American Love Story (Dreamers)

by Adriana Herrera

  Debating on whether I should clue her in on what was going through my head or let her find out what I was actually doing once it came out of my mouth like everyone else, I went with “I’m beginning to feel handled, and I don’t like that.”

  “Easton—” she began, but I held up my hand, not wanting to hear her once again explain why my being the next DA would be the salvation on the entire town. “Cindy, I need to do whatever is best for me, as well as for this office. I will not be the DA so that you can continue to run things by proxy.” I ran my hands over my face in frustration when I saw how hurt she seemed by my words. I ran my tongue over my front teeth a few times, trying hard to say what I needed to say in a way that didn’t break her heart.

  “I need to do this my way. You put me in a terrible position by announcing my candidacy alongside the Suarez conviction.”

  She sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Lorraine is pissed with me, too.”

  “Of course she is,” I protested, unable to muster any humor.

  “I just wanted to give you a push. I know how much this town needs you. I was a decent DA, but I’m not even half the trial lawyer you are.”

  “Cindy, being DA is about a lot more than trials.”

  She nodded as she tightened an arm around my waist. “You’re good with people and I think you have the political courage to do a few things I could not. You’d be an outstanding DA.”

  I shook my head and lifted my wrist to look at the time. “I need to be in the conference room for this interview, why don’t you walk me down.”

  As we made our way down the stairs I stopped so I could look at Cindy. “It’s not that I don’t want it, but I need to be in control of my path. If I wanted to be in an environment where someone else held the reins of my life, I would’ve gone to work for my father.”

  The color rising on her cheeks told me she’d finally understood just how much she’d fucked up with me. “Don’t worry I still like you a lot better than him.”

  She scoffed. “Glad to hear I still make it above that extremely low bar.” She frowned as we made our way down the stairs again. “No matter what you do I’ll support you.”

  I smiled at her as we got to the conference room. “It’s killing you not to be able to make me give you a straight answer?”

  She pinched my cheek. “You think you’re cute.”

  “Not cute enough to keep a boyfriend though.”

  She waved her hand around as if I was talking nonsense. “You’re a keeper. Never ever doubt that. Let’s hope the stunner gets his head out of his ass, and does right by you.” She clicked her tongue regretfully, and for a second it felt like it usually was between us. “There’s just been a lot of letting you down going around.”

  I shook my head as she straightened my tie. “You didn’t—”

  “Yeah I did. I let you down, and we’ll need to figure out how to come back from it. Now, go.”

  This time, I did give her a hug and hoped that we could. I walked into the conference room and quickly went to shake hands with the two journalists from the Ithaca Star. I’d done enough of these to know the drill, so within seconds the camera was rolling and a very young-looking Latinx woman was getting on with the interview.

  “Thank you for sitting with us today, ADA Archer.”

  I nodded and gave her the full, veneer smile. “My pleasure, and it’s Easton, please.”

  She gave me a short nod and raised an eyebrow like she was not planning to pull any punches. “You’ve had an eventful couple of weeks. The jury voted to convict in the assault case of Ms. Suarez, and on that same day your intention to run for district attorney was announced.” She said it in a tone I couldn’t figure out, but whatever it was there was a lot of sarcasm there.

  I nodded in response to her comment, as she launched into the next part of her question. “You’ve been operating as the interim DA now for a few of months, and know how things work. Can you tell me why you think you should be the next District Attorney?”

  I shifted in the chair I was sitting in and angled my head, figuring out how to get out what I needed to say.

  “Before I tell you about all the ways that I have been a great ADA, I want to talk about ways in which I need to do much better.”

  She leaned in closer at my answer, her eyes trained on my face, as if not wanting to miss a single word of whatever was about to come out of my mouth.

  “In the past couple of months a concerning trend of incidents have been occurring in our county. Young men of color, especially black men, have been the subject of an unusually high number of traffic stops. Most of those have gone on without incident, but a couple of weeks ago a young man who was stopped with two other friends was hospitalized.”

  I shook my head, still so shaken by the facts around that incident. “Even though that young man was in the middle of a severe asthma attack triggered by the stress of being stopped, he was too scared to reach into his pocket and get his inhaler.” She nodded at my words in encouragement, and I obliged, feeling like it was finally time to be honest.

  “I can’t imagine what it’s like to be so scared you’d rather risk losing consciousness than make a sudden movement and chance getting shot. And what that tells me is that no matter what we may think about the intentions of our law enforcement, we need to face the fact that we are not immune to what has been going on around our country. If we can’t take a moment to be honest with ourselves and the biases that exist within our institutions, then we are failing the public we are supposed to be serving.”

  I shifted again in my seat, and tried to focus on something on the far side of the wall so I could say what I needed to say. “When I say ‘we’ I want to be clear, I very much mean me. I should’ve been more vocal when the stops began to happen more frequently. I should’ve challenged myself and my colleagues to find a way to publicly talk about why they were happening. To deal with the reality that these stops don’t feel routine to black and brown young men, they feel like life-or-death situations. That for certain communities in our county, contact with the criminal justice system feels dangerous and at times like the opposite of justice. We have to be courageous enough to say we’ve failed in this.”

  “That’s a pretty self-recriminating statement. Can you tell me more about that?”

  I needed to say this, I could not move forward unless I did.

  “It’s the truth and I’m disappointed in myself for not opening my eyes to this until it happened to someone I care about.”

  Her eyes kept getting bigger and I really was starting to worry they’d pop out of her head. But I had to keep talking until I was done. I also wanted Patrice to hear this, to know that I’d finally understood what he’d been trying to tell me, even if his way of relaying the message made it hard for me to hear it.

  “Last week someone I love was stopped by the police,” I said as my interviewer gasped like she was at the intense part of a movie. “I was talking to him on the phone when it happened. I’d called him to ask why he was so far behind, and teased him about how cautious he was when driving.” She grimaced at that, as if she knew what happened next.

  I cleared my throat and relaxed my muscles like I did whenever I was in court and I knew I had the last shot at driving my point home. “When he told me he was being stopped by the police I thought to myself, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been this terrified.’ The first thing he did was switch our call to FaceTime, and I knew he was scared for what would happen and wanted someone to be able to witness the stop.” I shook my head, remembering how frantic those moments felt. When Patrice told me he feared I’d live with the guilt of something happening to him.

  “It’s so wrong that anyone has to feel like that. I’ve told myself a million times that the people I know and work alongside every day in this county are good people, and they are. But there is another reality, people of color fear for what cou
ld happen to them when they’re stopped by police, and you only have to do a quick Google search to find more than enough tragedies all over the country to warrant that fear. Both those things are happening at the same time, and one of those two groups hold a lot of the power to shift that reality.”

  I tried to keep my face neutral as I always did in crucial moments, but my heart was pounding. I knew that with every word I said I was probably making another enemy. “Denying the reality of what our neighbors experience will not make us safer. We need to do better. I need to do better, and there is a lot that I have to learn. I don’t think I’ve done the work yet to be the kind of DA this county needs, so today I’m officially withdrawing my candidacy for District Attorney.”

  I sat there smiling woodenly and waiting for my very stunned interviewer to react. After a second she blinked and finally got with it. “That is a very bold statement, since so far there had been no mention of these incidents. Is your partner all right?”

  I smiled at her genuine concern. “He’s not my partner, but yes he is all right.” I was certain the wistfulness in my voice had not gone unnoticed.

  She extended her hand and for the first time in the meeting she gave me a real smile. “Thank you, Easton, for being so honest today. I hope you reconsider your run, I think your point of view will add a lot to the conversation.”

  With that the camera was off my face, indicating we were done.

  As I thanked her once again she gave me a knowing look. “Was the person you were talking about Patrice Denis?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  She laughed and shook her head, looking a little embarrassed. “Don’t worry, this part is off the record. I’ve just seen you guys around town together, and since he was just stopped recently and said someone intervened, I put two and two together.”

  I just nodded, not sure how to respond. “Yeah, I was talking about him. When is this going up?” I asked, wondering how much more time I had before my life got really upended for a few days.

  She turned around to look at the kid with the camera. He considered for a moment, his attention still on the laptop in front of him. “It’ll be up by the end of the day.”

  I left it at that and walked out of the room, hoping that if my career in the DA’s office went down in flames, that I’d at least done the right thing.

  Patrice

  I was getting my stuff together to leave my office after a particularly brutal grading session, when I saw my phone screen flashing with Ari’s number. So far things had been calm with him. He’d been mostly staying at Yin’s house for the past week. The new development to his housing situation was that they’d both be moving to the studio in my building in a couple of days. The levels of excitement they had for this big step in their relationship, at least on Yin’s side, were reaching rapture-like intensity. And of course my mind went to Easton’s help, which had really been a game-changer for Ari.

  I answered the call, thinking once again that I needed to figure out how to reach out to him.

  “Hey—”

  He didn’t let me get the full greeting in before screaming into the phone, “Did you see the video?” He was so hyped up I couldn’t tell if the video was supposed to be a bad or a good thing.

  I frowned, wondering if there had been another stop. I quickly opened another tab on my browser and went to the Ithaca Star’s website since they usually put stuff up really fast, but when I got to the homepage my heart almost beat out of my chest. There was a video up and the face behind the play icon was none other than Easton’s.

  The headline to the article read, Easton Archer Withdraws from DA Race and Speaks about Recent Traffic Stops.

  I only realized I’d been holding my breath when I heard Ari’s voice calling my name loudly. I shook myself out of the trance I was in and answered, as I tried to read the article at the same time. “Sorry. I was looking at the Star’s website. Easton pulled out of the race?”

  “Sounds like it, but you should see the video, Patrice. He talks about you, without giving names of course,” he said, as if he knew what I’d get hung up on. “You won’t believe all the stuff he said, I wonder if it’s going to affect his job?” Ari’s astonishment made me hit play on the video, my heart racing as the camera zoomed in on Easton’s face. He had smudges under his eyes like he did when he was not getting any sleep, and my heart lurched knowing I was at least partly responsible for that.

  I spoke into the phone as the woman in the video introduced Easton. “Ari, let me call you back, okay?”

  “Sure, P. We’ll talk later.”

  I ended the call and increased the volume as she asked the first questions. With every word he said, the need to go and talk to him, to see him, went from an urge to an absolute need. By the time he told the interviewer that he hadn’t done the work to be a DA yet, I had my coat on and was slinging my backpack on my shoulder. When I stepped out into the cold November air, I thought about the things Easton said in that interview, the way he took responsibility for his actions. He had always done that, owned his mistakes.

  I got into my car and set up the phone so that I could listen to the interview one more time. As I made the short drive to my building I thought about all the ways that Easton had put himself out on the line in our relationship. How he stayed hopeful and open even when I told him over and over we could never work. What Priscilla told me was true, I’d let the fear of letting someone in shut me off from really leaning in to the things that brought me joy.

  Even in the moments where I was fully with Easton I let the dread of wondering when the other shoe would drop steal my happiness. Now here I was, having probably cheated myself out of something amazing. I didn’t know if Easton would be up for giving me one more chance. I would not blame him if he didn’t. But I swore I would not let him spend one more day thinking that he wasn’t enough for me.

  By the time I was walking into the elevator I started wondering if Easton even wanted to see me. Still I made myself move. I took a couple of breaths and I tapped in the code to the penthouse floor.

  The elevator for Easton’s place basically left you at his door, in a small hallway. Stepping out of it, I felt like I was the creepiest fucker on earth. I stood there like an asshole, in front of his door, deciding between calling him or going back to my place and texting him to ask if I was okay for me to come by. I must’ve been more pressed than I thought, because Easton’s voice coming from the end of the hallway made me jump like a foot in the air.

  “What are you doing here?” I turned to see him walking toward me carrying some folded up cardboard boxes.

  “Are you moving?” As soon as the question came out of my mouth, I realized how fucking stupid it was, and by the incredulous look Easton was giving me, it seemed like he was having the same thought.

  He paused just beyond the door, and gave me an assessing look. He ran his eyes all over me, but I noticed it wasn’t in the appreciative, flirtatious way he usually did. This was guarded and very far from the warmth I’d become used to. He looked at me like I was someone he had to be careful with, and that, more than anything, finally brought home just how badly I squandered the gifts that Easton had given me.

  That stopped now.

  “I won’t say I’m sorry, because I’ve already done that and continued to act like a clueless jerk. But I do want to say thank you.”

  “You don’t have to thank me for anything, Patrice, everything that happened between you and me was out of free will and my desire to be with you.”

  He was still holding himself tightly, the boxes in a death grip in his hands, and I wanted to move closer. To take them out of his hands and hold him, touch him for the first time in so many days. But I didn’t want to take anything else from Easton that I was not willing to give right back to him.

  I swallowed a couple of times, stuck on the fact that he said “happened.” That he was talkin
g about us as if it was all in the past, and I let myself feel that.

  It hurt.

  “I do have to thank you. For what you did today, for what you did for me that night.” I shook my head, trying hard to find the right words, the ones Easton needed to hear from me. “I was humiliated and scared that night. I felt so fucking angry that I had to be in that situation, that these things keep happening. But it was not right to take all that out on you.” I closed my eyes for this last part because I was afraid of what I’d see when I said it. “Because you were right, I would’ve done the same. If our roles had been reversed I would’ve done anything I could to get you out of that situation.”

  When I opened my eyes I saw him dip his head in acknowledgment, but still his lips were sealed. Easton was no longer open to me. I’d lost that.

  I needed to pour my soul out right in this hallway, because for some reason Easton was still willing to let my sorry ass waste his time. I took one deep breath and lifted my eyes to his face, and made sure he saw exactly how much I needed to tell him this.

  “It’s funny. I’ve spent so much energy keeping myself as far away as I could from love that could wound me.” His eyes widened at my words, but still he did not budge. Even with my heart pounding out off my chest. “Except you never hurt me like I’ve hurt you. I let my fears turn me into someone who’s careless with the people he loves.” I shook my head when he gasped and made myself say, “No, not people, you, with you, the man I love.”

  My head and heart were pounding and my mouth was bone-dry, waiting for a reaction from Easton. His throat moved, and he closed his eyes, the boxes still clutched to his chest.

  “Patrice, I understand why you were upset that night. I get it. I just,” he said, moving a little closer to where I was standing, his eyes sad, but there was still just a glimmer of something there that made me hold on to hope. “I can’t keep getting pushed away every time things go awry. My parents have made me feel like I wasn’t enough, my whole life. I can’t do that with you too, no matter how much I love you. I know that you don’t think you and I could ever be on the same side of the things that you fight for—”