“Oooh,” Cassie said, excitedly. The streetlights filtered through the car window and created strange shadows on her face.
“I wish I didn’t have to,” I added.
She sighed, then: “So what do we have on tomorrow, monsieur?”
“I’m leaving soon,” I said. “Like, very soon.”
She looked miffed. “So youaretrying to kick me out.”
The car parked in front of my apartment and Cassie stormed out.
“It’s not like that,” I said, catching up to her, slightly taken aback by what seemed like an oversized reaction. Why did she care so much? “But Ihaveto go back to France.”
“Yeah, okay.” She rolled her eyes as I opened the door. For two people who’d known each other a few days, our arguments were already fiery.
I took in a deep breath. “But I’d kill to stay here.” I didn’t realize how true it was until I said it. “Here, some people get rich and successful overnight. You can do anything if you really put your mind to it.”
“So why go back?” she asked, curling up on the sofa.
I leaned against the wall across from her. “I’m not really taking a break from my job. I lost it. No job means no visa.”
“Can’t you get another one?” She sounded like she was talking about a sweater I might have left behind at the club.
I didn’t bother hiding the snark from my tone. “You haven’t met many immigrants, have you?”
Her face turned into a puzzle. “You’re not exactly—”
“I’m still a foreigner here. Different rules apply to us. So, no, I can’t get another visa, which means I can’t get another job. Trust me, if I could, I would. Now I have to give up the life I started building here for the last nine months and leave. And if I don’t, they’ll deport me and I won’t be allowed to ever come back. Vacation time is over. For me at least.”
“That sucks,” she said, meaning it. “I was thinking I’d stay with you for a while.”
“Really?” So therewashope. I came to sit on the couch next to her. Any opening I saw, I had to take. “Don’t you have to go back to work?”
“I’m taking a little break, too.”
“From…?”
Cassie made a funny face. “Lots of things. I had a candle-making business for a while. I did event planning. Parties, that sort of stuff. I like to switch it up.” She paused, thought some more. “I have this big house whichwe run as an inn. Sometimes I think about renovating it. You could say I’m an entrepreneur.”
I felt my heart race. “And you want to try something new here, in New York?”
This was good. We could convince Ms. Crowes to let us live rent-free for a while. Cassie was her stepdaughter, after all.
“I want more,” she responded. “And I feel like if you want to stay, then you should. Do theyreallydeport people who don’t have a visa?”
I nodded. There were plenty of undocumented immigrants in New York, but I wasn’t going to live like that: scraping by with no health insurance, unable to apply to well-paying jobs, watching over my shoulder, always, because ICEdiddeport people like me every day.
Now Cassie seemed upset, like she genuinely cared.
“Thereisone way I could stay in the States,” I heard myself say. “And it’s not even that risky if we do it right.”
The “we” felt so strange in my mouth. I’d never been part of a “we.”
“Do what?” She seemed intrigued, a good sign.
I took a deep breath. “I’d need to marry an American citizen.”
She laughed. “Like they do in the movies?”
