THE FIRST THING I SEE on his desk is a file with Natasha’s name on it. Natasha Kingsley, it says. It has to be her, right? How many Natasha Kingsleys could there be? Not only are our meetings in the same building, but also her lawyer and my interviewer are the same person? The odds have to be astronomical, right? I can’t wait to see the look on her face when I tell her.
I look up at him and then around the office for other signs. “Are you an immigration lawyer?” I ask.
He looks up from what I presume is my application. “I am. Why?”
“I think I know one of your clients,” I say, and pick up the file.
He snatches it away from me. “Don’t touch that. It’s privileged.” He pulls it as far away from me as possible.
I grin at Fitzgerald and he frowns back at me. “Yeah, sorry,” I say. “It’s just you saved my life.”
“What are you talking about?” He flexes his right wrist and I notice that his hand is bandaged. Now I remember that his paralegal said he’d been in a car accident.
I point at the file. “I just met her—Natasha—today.”
He’s still frowning at me, not getting it. “When I met her she was being deported, but then she met with you and you did your lawyer magic, and now she’s going to stay.”
He rests the bandaged hand on his desk. “And how did that save your life?”
“She’s the One,” I say.
He frowns. “Didn’t you say you just met her today?”
“Yup.” I can’t do anything about the big smile on my face.
“And she’s the One?” He doesn’t actually put air quotes around “the One,” but I can hear them in his voice. Vocal air quotes (not better than actual air quotes).
He steeples his fingers and stares at me for a good long while. “Why are you here?” he asks.
Is this a trick question? “For my admission interview?”
He looks me over pointedly. “No, really. Why are you here in my office right now? You obviously don’t care about this interview. You show up here looking like you’ve been in a brawl. It’s a serious question. Why did you come here?”
There’s no way to answer this but honestly. “My parents made me.”
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
He looks down at my file. “It says here that you’re interested in the pre-med track. Are you?”
“Not really,” I say.
“Not really or no?” Lawyers like certainty.
“No.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” he says. “Do you want to go to Yale?”
“I don’t even know if I want to go to college.”
He leans forward in his chair. I feel like I’m being cross-examined. “And what’s your big dream?”
“To be a poet.”
“Oh good,” he says. “Something practical.”
“Believe it or not, I’ve heard that one before.”
He leans in even more. “I’ll ask you again. Why are you here?”
“I have to be.”
“No you don’t,” he fires back. “You can just get up and walk out that door.”
“I owe it to my parents.”
“Why?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
I sigh (long-suffering variety). “My parents are immigrants. They moved to this country for a better life. They work all the time so my brother and I can have the American Dream. Nowhere in the American Dream does it say you can skip college and become a starving artist.”
“It says whatever you want it to.”
I snort. “Not in my family it doesn’t. If I don’t do this, I get cut off. No funds for college. No nothing.”
This confession at least stops his rapid-fire questioning. He leans back in his chair. “Would they really do that?” he asks.
I know the answer, but I can’t make myself say it right away. I think about my dad’s face earlier this afternoon. He’s so determined that Charlie and I have a better life than he did. He’ll do anything to guarantee it.
“Yes,” I say. “He would.” But not because he’s evil. And not because he’s a Stereotypical Korean Parent. But because he can’t see past his own history to let us have ours.
A lot of people are like that.
Fitzgerald whistles low. “So I guess you have to be sure the poetry thing is worth it.”
Now I’m the one leaning in. “Haven’t you ever done something only because you’re obligated to? Just because you made a promise?”
His eyes drift away from mine. For whatever reason, this question changes the dynamic between us. It feels like we’re in the same boat.
“Meeting your obligations is the definition of adulthood, kid. If you’re going to make mistakes and break promises, now’s the time.”
He stops talking, flexes his wrist, and grimaces. “Get your screwing up done now, when the consequences aren’t so bad. Trust me. It gets harder to do it later.”
Sometimes people tell you things by not telling you things. I glance at his left hand and see his wedding ring.
“Is that what happened to you?” I ask.
He unsteeples his fingers and twists the ring around his finger. “I’m a married man with two kids.”
“And you’re having an affair with your paralegal.”
He rubs at the bandage above his eye. “It just started today.” He looks over to his closed door, as if he’s hoping she’ll be standing right there. “Ended today too,” he says quietly.
I didn’t actually expect him to admit it, and now I’m not sure what to say.
“You think I’m a bad guy,” he says.
“I think you’re my interviewer,” I answer. Maybe it’s better for us to just get this interview back on course.
He covers his eyes with his hands. “I met her too late. I’ve always had lousy timing.”
I don’t know what to tell him. Not that he’s looking to me for advice. Ordinarily I would say follow your heart. But he’s a married man. His heart is not the only one involved.
“So what are you gonna do? Let her go?” I ask.
He looks at me for a long time, thinking. “You’re going to have to do the same,” he says finally.
He pulls Natasha’s file from under his elbow. “I couldn’t do it. I thought I could, but I couldn’t.”
“Do what?” I ask.
“Stop her deportation.”
He’s going to have to spell it out for me, because I’m not processing what he’s saying. “Your Natasha is getting deported tonight after all. I couldn’t stop it from happening. The judge wouldn’t overturn the Voluntary Removal.”
I don’t know what a Voluntary Removal is, but all I can think is that there’s a mistake. It’s definitely a mistake. Now I’m hoping it really is a different Natasha Kingsley.
“I’m sorry, kid,” he says. He slides the file across to me, as if my looking at it is somehow going to help. I flip it open. It’s some sort of official form. All I see is her name: Natasha Katherine Kingsley. I didn’t know her middle name. Katherine. It suits her.
I shut the file and slide it back to him. “There has to be something you can do.”
The finger steeple is back and he shrugs. “I’ve tried everything already.”
The shrug pisses me off. This is not a small thing. This isn’t Oh, you missed your appointment. Come again tomorrow. This is Natasha’s life. And mine.
I stand up. “You didn’t try hard enough,” I accuse him. I’m willing to bet the affair with his secretary has something to do with this. I bet he’s spent the day breaking promises to his wife and children. And to Natasha too.
“Look, I know you’re upset.” His voice is even, like he’s trying to calm me down.
But I don’t want to be calm. I press my hands into his desk and lean forward. “There has to be something you can do. It’s not her fault her dad is such a fuck-up.”
He slides his chair back from the desk. “Sorry. Homeland Security doesn’t like it if you overstay your visa.”
“But she was just a kid. She didn’t have a choice. It’s not like she could’ve said Mom, Dad, our visa is expired. We should go back to Jamaica now.”
“Doesn’t matter. The law has to draw a line somewhere. Their last appeal was denied. The only hope was the judge. If they leave tonight, then there’s a slight chance she can reapply for a visa in a few years.”
“But America is her home,” I shout. “It doesn’t matter where she was born.” I don’t say the rest of it, which is that she belongs with me.
“I wish there was something I could do,” he says. He touches the bandage above his eye again and seems genuinely sorry. Maybe I’m wrong about him. Maybe he really did try.
“I’m planning on calling her after you and I are done here,” he says.
After we’re done. I’ve completely forgotten that this meeting is supposed to be about me getting into Yale. “You’re just going to call her and tell her over the phone?”
“Does it matter how she hears it?” he asks, frowning.
“Of course it matters.” I don’t want her to hear the worst news of her life over the phone from someone she barely knows. “I’ll do it,” I say. “I’ll tell her.”
He shakes his head. “I can’t let you do that. It’s my job.”
I just sit there not knowing what to do. My lip throbs. The spot on my ribs where Charlie punched me hurts. The place in my heart where Natasha is hurts.
“I’m sorry, kid,” he says again.
“What if she doesn’t get on the plane? What if she just stays?” I am desperate. Breaking the law seems a small price to pay to get her to stay.
Another head shake. “I don’t recommend that. As a lawyer or otherwise.”
I have to get to her and tell her first. I don’t want her to be alone when she hears the news.
I walk out of his office and into the empty reception area. The paralegal didn’t come back.
He follows me. “So that’s it?” he asks. “No more interview?”
I don’t stop walking. “You said it yourself. I don’t really care about Yale.”
He puts a hand on my arm so I have to turn and face him. “Look, I know I said you should get your screwing up done now while you’re still a kid, but Yale’s a big deal. Going there could open a lot of doors for you. It did for me.”
And maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m being shortsighted.
I look around his office. How long will it take for the construction to be done? I wonder. How long will it take for him to hire a new paralegal?
I jut my chin in the direction of her desk. “You did all the things you were supposed to, and you’re still not happy.”
He rubs again at the bandage above his eye and doesn’t look over at the desk. He’s tired, but not the kind of tired that sleeping can fix.
I tell him, “If I don’t go now, I’ll always regret it.”
“What’s another half an hour to finish this interview?” he insists.
Does he really need me to tell him that all the seconds matter? That our own universe exploded into existence in the space of a breath?
“Time counts, Mr. Fitzgerald,” I tell him.
Finally he turns away from me and looks at the empty desk.
“But you know that already,” I say.