by Lindsey Kelk
‘Can we do it?’ She chewed, swallowed and stared at Jenny. ‘You might as well work here. Seems like I’ll take in any damn waif or stray.’
‘I’m the best damn employee you have,’ Jenny cried, slapping her hand on the desk. ‘Kinda. But, yes! You could totally work here. As my bitch.’
‘Thanks.’ Bless her. ‘But you have already got a bitch, and I’m not sure the government will let me stay in the country to be your general dogsbody. I’ll totally ask the lawyer, though. I could always be someone else’s bitch.’
‘So what do you actually need to do?’ she asked. ‘Is there, like, a list? Something we can tick off?’
‘Another question for the lawyer,’ I replied. ‘There must be loads of different visas, right? Loads. I must be eligible for at least one.’
Jenny picked herself up off the desk and bounced back into her chair. ‘Well, I’m not worried,’ she announced. ‘Not at all.’
I was glad someone wasn’t. Erin certainly looked concerned.
‘No, really. You’re super-smart, you’re super-talented,’ she said, ticking off my fantastic attributes on her fingers. ‘You’re ambitious, you’re cute, and it’s not like you’re claiming welfare or anything. You’re a lock. Angela Clark, you are the American dream. There’s just no reason not to give you a visa.’
Well, when you put it like that, what on earth was I worrying about?
CHAPTER THREE
‘Basically, there’s just no reason to give you a visa.’
Oh.
Erin’s lawyer, Lawrence, was indeed hot. Tall, dark, handsome. Looked like he spent all day in the courtroom defending sick orphans before going to the gym to bench-press murderers and sweat out all the injustice in the world before rescuing a puppy on his way home. But it turned out that didn’t make the news any easier to take. In fact, it made me a little bit angry. He looked like he ought to be selling me aftershave, not telling me I’m a pointless mooch who shouldn’t be allowed outside the M25, let alone into America. Possibly I was paraphrasing.
‘I’m a writer,’ I ventured. ‘I only want to stay here and write.’
‘So you say,’ he said, templing his big hands under his chin and giving me a level stare. ‘And if you’re a successful writer, you could apply for an 0-1, which means you’re an alien of extraordinary ability. Are you a successful writer?’
‘Define successful.’
‘The 0–1 visa is a non-immigrant visa available to foreign nationals with extraordinary ability in the field of arts, science, education, business or athletics. The applicant must be experienced in their field and indicate that she or he is among the few individuals who have risen to the very top in their field of endeavour.’
‘You didn’t even need to look in a book,’ I breathed. And there were loads of books in his office. Loads.
Lawrence the Lawyer did not crack a smile. ‘So, are you successful?’
‘It’s possible I might not quite meet that definition.’
‘So, next.’ He didn’t even blink. ‘You’re a journalist, that’s correct?’
‘Sort of.’ I didn’t feel entirely right confirming or denying. I hadn’t done any journalisting for a while. Possibly because I was calling it journalisting.
‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ Lawrence replied. ‘Which means you could apply for a media visa. That’s actually a considerably simpler process.’
Oh! Things were looking up!
‘Yes,’ I nodded, excited. ‘How do I get that one?’
‘You go back to London, find a media outlet prepared to give you a contract that says they will be paying you to work in America for between one and five years, and then apply at your embassy.’
‘I have a column for a magazine,’ I offered. ‘Would that be enough?’
‘Perhaps.’ He considered his reply. ‘It would need to be enough to financially support you. And you would need to put together a portfolio of work and get several letters of recommendation from peers in your field.’
I was suddenly less excited. What The Lookpaid me was not enough to financially support a chimp.
‘And then you would need to go back to the UK, interview at the embassy and stay in your home country while your application is processed.’
‘For how long?’ I hoped they had Ferrero Rocher at the embassy.
‘Upwards of ninety days.’
Shit. Three months in the same country as my mother. Not happening.
‘There’s no way of getting it without going back to London?’
‘No.’
‘And I’d have to get all that other stuff?’
‘Yes. The contract, the financial evidence, the letters of recommendation and the portfolio of work.’
I thought for a moment. Maybe I was extraordinary. I’d interviewed a proper celebrity, I’d had a column in a magazine, been sent to Paris for a magazine and managed to get a boy in a band to stop shagging other women. If that wasn’t extraordinary, what was?
‘Tell me about the 0-1 again?’
Lawrence the Lawyer gave me a stern look. ‘Quite honestly, Miss Clark, if you’re questioning your ability to get a media visa, I really wouldn’t even consider wasting your money on applying for the 0-1. An example question from the application would be “have you ever won an Academy Award or equivalent”.’
Damn it, I knew I’d regret not taking drama A level one day.
‘Is a Blue Peter badge an equivalent?’
‘A what?’
‘Never mind.’ I didn’t have a Blue Peter badge anyway. ‘So there are no other relevant visas I could apply for? My friend said I could work at her PR company.’
I looked at the lawyer. The lawyer looked at me. I gave him my best ‘Please don’t kick me out the country’ look. He gave me his best ‘Are you really going to make me say it?’ face.
‘I wouldn’t pursue “the friend” option,’ he said. ‘Obviously, one other option would be if you were to marry a resident, then you could start the spousal application process, but there’s no guarantee it would be granted. The INS don’t look kindly on fraudulent marriages.’
‘INS?’ The bastards who wrote The Letter.
‘Immigration and Naturalization Services,’ he sighed. We were fast approaching ‘wasting my time’ territory. ‘Look, Miss Clark, if I were you, I’d go back to the UK and do some research. And some serious thinking. Maybe now isn’t the right time for you to be applying for a US visa. Maybe you should be concentrating on your career. Working on a reason as to why the US government should want to have you here.’
‘I’m very nice,’ I offered.
‘I’m sure you are.’ Lawrence the Lawyer stood up and gestured towards the door. ‘Unfortunately nice isn’t an extraordinary ability.’
‘Really?’ Bloody well felt like it was at that exact moment.
‘Thank you, Miss Clark,’ he said, sitting back down before I’d even left the office. ‘I hope to see you again soon.’
‘That’s because I just paid two hundred dollars to be told I’m a pointless sack of shit,’ I muttered under my breath on the way to the lift. The next time I wanted to pay to feel horrible about myself, I’d just go to Abercrombie & Fitch to try on jeans.
By the time I got back to Williamsburg, it was already dark and my Christmas tree was all lit up, sparkling happily in a corner. Illuminating the shithole we lived in. My cleaning spree hadn’t been that thorough and it had been cut somewhat short by the whole INS-trying-to-ruin-my-life thing. Besides, there was no point trying to keep the place tidy now – Alex was home. In the space of time it had taken me to go out, meet the girls and see the lawyer, he’d taken over the apartment again. Record sleeves, empty cans of root beer and various items of discarded clothing strewn all over the apartment declared Alex was in the building. The queen put up a flag to let people know she was home; Alex Reid left a half-empty pizza box on the coffee table and a pair of skinny jeans over the back of the settee. But not even knowing he was here could cheer me up. Th
e sight of Alex sparked out on the settee in his pants almost raised a smile, but the thought of having to go back to a country that didn’t have Alex in it, pants or no pants – particularly no pants – wiped that smile right off my face.
‘There’s a way around this,’ I told myself quietly, opening and closing kitchen cupboard doors. Food. Food would make it better. ‘I just don’t know what it is yet.’
‘Don’t know what what is?’ a sleepy voice asked from the other side of the room.
‘What’s for dinner,’ I fudged, not really knowing why. ‘What do you fancy?’
‘Whatever.’ Alex’s head popped up over the back of the sofa. ‘You wanna go out?’
I leaned backwards against the kitchen counter. His hair was pushed all over one side of his face and his eyes were still half closed. No one wore jet lag better. In that moment, everything just became very real. What if I couldn’t get a new visa? What if I had to leave in four weeks? All of a sudden, getting down on my hands and knees and begging the boy to marry me didn’t seem so bad. Definitely better than the alternative. A lifetime of looking at that face, hearing that voice, or fifty-plus years of Dairylea Lunchables, paying the TV licence and arguing with the council over how often they came to empty the wheelie bin.
‘Whatever you want to do,’ I said, turning back to the cupboards and feigning interest in an outdated packet of tortillas to hide the fact that I was this close to bursting into tears. Oh my God, what was I doing? Why was I risking this? Alex was the most amazing man I had ever met. I loved him, and the thought of spending a single day without him made me want to punch a kitten. And I loved kittens.
‘Maybe we should just get a pizza,’ he pondered. ‘I missed pizza. And I missed you. Where have you been hiding all day?’
‘Hmm?’ My voice was too thick and unreliable to answer with actual words. This was ridiculous. The more I thought about leaving, the more I wanted to marry Alex. And it had nothing to do with needing a visa and everything to do with the fact that I loved the arse off that man. Except that now there was a visa issue, any discussion of a wedding would be visa-related. If I asked him, even if he asked me, it would be about the visa, regardless of how I felt. There was no way around this. If I had finished reading Catch-22, I would absolutely without doubt know for sure that this was a catch-22 situation. Cock. ‘I was just doing visa stuff.’
‘Visa stuff?’
‘’S complicated,’ I replied, drifting out of the kitchen and into the bathroom. I ran the cold tap and held my wrists under the water. ‘I, uh, my visa expired so I had to see a lawyer.’
‘But you’re getting the new visa, right?’ He sounded slightly concerned. ‘There’s no problem?’
I took a deep breath in and pushed it out slowly through pursed lips. Crying wasn’t going to help. ‘There are a few different ones I could apply for, but, well, it’s not going to be as easy as I’d hoped it might be.’
‘Oh.’ He appeared at the bathroom door. Half naked and half asleep. Just the way I liked him. ‘Anything I can do?’
Marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me.
I leaned over to give him a light kiss, then turned back to the sink. There was no way I was leaving New York. Just no way.
‘What could you do?’ I asked.
Marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, pushing my hair out of my face and giving it a tug. ‘There was this guy on our lighting crew once and he needed, like, letters of recommendation? I could write a letter.’
‘Recommending me for what exactly?’
He raised an eyebrow and gave me a heart-stopping smile.
‘Pretty sure that won’t count towards me being an “extraordinary alien”,’ I replied. ‘As far as I know.’
‘I think you’re extraordinary.’ Alex took my hand out from under the cold tap. I’d been so preoccupied with looking at his face, I’d forgotten it was there. ‘That’s got to count for something.’
Only if you marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me.
‘Counts for everything with me,’ I replied. ‘Not so much with the INS.’
‘Those sons of bitches.’
For a moment everything froze. Alex looked at me with his big green eyes, suddenly serious. I stared back with my baby blues, hoping they weren’t bloodshot or panda-like. He held my hand tightly and cleared his throat. I held my breath. Oh. My. God.
‘Angela,’ he started slowly. ‘I don’t want you to leave. You know that, don’t you?’
‘I do now,’ I squeezed his hand. ‘And you know I don’t want to leave.’
‘I do now,’ he said. ‘I want you here. With me.’
I nodded, a giant lump in my throat stopping any words from actually escaping. Probably my subconscious trying to stop me cocking this up. Clever subconscious.
‘I love you.’
‘Mm-hmm.’
‘This is it for me. You and me, this is it. Everything’s going to be OK, right? With the visa?’
This wasit. This was my chance to show him the letter, to tell him I only had four weeks to find a way to stay. Simple as that. Except it wasn’t. My blood pressure soared and then crashed. It was too much pressure. It wasn’t fair. Basically, I was still too scared that he’d run for the hills. Brilliant.
‘Mmm-hmm.’
‘It’ll all be fine.’ He let go of my hand and pulled me into a hug. ‘You’ll find a way.’
I breathed out, gasping for air. He broke the hug and kissed me on the forehead.
‘Now, let me find some pants and we’ll go eat. Sound good?’
‘Sounds bloody brilliant,’ I replied. ‘Pants. Dinner. Done.’
He gave me a self-satisfied smile and sauntered off towards the bedroom.
Bloody hell.
‘And so we had to drag his ass out of there before her dad took his head off with a sword.’ Alex shook his head and inhaled another taco. ‘Seriously, the guy had a sword. After that, Graham didn’t let him out of his sight the whole trip. He was like, grounded for a month.’
‘Oh, Craig.’ I stirred my drink with my fourth straw. I’d already dropped two and snapped one. It was safe to say I was distracted. ‘He really shouldn’t be allowed out on his own, ever.’
‘Yeah, we should have known better than to take him to Japan. The groupies were insane.’ Alex expertly inhaled half a taco in one mouthful.
‘Wow.’
‘And since Graham is gay, I had to deal with all of them,’ he went on. ‘So many groupies. Seriously. I thought it was gonna kill me.’
‘Yeah?’ I stared out of the window of La Esquina, watching Williamsburg walk by, trying to commit it all to memory.
‘Yeah, sometimes there were a hundred a night.’
‘Wow.’
‘You’re just not listening, are you?’
‘What? With the what?’ It was possible that my inability to string a sentence together was going to damage my plan to get a visa based on my talent as a writer.
‘I thought I was the one who was supposed to be out of it,’ Alex said, looking towards my plate and giving me a hopeful look. ‘You gonna eat that?’
I pushed it towards him and leaned back in my chair. Jet lag made him into a complete pig. It was ridiculously cute. But no matter how happy I was to have him home and to be consuming my own body weight in Mexican food, I was distracted. I stuck my hand in my knackered MJ bag to check the time on my phone but instead found a text from Jenny.
‘911, call me!’
I looked over at Alex, who was happily truffling up my leftover fajitas. I had time to make a call.
‘Jenny wants me to ring her – I’ll just be a sec.’ I stood up as Alex nodded, merrily piling as much food as humanly possible into a flour tortilla. Happy as a clam. Not that I could see why stupid clams were so happy. Plucked out of the ocean where they wereperfectly happy and dropped in some pasta sauce. Stupid saying. Stupid clams. Anyway, Jenny …
‘Hi, are
you OK?’ I stepped outside into the chill night air and watched my breath appear in a bright white puff. ‘Is everything OK?’
‘It’s fine,’ she answered immediately. ‘Jesus, calm down.’
‘You said 911.’ I hugged my arms around myself. Jesus Christ, it was cold. I could actually hear my mum in my head asking where my coat was. Inside. On the back of my chair. As opposed to when I was sweating like a bastard wearing it in Jenny’s office. Sigh. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Yeah, the house isn’t burning down, I just need a favour,’ she said, yawning. ‘I’m running an event tomorrow night, just like a cocktail party for one of our fashion clients, and we’re down a waitress. Bitch I hired quit to go to some shitty audition.’
I pursed my lips. ‘I don’t see how this relates to me.’
‘Because you’re broke as shit?’
I was broke as shit.
‘You want me to waitress for you?’ Was this a brilliant friend doing me a brilliant favour or a new low? I wasn’t sure. ‘At a cocktail party?’
‘Yeah,’ Jenny confirmed. ‘It’ll be great. It’s super-low key, just a couple of hours in an awesome apartment in Tribeca. It won’t even be like work. You’ll just be hanging out with super-cool people including moifor a couple of hours and leaving with a couple of hundred dollars in your back pocket.’
Brilliant favour?
‘And it’s a Christmas party. You love Christmas, right?’
OK, brilliant favour.
‘It’s just handing out champagne when people come in. Literally. That’s it.’
Still a favour, though.
‘And, uh, I have something I need you to wear.’
Ah-ha.
‘It’s cute, though.’
‘What is it, Jenny?’
‘It’s super-cute. Just say you’ll do it. You’ll be saving my life.’
I tried to think back to when I’d seen waitresses in super-cute outfits but kept coming up with blanks. Mostly because I’d never seen a waitress in a super-cute outfit. But Jenny needed my help and I needed the money – there really was no other answer.
‘Of course I’ll do it,’ I said, ignoring her slightly too loud expression of surprise. ‘Just text me the address and I’ll be there.’