Chapter 8
eight
On Sunday, Abuelita’s church friends spend forty minutes trying to convince me I need to quit working and get married before I turn thirty… and then proceed to cook and eat the food my job helped pay for.
Sometime amid all their clucking, Marco lets himself into the apartment, barrels down the hall, and barely says hello to Abuelita before locking his hand around my arm and hustling me into my room. After hours of speaking Spanish to all the abuelas, my answering curse comes out in my first language.
“ Que carajo, primo ?”
Marco dwarfs my tiny bedroom with this wide, muscled frame. In a dark sweater and black jeans, he looks like a stunt double from an action movie. But his frown is intimidating—even to me.
“I think I should be asking you the same thing, Jules,” he grits, shoving his phone under my nose. “What the fuck is that ?”
My blood chills at the video clip on his screen. Crystal-clear and completely, undeniably me… slapping Graham Everett .
In the elevator. At the office.
I gasp, gripping the iPhone and hitting the replay button. “No,” I breathe. “There are cameras ?”
Marco yanks his phone back. “ Of course there are cameras, Jules.”
He crosses his thick arms over his chest, glaring at me. “If I had known you were going to go around acting like la puta loca , I never would have put my ass on the line and asked Grayson to give you a shot.”
“I’m not a crazy bitch!” I spit, my temper rising. “That asshole practically harassed me. He ran to get onto my elevator, crowded me, and then stood there, staring down my dress. I asked him to stop, and he told me that I should—that if I?—”
Too angry to repeat Graham’s taunt, I shake my head. “He’s a dick . He deserved that slap.”
Marco’s expression remains impassive. “Of course he did. He’s a notorious asshole who’s gotten everything he’s ever wanted his whole life. All of them are, Jules. Even the nice guys like Grayson. They’re spoiled and entitled—and too spoiled and entitled to realize it.”
He blows out a breath, raking both hands through his hair. Tension tightens his features. “But you can’t let them get to you like this, Jules. People like us have to be better than all of them to get just a little of what they have.”
“I know that,” I grunt.
Marco’s thick brows knit together. “I know you know that. So why did you let this guy get to you?”
Because he made me crazy.
I still can’t explain it. Not even to myself. Why did I slap a complete stranger? Why did I avoid him—a well-connected, valuable networking asset—while he was in the office after our meeting? Why have I allowed his email to go unanswered all weekend?
To piss him off .
That much I understand. I also know that I wouldn’t invest my time to make any other random guy angry after one brief encounter. Especially with my reputation on the line.
No. There is something about Graham specifically that brings out the absolute worst in me.
“He just…” I can’t justify it, so I hedge. “He caught me on a bad day.”
I twist my fingers in the hem of my T-shirt. “Do you think Mr. Stryker will fire me when he sees the video? I was worried Everett would tell him what happened, but then I realized it makes him look bad too, so I thought I was off the hook.”
Marco watches me steadily, suspicion shifting in his gaze. “It’s my job to review the elevator footage at the end of the week and bring anything of concern to Mr. Stryker.”
He holds up the video on his screen. “I haven’t shown this to him—yet. And, I guess, as long as you’re both okay, and I’m certain nothing like this will happen again, I don’t need to show him at all.”
I open my mouth, but he cuts me off. “I’m serious, Jules. If I delete this clip and shit goes down later, we’re both fired.”
The group of ladies assembled in Abuelita’s kitchen laugh on the other side of my door. “If we both lose our jobs,” Marco adds, “how will Abuelita buy her steak?”
“I’m sorry. Really. And thank you.” I try for a smile. “Don’t worry. I got my shot in; it won’t happen again.”
He bleats a laugh but still shoots me a warning look. “If it does, and you get caught, I am so throwing you under the bus.”
“You can tell Mr. Stryker I snuck into the building in a catsuit and deleted the file before you could watch it,” I offer.
Marco shakes his head at me. “Always such a drama queen.” His wary eyes slide over to my door. “Speaking of, how screwed am I if I go out there? I’m starving, but last week Senora Reyes spent an hour trying to convince me to commit to an arranged marriage with her niece from Bogotá.”
I snort. “I’ve already gotten two vicarious proposals and a lecture on how to bag a husband. They’ve only been here since two.”
With a weary sigh, he makes his exit, inciting a chorus of old bitty chatter. I shut the door before they get any ideas about calling for me.
I’ve had the same tiny bedroom for eighteen years. I outgrew it ages ago, but recently, it’s started to feel even smaller than usual.
I want more.
Not too much more.
But something better than eight hundred square feet above a dress shop. I want it for myself, sure, but I also want it for Abuelita.
And Mami.
But first, I have to finish the job my father abandoned—I have to get her out of Colombia and into America.
I always knew it wouldn’t be easy. That’s common knowledge in Jackson Heights and every other immigrant community. After all, if my mother could just hop on a flight and be here the next day, she would have done it once it became clear that my father wasn’t going back for her…
I’m not sure I ever truly understood just how difficult the process would be until we studied immigration in law school. I’ll never forget that week of classes: how I sat there, swallowing lumps of unshed tears, listening to apathetic professors list all the reasons I’d possibly never see my mother on American soil.
Each lesson weighed heavier on my heart. I spent every night poring over my notes, full of impotent fury.
Why wasn’t there a path for people like her? She doesn’t have any education, any extra money, or anyone to vouch for her.
As far as our immigration system is concerned, all the reasons she urgently needs to escape only make her “unfit” to be a potential citizen. The entire scheme seems rigged against those who need help the most.
For weeks, hopelessness circled over my head like a vulture. I avoided Mami’s calls and emails, ashamed to face her when I’d all but given up. I even started looking into other types of law and considered changing my focus to something that wasn’t so mired in futility.
Until one day, in the law library, I overheard a conversation that changed my mind.
A group of third-years chortled among themselves at the table behind mine, discussing politics. It didn’t seem like a particularly funny topic to me—if anything, the subject filled me with dread. The wrong president, the wrong balance in Congress: It all had a direct impact on people like my mother. People like me .
It took overhearing a group of guys arguing in the library for me to change my mind. They went back and forth about how easy it is to immigrate legally for anyone “worth having here.”
I was shocked. Didn’t we just learn the exact opposite in class? The system was designed to keep people out . Didn’t they get that?
Another sniggered while they gathered their books. “Yeah. It’s simple. Tens of thousands. Legal fees. Translators. Easy.” They started to shuffle off, leaving one chilling, sarcastic remark in their wake. “When I’m a senator, I’ll make sure it gets even easier .”
I was embarrassed it took that long for it to hit me, but it did.
The system wasn’t an accident.
It wasn’t a mistake.
It wasn’t a runaway steam engine or a tangled lump too complicated to fix. It existed exactly as it did for the sole purpose of maintaining the status quo. So that assholes like those guys could continue oppressing others.
So they could continue to oppress me .
And there, in that moment of horrible clarity, something amazing happened.
I got mad as hell .
Fuming, I crumpled up my list of alternative specialties and chucked it across the library floor. I’d be damned if I was going to leave politics in the hands of those assholes. Men like them would not determine my future or my mother’s. I wouldn’t stand for it. And if the system was meant to keep those dicks in power, I would simply have to change it.
Easier said than done, but I won’t give up. I have a plan, and it starts with making a decent living at Stryker & Sons and helping Mami.
I just have to survive Graham Everett for one week.
Or he has to survive me .