gives you puppy eyes every time you walk into a room. I’ll organize everything, all you’d have to do is show. It’s not really a visa wedding if you’re in love, if we do it properly. Please?’
‘Actually, it could be kind of awesome,’ Erin chipped in. ‘We could get you a venue super easy, dress shouldn’t be a problem, and we’d get an awesome deal on a caterer. How long do you think it would take to put together, operations director?’
I took a Twizzler from the candy dish on Jenny’s desk. Two hours ago I was fishing hair out of a plughole and looking forward to watching a repeat of Elf on the settee. Now I was organizing a quickie wedding to ensure I wouldn’t be dragged kicking and screaming from the country in four weeks’ time.
‘Like, two weeks?’ Jenny stuck out her bottom lip. ‘Ten days if we really pushed things. And if we could get her into a sample-size gown with no alterations, which we totally could if she puts that Twizzler down.’
She put the Twizzler down.
‘Brooklyn’s gonna be the easiest place to get a venue, but we could maybe pull some strings in Manhattan if we could do a Friday. We’d never get a weekend, though. How about the Bell House? Music venue, nice tie-in to the groom’s day job? Or I could pull some strings back at the Union?’
‘I could call the PR at the W,’ Erin mused. ‘Or the Hudson. That’s a little too midtown, though.’
I sat in silence, staring at The Letter, listening to my friends planning my wedding, imagining myself in some super swanky hotel, clad in a ridiculous designer dress, hobbling down the aisle in borrowed shoes. Despite the ridiculousness of the whole thing, the only real problem I had was simple. I couldn’t see Alex in any of it. This wasn’t us.
Just imagining asking him to do this for me made my eyes well up and my heart beat faster, and not in a good way. What if he did say yes? What if we did get married, then he freaked out about being stuck with me because of the visa? I didn’t want my marriage to be an obligation. Even worse, what if I asked and he said no? Maybe he wasn’t ready. He’d ask when he was ready. We’d had this conversation; I didn’t want to push him. He meant too much. He meant everything.
‘Flowers might be tricky.’ Jenny was still planning out loud. ‘We’d need to call in some favours.’
‘We’ve got favours to spare, doll,’ Erin commented. ‘I’m more worried about the lighting design.’
‘Um, ladies?’ My interrupting their creative process was not particularly well received. ‘What if we put all our creative brain-power into working out another way for me to stay in the country? I’m not being difficult, honestly – I just really, really don’t want to do this.’
They both deflated before my eyes. I felt quite bad. There was nothing Jenny loved more than threatening people to get what she wanted. I felt like I’d taken her best toy away.
‘Aside from the fact that I don’t want to bully my boyfriend down the aisle, I want to be here because I deserve to be here.’
Now this is where I was prepared to accept I was being naïve.
‘If I can’t get a visa without getting married, then what’s the point? That will just mean I haven’t achieved anything since I got here. I’ll be right back where I started. I might as well go home, get myself at least seven cats and start referring to myself in the third person while paying for the bus with exact change. And that’s not happening. So can we please apply our not inconsiderable talents to finding another way for me to stay?’
Jenny wiped away a fake tear. ‘My baby is all grown up.’
‘So you can’t get a job without a visa?’ Erin said, accepting defeat and chomping a Twizzler. How come she was allowed one and I wasn’t? I hated the naturally skinny.
‘And I can’t get a visa without a job,’ I confirmed. ‘Basically, I think I’ll need someone to sponsor me like Spencer Media did.’
‘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.’
