Chapter 6 Olivier #2
At her request, I took her to the famous pizza place, the hot club, the vibey cocktail bar, mentally calculating all the money this was costing me and whether the investment would ever pay off.
She kept taking pictures of everything, including us, and immediately posting them on social media.
Cassie wanted a good time and I was prepared to show it to her, at least until I could find a way to bring up my wacky idea.
The clock was ticking; I was booked on a flight back to Paris less than a week away.
“Do you still have to deal with some of your dad’s stuff?” I said, my tone light as we sat in the back of an Uber on the way home from our third night out. Cassie insisted she wouldn’t take the subway but never reached for her phone or her wallet to pay for anything.
A frown formed between her eyebrows. “Why do you ask?”
I sensed I’d said something wrong. “I mean, um, are you staying longer? You don’t need to be back at work?”
She fired off a text on her phone. I leaned over and tried to read the screen but only caught a glimpse of the recipient’s first name: it began with D.
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” she said sweetly.
Every time she acted all flirty, I was reminded of how little affinity there was between us, let alone chemistry. Could she feel it too? But then I remembered she was my best shot. I couldn’t let her go.
I chuckled. “Not at all! The thing is…I’m going to Paris soon.” I’d already told her I was “taking a break” from my job at Bhotel, but I didn’t think she’d been paying attention.
“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 you are trying 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 I have to 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 there was hope. 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 which we 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 they really deport 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 ICE did deport people like me every day.
Now Cassie seemed upset, like she genuinely cared.
“There is one 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?”
“Like they do in real life, too.”
“Huh,” she said, sounding much less interested. She picked up her phone and started scrolling.
But I couldn’t let the moment pass. Not yet.
“It’s simple,” I said, feeling my pulse quicken.
“You document your relationship thoroughly—I’d do all of that, of course—and go to the appointments with the immigration officers.
You’d have to come, but it wouldn’t take too much time.
” I spoke faster and faster, struggling to hold her gaze, which was unreadable.
“After two years, I’d get a permanent green card, and then we’d be free to do whatever we wanted. It’d go by so fast.”
I clicked my fingers to emphasize just how fast, and surprised myself with how clearly I’d laid out my case. I’d done my research. People did do that. And they got away with it. A lot of them did. Probably.
“You like it here that much?” Cassie said at last.
“I’ve never felt more like myself than in New York.
” I’d never thought that out loud, but it was true.
I could become someone here. I could be the person I was always meant to be.
But enough about me; I had to make it worth her while.
Besides, it wasn’t hard to guess why she kept posting photos of us.
“Don’t you want to show your ex what he’s missing out on? ”
Cassie perked up, her eyes drilling into mine. It was a stark change, a clear warning that I’d gone too far. I mean, obviously I’d gone too far: I’d suggested that she marry me, a total stranger.
Trying to save the moment, I leaned over and kissed her. “He’s a mad man, letting you go.”
I thought she might push me away, but something ignited within her and soon we were full-on making out, only stopping to tear each other’s clothes off. There was always tomorrow, I told myself. It wasn’t over yet.
But the next morning, as soon as I opened my eyes, I sensed that something was off. The air was too still in the room, the spot next to me empty.
“Cassie?” I called out.
Silence.
I got up, checked the bathroom, the living room.
“Cassie?”
No response.
No, no, no, no, no.
She was gone. Could she report me for suggesting we get married for the green card? Could she make my life even worse than it already was?
An hour passed, and then another. I stared at the front door and still no Cassie.
Fuck, what had I done?