The Submission - Amy Waldman [63]
“So,” Paul Rubin said, “what can I do for you?”
It was eight-fifteen in a coffee shop on Madison Avenue. Sean had spent two weeks trying to get a meeting with Rubin; he wanted to impress on him his committee’s, and his family’s, opposition to the Garden. In frustration—and perhaps in competition with the anti-Islam group picketing Khan’s home, which was where Sean got the idea—he had his committee members set up their own picket on Rubin’s block. SAVE THE MEMORIAL, their signs said. NO VICTORY GARDEN. Along with pressuring Rubin, the picket offered a useful outlet for Sean’s growing and increasingly agitated membership. He now had nearly 250 family members and retired firefighters dropping by his parents’ house or sitting around, all amped up and waiting for deployment. Making calls to elected officials wasn’t exactly red meat. So he had the picket manned around the clock, other than a furlough between midnight and 6:00 a.m. Some of the guys told him it reminded them of working down at the site, although Sean didn’t see how hoisting a sign on an Upper East Side sidewalk could compare.
At last Rubin’s smarmy assistant called to say that the chairman would squeeze him in for breakfast, but Sean shouldn’t be late. He arrived on time, settled into a booth, then waited fifteen minutes for Rubin, who peremptorily relocated them to a window table for more privacy.
The place looked ordinary to Sean, but the prices weren’t: five bucks for half a grapefruit, twelve for a bagel and cream cheese. Lots of men in fancy tracksuits, women who appeared to subsist on grapefruit halves alone.
“Isn’t that—”
“Yes,” Rubin said. He was, even at this hour, in his bow tie. “Politicians love this place. So what can I do for you?”
“What you can do for me—”
“The usual,” Rubin said. The waiter had come for their order.
“Uh, three eggs, bacon, coffee, juice,” Sean said. “White toast. So, what you can do for me—”
A busboy, with water.
“What you can do for me—”
“Let me rephrase that,” Rubin said, as their coffee was poured. “I’m always eager for the families’ input, as you know, but there’s a formal process in place now, and there will be a hearing for you to express your sentiments on the design. So what did you feel couldn’t be conveyed—”
A silver-haired man stopped by the table to shake Paul’s hand. “I have great confidence in the outcome because you’re handling this, Paul. I wouldn’t want anyone else in charge.”
“Thanks, Bruce, I appreciate that.” Sean was not introduced. He felt himself in the camp of the enemy—not Muslims but the people born with silver sticks up their asses, the people who had made Manhattan a woman too good to give Sean her phone number.
Bruce gone, Sean tilted across the table. “How the hell did this happen?”
“And you’re referring to what, exactly?”
“Come on. Mohammad Khan. His Islamic garden.”
“That’s not how he refers to it.”
“No, it’s how I’m referring to it. Don’t play games with me, with us.”
“How did it happen? Was that what you asked? As I recall, people like you—you, the families—you wanted a competition, a democratic exercise everyone could participate in. And so everyone did.”
“That’s not who we meant by everyone.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“But it should. You think we’ll stand for a Muslim memorial? I should have been on the jury. This never would have happened.”
“We have a family member on the jury, as you well know, Sean, and we’re not open to new members at this time.” He made it sound like a country club.
“She’s not representing us—Claire,” Sean said.
“You mean she’s not taking dictation from you? That’s not her role. Does your congressman do everything you want? She’s on the jury to convey your desires—and those of many other relatives, who may or may not agree with you—to the jurors. Not as a puppet. She’s her own woman.”
“Yeah, well, the governor’s ours.”
“Then you should have nothing to worry about. But politics are rarely as simple as they look, Sean, and the bylaws written for this process are quite complicated as well: the governor