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 Look paid 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. The 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
