way to live and one I still struggled not to fall into.

  “Yo, where did you go to, man?”

  I snapped my head back and saw Nesto, Ari and Yin looking at me.

  “Sorry, Nes. I just started thinking. My mom did get me a lot of stuff,” I said, running my hands over my head.