to turn it around in thirty days? No one would give me a job, and I was fairly certain the US government wasn’t going to make a special exception for me to stay here just because I asked nicely. There wasn’t even time to sleep on it: thirty days was too soon.
‘I want to take it back,’ I said, trying to sound determined. ‘In fact, I demand it back. Control, I summon thee.’ I slapped the table, making my can jump. ‘I do want to be in control, but I don’t know what to do.’
‘Honey, I am the queen of solving the unsolvable. It’s what I do, it’s what I live for.’ Jenny pulled her thinking face while I thanked my lucky stars for my wonderful friends. She was very good at putting problems into perspective. ‘To help poor unfortunate souls like yourself.’
‘Please don’t quote The Little Mermaid in my time of need,’ I begged. ‘Although, if you can strike a deal to swap my voice for a visa, I’d consider it.’
‘And the world’s karaoke bars would rejoice,’ she murmured. ‘OK, am I right in thinking if you get a job, you can get a visa, or do you need a visa to get a job?’
‘Both.’
‘That’s not going to work, Ange.’ Jenny shook her head. ‘Visa or job? Which comes first?’
‘The chicken?’
‘That doesn’t even make sense …’
Before Jenny could get up out of her chair and throttle me, the door flew open and Erin sailed in. That sealed it: I could never work in PR. Here I was, sitting in this sparkly, shiny office with dirty hair and jeans that hadn’t been washed for so long that they had started cleaning themselves, while Erin’s hair was so shiny, I could actually see how disgusting mine was in its reflective surface. For shame.
‘Angie’s being deported,’ Jenny answered for me. As was the way amongst our people. ‘Her visa got revoked.’
‘Shit.’
We all nodded. It was pretty much the only viable response.
We sat in silence for a moment, Erin pursing her lips in concentration, Jenny staring at her shoes, me thinking that I really should have taken my coat off before now. I was not going to feel the benefit when I got back outside. Massive concern. As was the fact that I had apparently become my mother.
‘You know what?’ Erin kicked off her high, high heels and leaned back in her chair. ‘That’s the easiest problem I’ve had to solve all day. I can’t believe it took me a whole minute to work it out.’
It was?
‘It is?’
‘Sure.’ She looked at me and shrugged. ‘Just marry Alex.’
Huh.
For a moment I felt sick. Then hot. Then cold. Then hot again because I still had my coat on.
Just marry Alex.
Ooh.
‘Oh my God, that makes so much freaking sense,’ Jenny shrieked. It was as though Erin had walked in, put two and two together and miraculously come up with a four when all we’d been getting were fives and threes. ‘You can just marry Alex! Why didn’t I think of that?’
‘Because it’s stupid?’ I suggested.
Because it was. Wasn’t it?
‘Do you think he’d say no?’ Jenny gave me her best sympathetic eyes.
What a bitch. And the second she said it, I was terrified he might.
‘I don’t know what he’d say and I don’t want to know,’ I said quickly, curtly. ‘Next idea, please.’
My brain was completely overloaded. Half of me had heard the words ‘marry Alex’ and already run off down the aisle, drowning out my worries with the ‘Wedding March’. The other half had caught the ‘for a visa’ part and was not happy. It just felt a bit grubby. In that slightly grubby, slightly exciting, but almost definitely it’s-a-bad-idea way. The idea of getting married to stay in the country hadn’t even occurred to me. And now it had been floated, it did not make me feel good about myself. In fact, it made me feel a bit sick. Not because I didn’t want to marry Alex – locking that boy down legally was absolutely on my to-do list; but not like this. A marriage of convenience was not a marriage I was interested in.
‘He would totally do it.’ Erin raised her eyebrows, a picture of innocence. ‘And that would solve all your problems, right? I mean, even if they want to investigate you guys, you get to stay here while they do it. And you’re a real couple – you’d pass.’
‘It’s not like you’re not already living together,’ Jenny added in a hurry. ‘And we’d all give testimonials. I can totally verify Alex’s sex noises.’
‘Thank you.’ I wished all the lucky stars I’d thanked earlier into an early supernova. ‘But seriously. Not happening.’
They looked at me with very different expressions on their faces. Jenny’s was somewhere between pride and optimism with just a dash of ‘what the fuck is she thinking’. Erin clearly thought I was insane.
‘Jenny –’ I decided to take a different tack – ‘how would you feel if Sigge asked you to marry him for a visa?’
‘I would have that shit on lockdown before you could sing “Here comes the bride”,’ she replied, her face completely straight. ‘Have you seen him? The dude is ridonkulous.’
‘You’re probably the wrong person to have this conversation with,’ I said, shaking off my coat. Too little, too late. ‘What I mean is, if he asked you to marry you just for a visa and you said yes, you’d never really know if he loved you, would you? Whether or not he would have asked you to marry him even if there wasn’t a visa involved. Even if you loved the arse off him, you’d never really know whether or not it would have happened out of love. It would always be hanging over you, the reason you got married. It’s like when people meet online, it’s always there. Even if they say it’s not, it is. A marriage of convenience is not a marriage.’
‘Oh, honey.’ Erin laid a perfectly manicured hand on my knee. ‘I keep forgetting this is your first. A marriage of convenience is the perfect starter marriage.’
America was a very strange place sometimes.
‘I know this is going to sound very old-fashioned,’ I said – I was going to give it one last try – ‘but I’m really hoping to just stick to one marriage. I know it’s against the odds, but I really am hoping.’
‘Angie, we’re all hoping.’ Erin held up The Letter. ‘But for real, if it’s the difference between staying in the country or not staying in the country, wouldn’t you rather marry a man you love than hightail it back to the UK?’
Hmm.
‘Back to your old life?’ Jenny added.
Gulp.
‘Back to your mom?’
Shit.
‘Fair
