by Nicola Yoon
I have to look away from him. I don’t want whatever is happening between us to happen, but it feels like trying to stop the weather from happening.
The doors open and the cool air washes over my skin again. I’m hot and cold at the same time. I open my arms for a hug at the same moment he does. We try to hug each other from the same side and end up bumping chests instead. We laugh awkwardly and stop moving.
“I’m going to go right,” he says. “You go left.”
“Okay,” I say, and go left. He holds me, and since we’re both about the same height my face brushes against his cheek, which is soft and smooth and warm. I let my head drop onto his shoulder and my body relaxes in his arms. For a minute, I let myself feel how tired I am. It’s hard trying to hold on to a place that doesn’t want you. But Daniel does want me. I feel it in the way he holds me tight.
I pull out of his arms and don’t meet his eyes.
He decides not to say whatever he was going to say.
I get out my phone and check the time.
“Time to go,” he says, before I can say it first.
I turn and walk into the cold building.
I think about him as I sign in with security. I think about him as I cross the lobby floor. I think about him in the elevator and down the long hallway and every moment until the moment that I have to stop thinking about him, when I enter the office.
The construction noises I heard over the phone earlier were actually due to construction, because the office is only halfway built. The walls are partly painted, and bare bulbs hang from the ceiling. Sawdust and paint splotches cover the tarped floor. Behind the desk, a woman sits with both hands resting on her office phone, as if she’s willing it to ring. Despite her bright red lipstick and rose-rouged cheeks, she’s very pale. Her hair is deep black and perfectly styled. Something about her doesn’t seem quite real. She seems like she’s playing a part—an extra from an old-school Disney cartoon or from a period movie set in the 1950s that called for secretaries. Her desk is neat, with color-coded stacks of files. There’s a mug that says PARALEGALS DO IT CHEAPER.
She smiles a sad, trembling smile as I approach.
“Do I have the right place?” I ask out loud.
She stares at me mutely.
“Is this Attorney Fitzgerald’s office?” I prompt.
“You’re Natasha,” she says.
She must be the person I spoke with earlier. I approach the desk.
“I have some bad news,” she says. My stomach clenches. I’m not ready for what she’s going to say. Is it over before it’s even begun? Has my fate already been decided? Am I really being deported tonight?
A man in paint-splattered overalls walks in and starts drilling. Someone else I can’t see begins hammering. She doesn’t change her volume to adjust for the noise. I move even closer to the desk.
“Jeremy—Attorney Fitzgerald—was in a car accident an hour ago. He’s still in the hospital. His wife says he’s fine, just a few bruises. But he won’t be back until late this afternoon.”
Her voice sounds normal, but her eyes are anything but. She pulls the phone a little closer and looks at it instead of me.
“But we have an appointment now.” My whine is uncharitable, but I can’t help it. “I really need him to help me.”
Now she does look at me, eyes wide and incredulous. “Didn’t you hear what I said? He was hit by a car. He can’t be here right now.” She pushes a sheaf of forms at me and doesn’t look at me again.
It takes me at least fifteen minutes to fill out the paperwork. On the first form, I answer several variations on the questions of whether I’m a communist, a criminal, or a terrorist and whether I would take up arms to defend the United States. I would not, but still I check the box that says yes.
Another form asks for details about what’s happened in the deportation process so far.
The final form is a client questionnaire that asks me to give a full accounting of my time in the United States. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what Attorney Fitzgerald is looking for. Does he want to know how we entered the country? How we hid? How it feels every time I write down my fake social security number on a school form? How every time I do, I picture my mom getting on that bus to Florida?
Does he want to know how it feels to be undocumented? Or how I keep waiting for someone to find out I don’t belong here at all?
Probably not. He’s looking for facts, not philosophy, so I write them down. We traveled to America on a tourist visa. When it came time for us to leave, we stayed. We have not left the country since. We have committed no crimes, except for my dad’s DUI.
I hand her back the forms and she flips immediately to the client questionnaire. “You need more here,” she says.
“Like what?”
“What does America mean to you? Why do you want to stay? How will you contribute to making America greater?”
“Is that really—”
“Anything Jeremy can use to humanize you will help,” she says.
If people who were actually born here had to prove they were worthy enough to live in America, this would be a much less populated country.
She flips through my other forms as I write about what a hardworking, optimistic, patriotic citizen I would be. I write that America is my home in my heart, and how citizenship will legalize what I already feel. I belong here. In short, I am more sincere than I’m ever comfortable being. Daniel would be proud of me.
Daniel.
He’s probably on a train on his way to his appointment. Will he do the proper thing and become a doctor after all? Will he think of me in the future and remember the girl he spent two hours with one day in New York? Will he wonder whatever happened to me? Maybe he’ll do a Google search using only my first name and not get very far. More likely, though, he’ll forget about me by this evening, as I will certainly forget about him.
The phone rings as I write, and she grabs it before it has a chance to ring twice.
“Oh my God, Jeremy. Are you all right?” She closes her eyes, cradles the phone with both hands, and presses it close to her face. “I wanted to come, but your wife said I should hold down the fort.” Her eyes flick open when she says the word wife.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” The more she listens, the brighter she becomes. Her face flushes and her eyes shine with happy tears.
She’s so obviously in love with him I expect to see heart bubbles floating around the room. Are they having an affair?
“I wanted to come,” she whispers again. After a series of murmured okays, she hangs up the phone. “He’s all right.” She beams. Her whole body is aglow with relief.
“That’s great,” I say.
She takes the forms from my hands. I wait as she reads through them.
“Would you like to hear some good news?” she asks.
Of course I would. I nod slowly.
“I’ve seen lots of cases like this, and I think you’ll be okay.”
I don’t know what I was expecting her to say, but certainly not this.
“You really think he’ll be able to help?” I can hear the hope and skepticism in my own voice.
“Jeremy never loses,” she says, so proudly that she could be talking about herself.
But of course, that can’t be true. Everyone loses something sometime. I should ask her to be more precise, to give me an exact win/loss ratio so I can decide how to feel.
“There’s hope,” she says simply.
Even though I hate poetry, a poem I read for English class pops into my head. “Hope” is the thing with feathers. I understand concretely what that means now. Something inside my chest wants to fly out, wants to sing and laugh and dance with relief.
I thank her and leave the office quickly, before I can ask her something that takes away this feeling. Usually I fall on the side of knowing the truth, even if the truth is bad. It’s not the easiest way of being. Sometimes the truth can hurt more than you expect.
A few weeks ago my parents
were arguing in their bedroom with the door closed. It was one of those rare occasions when my mom actually got angry with my dad to his face. Peter found me eavesdropping outside their door. After they were done arguing, I asked him if he wanted to know what I’d heard, but he didn’t. He said he could tell that whatever I learned was bad, and he didn’t really want any badness in his life just then. At the time I was annoyed with him. But later I thought maybe he’d been right. I wished I could unhear what I’d overheard.
Back in the hallway, I lean my forehead against the wall and hesitate. I debate going back into the office to press her for more details but decide against it. What good will it do? I might as well wait for the official word from the lawyer. Besides, I’m tired of worrying. I know that what she said is not a guarantee. But I need to feel something other than resigned dread. Hope seems like a good substitute.
I consider calling my parents to tell them about this new development, but then I don’t do that either. I have no new information to share. What would I say? A man I don’t know has sent me to see another man I don’t know. A paralegal, who is not a lawyer, whom I also don’t know, says everything might be all right. What’s the use in getting all our hopes up?
The person I really want to talk to is Daniel, but he’s long gone to his interview.
I wish I’d been nicer to him.
I wish I’d gotten his phone number.
What if this immigration nonsense resolves itself? If I get to stay, how will I find him again? Because no matter how much I pretended it didn’t exist, there was something between us. Something big.
HANNAH HAS ALWAYS THOUGHT OF herself as living in a fairy tale where she’s not the star. She’s neither the princess nor the fairy godmother. Neither the high, evil witch nor her familiar. Hannah is a minor character, illustrated for the first time on page twelve or thirteen. The cook, perhaps, presiding over crumpets and sugarplums. Or maybe she’s the handmaiden, good-natured and just out of view.
It wasn’t until she met and started working for Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald that she imagined she could become the star. In him she recognized her One True Love. Her Happily-Ever-After. This despite the fact that he is a married man. Despite the fact that he’s a father to two young children.
Hannah never believed he would love her back until the day he did just that.
That day is today.
JEREMY FITZGERALD was crossing the street when a drunk and distraught man—an insurance actuary—in a white BMW hit him at twenty miles per hour. The blow wasn’t enough to kill him, but it was enough to make him consider his eventual death and his current life. It was enough to make him admit to himself that he was in love with his paralegal, Hannah Winter, and that he had been for some time now.
At some point later today, when he returns to his office, he will wordlessly take Hannah into his arms. He will hold her and wonder, very briefly, about the future that loving her will cost him.
Area Teenager Chooses Poorly
My mother, the pacifist, would kill me dead if she knew what I’d just done. I rescheduled my interview. For a girl. Not even a Korean girl, a black girl. A black girl I don’t really know. A black girl I don’t really know, who might not even like me.
The woman on the phone said my timing was perfect. She’d been about to call me to reschedule as well. The only appointment I could get is for late in the day, 6 p.m., so here I am in the lobby of the building where I left Natasha, reading the directory and keeping an eye out for her. Most of the tenants of this building are lawyers (J.D., Esq.) and accounting types (CPA, CFA, etc.). I’ve never seen so many degree abbreviations in my life. Daniel Jae Ho Bae, FB (Foolish Boy), DTF (Doomed to Failure).
What appointment could she possibly have in this building? Either she’s an heiress with money to invest, or she’s in trouble and needs a lawyer to help her.
Across the lobby, the elevator doors open and she walks out.
When I was rescheduling my appointment, a part of me wondered if I was being ridiculous. A girl I’ve just met isn’t worth jeopardizing my future over. It was easier to have that thought when I wasn’t looking at her, because now I can’t remember why I hesitated at all.
Of course she’s worth it. And I can’t explain it.
Yes, she’s pretty. The combination of her big hair and bright black eyes and full pink lips is undeniably cute. Also, she has the nicest legs that exist in the known world (I moved them up to number one from number three after careful study—I’m being objective here). So yes, I’m definitely attracted to her, but there’s something else too, and I’m not just saying that because she has the nicest legs in the known universe. Objectively speaking.
I watch as she makes her way across the lobby. She’s looking around, trying to find something or someone. Her shoulders literally sag when she doesn’t find it. She’s gotta be looking for me, right? Unless she met another potential love of her life in the thirty minutes she was away from me.
Outside, she does a slow 360 one way and then a slower 360 the other way. Whoever she’s looking for is still not there.
HE’S NOT IN THE LOBBY, and he’s not outside in the courtyard. I have to admit that he’s not here and that I wanted him to be. My stomach feels a little hollow, like I’m hungry, but food is not what I want.
The day’s gotten warmer. I take off my jacket, fold it over my forearm, and stand there trying to decide what to do next. I’m reluctant to leave, and reluctant to admit to myself that I don’t want to leave. It’s not that I think we were meant to be or anything ridiculous like that. But it would’ve been nice to spend the next few hours with him. It might’ve been nice to go on a date with him. I would’ve liked to know if he blushes when he kisses.
This is the last place I saw him. If I leave, then I have no chance of seeing him again. I wonder how his interview is going. Is he saying the right things, or is he letting all his doubt and existential angst shine through? The boy needs a life coach.
I’m about to go when something makes me take a final look around. I know it’s not possible to feel a specific person’s presence. More than likely my subconscious spotted him as I was walking through the lobby. People use poetic language to describe things they don’t understand. Usually there’s a scientific explanation if you only look for it.
Anyway, there he is.
He is here.
SHE’S WALKING TOWARD ME. A couple of hours ago I would’ve said that her face was expressionless, but I’m becoming a Natasha expert, and her face is only trying to be expressionless. If I had to guess, I would say that she’s happy to see me.
“What happened to your interview?” she asks as soon as she’s close enough.
No hug. No “I’m so happy to see you.” Maybe I’m not such a Natasha expert after all.
Do I go with the facts or the truth (curiously, these are not always the same)? The fact is, I postponed. The truth is, I postponed so I could spend more time with her. I go with the truth:
“I postponed so I could spend more time with you.”
“Are you insane? This is your life we’re talking about.”
“I didn’t burn the building to the ground, Tash. I just moved it until later.”
“Who is Tash?” she asks, but there’s a smile at the corner of her lips.
“How did your thing go?” I point my chin in the direction of the elevators. Her smile goes away. Note to self: Do not bring this up again.
“Fine. I have to come back at three-thirty.”
I look at my phone: 11:35 a.m. “Looks like we have more time together,” I say. I expect her to roll her eyes, but she doesn’t. I take it as a small victory.
She shivers a little and rubs her hands down her forearms. I can see the goose bumps on her skin, and now I’ve learned another thing about her: she gets cold easily. I take her jacket and help her into it. She slides one arm in and then the other, and then shrugs to adjust the shoulders. I help her with the collar.
It’s a small thing. I let my han
d rest on the back of her neck, and she leans back into me just slightly. Her hair tickles my nose. It’s a small thing, but it feels like something we’ve been doing for a long time now.
She turns, and I have to lift my hands so I don’t touch her more intimately. Wherever we’re going, we’re not there yet.
“Are you sure you’re not jeopardizing—” she begins.
“I don’t actually care.”
“You should care.” She stops talking and looks up at me with restless eyes. “You did it for me?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you so sure I’m worth it?”
“Instinct,” I say. I don’t know what it is about her that makes me fearless with the truth.
Her eyes widen and she shivers slightly. “You’re impossible,” she says.
“It’s possible,” I say.
She laughs, and her black eyes sparkle at me. “What should we do now?” she asks.
I need to get my hair cut and I need to get the pouch and deposit slips to my dad. I want to do neither of these things. What I want to do is find someplace cozy and cozy up with her. But. The pouch needs to be delivered. I ask her if she’s up for a trip to Harlem and she agrees. Really, this is the absolute last thing I should be doing. If there are worse ideas than this, I don’t know what they are. My dad’s just going to freak her out. She’s going to meet him and imagine that he’s what I’ll be like in fifty years, and then she’ll go flying for the hills because that’s what I would do in her place.
My dad’s a weird guy. I say weird but what I mean is epically fucking strange. First, he doesn’t really talk to anyone except customers. This includes me and Charlie. Unless berating counts as talking. If berating counts, then he’s said more to Charlie this past summer and fall than he has in nineteen years. I may be exaggerating, but only slightly.
I don’t know how I’m going to explain Natasha to him or Charlie. Well, Charlie I don’t really care about, but my dad will notice her. He’ll know something’s up in the same way he always knows which customer is going to shoplift or who’s good for an IOU and who’s not.