Stepdog (4 page)

For bureaucratic reasons, the usual avenues of getting a green card failed me—I was actually born in England, so I was excluded from any amnesty, Morrison visas, and so on, that were intended
to help people with Irish birth certificates. And statistically I had virtually no chance to get a work visa from the UK. So there was just the one route left. Time to go through with it.

Which meant now I had to think about blood tests, birth certificates, wedding arrangements, endless immigration forms, updated head shots, auditions, Emmy Award speeches. Yesterday, I'd been a fiddler on an 0-1 visa, playing in an art museum. Five minutes ago, I'd been unemployed and hoping I could get my under-the-table construction job back. Now I had to marry my cousin so I could become a television star. There's America for you.

With a tremor in my fingertips, I scrolled through the contacts on my phone to find Laura's number. Then I froze.

Sara. I wanted to tell Sara first. I wanted to share my excitement. I didn't need her blessing because it wasn't a real marriage—she knew all about my immigration headaches, she'd know I simply had to have that piece of paper. And anyhow it's not as if we had decided we were Anything In Particular yet. She might even tell me last night had just been an apology for sacking me.

Not really.

I started to dial Sara's number.

Then I stopped, agitated. That was crazy. This had nothing to do with Sara, and Sara was fantastically distracting, but I had to stay on target with this first. I checked my watch (yes, I'm one of those who still wears an actual watch). Laura's kids would be in school now, she herself would be on lunch break—she owned a shop—so this was a good time to call.

It was a short, simple, warm conversation, strangely tepid for the intensity of the subject matter: Laura was glad to hear from
me, glad I was well, she was well, too, yes, she was still up for it, she was so pleased with me for having a reason to pursue it. She invited me over for dinner the next night to talk about details. She caught me up on what her boys were doing—I'd helped coach their soccer team when they were little, now they were too old for anything but girls, she laughed.

“I know that feeling,” I said.

We sent each other love and hung up. I had been walking while talking—not ambling along blissfully as I had down toward Jamaica Pond, this was more of a forced march, and I found myself in Brookline Village. I stopped at a café, ordered an espresso, and claimed a table on the sidewalk, out of the sun.

Now
I could call Sara.

“Hi, sexy,” she said on answering, and I swear my knees almost buckled even though I was sitting. For a moment I couldn't remember why I'd called her—and then when I did, I did not want to say anything.

“Um . . . I left my fiddle in your office,” I said, feeling stupid. “Can I . . . come by and get it?”

“You can,” she said agreeably. “Or I could bring it home with me and you could collect it from me there. Feeling lucky?”

“Wow,” I said, but for more reasons than she realized. “I would love to do that, but I've got some stuff I have to deal with, something, um, interesting has come up and . . . actually I do want to talk to you about it”—that was a lie, I suddenly realized, I didn't really, not at all, I just wanted to kiss her neck—“but let me maybe get myself organized here . . .” I let it trail off.

“Rory?”

“I'll come by end of day, how's that sound?” I said. “To get the
fiddle. And we can go out? Maybe your neighbor can feed the dog again for you?”

I could hear the smile in her voice. “I'd love that,” she said. “As long as I get home in time to take her for a run, she didn't get much exercise yesterday. But do you want to tell me what's up?”

“It's nothing, I'll tell you later.” It was nothing. It really was nothing.

Five hours, three lattes, hours of walking about, and millions of frantic thoughts later, I met her right downstairs by her cubicle at the MFA. I still had my ID badge, so Wanda, who manned the desk (sound track: ABBA) let me through. I was pretty dazed.

“Hey,” Sara said, smiling. With a careful glance down the hallway, she nodded me into the cubicle. There was nobody else around in the hallway. I felt a wave of nostalgia for the simplicity and innocence of the impulsive kiss, in this exact same spot, a very distant twenty-four hours earlier.

She was grinning at me. “It's good to see you,” she whispered. “I've been smiling all day just thinking about you.” She looked adorably, and unusually, vulnerable. “I've had a spring in my step.” She glanced back up at me. “Do you have a spring in your step? Maybe a little one?”

“Oh, darlin', you've no idea,” I said. Forgetting for a moment about all the rest of it, I grabbed her and enjoyed the warmth of her against me, the suddenly familiar scent of her hair. I kissed the side of her head.

“Your fiddle's in the corner,” she said, glancing down the hall lest anybody see us snogging. “I'm just wrapping up if you want to wait a few moments. You okay? You sounded strange on the phone earlier.”

“Actually I've got some interesting news,” I said. “I'll tell you when you're finished.”

She drew back a little to stare at me. She gestured to her extra chair, the one I slid out of yesterday while I was kissing her. “Tell me now,” she said.

So I sat just where I'd sat for the sack/kiss moment, on the same industrial plastic chair with the hollow metal legs, took her hands, and looked into her eyes. I told her about the possible audition. She was thrilled for me.

“Although that means you'd be moving to L.A.?” she said, pushing her lower lip out.

“No, it's shooting right here in Boston. And not for a year. And only if I can get the green card in time.”

“How do you do that?” she asked.

“Right. So here's the thing about it,” I said.

And then I paused.

I had never until that moment thought about my marrying Laura as anything other than a technical necessity. In the Irish expat community, this kind of thing was pretty common. It generally meant creating the appearance of cohabitation—some clothes planted in a dresser, your name on their outgoing phone message, photos and notes creating a fictional paper trail of intimacy. Friends did it to help out friends. It had no emotional meaning at all, not at all. Until I had to explain it to the woman I was falling precipitously in love with.

“I've got this cousin,” I began. Suddenly I felt like my mouth was a cubist painting and I couldn't figure out how to form words naturally. “Actually she's the widow of my cousin, she's a friend, there's nothing between us, never was, never will be, but we've
been talking about it for a while and we've made arrangements to get married so I can get a green card, and this opportunity means I have to do that right away.”

I saw something in her recoil in self-protection.

“And I just hope that whatever's going on between us here,” I continued, feeling myself starting to sweat, “not that we have to define it, but whatever it is, you know, I just hope it's not made weird by my marrying Laura, because
really
it's just for the piece of paper. There's
nothing
between us. Her husband was my favorite cousin. She's like a sister. Trust me,” I added, seeing how the startled look on her face wasn't getting any less startled.

I watched her take a moment to collect herself, which was probably no small enterprise given her experience of the last day: a bloke throws himself at her, makes love to her all night, and then tells her he's marrying someone else. Even if it's just for a green card, that can't have been easy to digest. She was a champ.

“I'm not sure, Rory,” she said. “You kissed your boss for firing you, who knows what you're capable of with somebody who marries you.” I could not tell if she was joking.

“It's not like that! It's just a piece of paper,” I repeated, tightening my grip on her hand as she reflexively pulled away. “We wouldn't even be living together or anything, we'd just have to make it look like we were. She's just helping out a friend.”

“But how can you date
me
if the government is keeping tabs on you to check how genuine your marriage is to
her
?” she asked.

I felt my entire face light up. I could not hide it even from myself. “Are we dating, then? Would you like that? Because I know I would,” I promised her.

“Of course I would,” she said.

For a moment that was the most important thing in the world, more important than the marriage or the green card or the audition. “Really?” I beamed.

“Rory,” she said in her Diana Spencer–with–kindergartner voice. “I don't sleep with men I'm not dating.”

“So we're dating?” I just wanted to make sure. “Official like?”

“I'd like us to, but I don't see how we can if you're supposed to be demonstrating to the government that you're married to somebody else.”

“I'll marry her but you can be my mistress,” I offered gallantly.

“If your being a husband is what gets you the green card, they'll be watching to make sure you're at least a decent husband.”

“It's not like that,” I said reassuringly. “They'll just call us in for an interview and ask us some questions, but we know what kind of questions to expect, so we'll be fine.”

“And that's it? That's really all there is to it?” she asked, looking skeptical. “That simple? Don't bullshit me on this, Rory.”

“Language!” I admonished her. Sara almost never cursed, so it was very charming when she did. I sobered. “All right, not quite that simple. First I'll get a conditional green card. That's good for two years, so they can make sure it's a real marriage. I'll keep some clothes in Laura's closet, and we'll take photos of ourselves at parties—”

“So you'd be going to parties with her,” Sara said very quickly. “Not with me. Not with the person you're dating.”

I gave her a smile I intended to be comforting, and she gave me a scowl informing me I'd failed. “They're parties we'd both be attending anyhow,” I said. “We're good mates, and extended family, and we know all the same people.”

“And all those people are going to play along with this?” she asked. “They don't have a problem with it?”

“It's a good ol' laugh,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. “Most of my mates are expats, they know what I'm going through, they're fine with it. Really.”

“And this goes on for, what did you say, two years? Then what?”

“Then they'll interview us again, to make sure we're still a couple. Then I'll get the
unconditional
green card, and then we'll just get divorced. We won't have lived together, slept together, anything. The whole thing is a fiction.”

Sara took a moment to consider this, grimacing. It really was unnerving how much her face changed when she frowned. “So it's just a piece of paper, some staged photos, and an interview about your relationship?”

“About our fake relationship, yes.”

She frowned some more.

“That's ridiculous,” she said definitively. “If you're getting married just for a piece of paper, you might as well marry the woman you're dating.”

“The woman I'm . . .
You?
” I said in disbelief.

“Me,” she said, as if it were a done deal. To be clear: It was a demand. It was not a proposal.

I was gobsmacked. “But . . . I
like
you. Romantically. Didn't we just agree to date?”

“That should make it easier to convince them we're a real couple,” she said.

“But it'll confuse what's going on between us,” I said. “Don't you think?” I was having a reflux of precisely the same fluttery symptoms from when Dougie called.

She shrugged, and took a sip of water from a white ceramic mug on her desk. She picked up a pen and wiggled it between lean fingers—a transparently false act of casualness. “Why? It's just a piece of paper and an interview. We don't even have to tell anyone. Except your
mates,
who will, y'know, think it's a
good ol' laugh
.”

“What if we break up? I mean, I can't imagine breaking up with you, unless you insist on keeping the dog on the bed, but I can easily imagine the reverse, because to be honest, I am one of the most aggravating people I know. My own mother, rest her soul, wouldn't blame you . . .” I drifted into silence as she set down the pen and gave me the Princess Diana look.

“I'm still your friend, Rory. I've worked beside you for months now, I've seen you act, you've told me all about your past. I'm aware you're not a Boy Scout, but I
know
you. I will still help you, even if we stop seeing each other. I know you're talented. You deserve a break.” She grinned, unsuccessfully hiding her own case of nerves. “If I can't help you as a boss, at least let me help you as a green-card bride.”

I felt dizzy. The word “bride” coming out of her mouth made it seem like, you know,
marriage
. To someone I'd slept with only once. But was already kind of more in love with than anyone ever in my life. Although maybe that was just sex talking . . .

“It would be simpler for me to marry Laura. Really, it doesn't mean any—”

“That will be a lot more complicated in the long run. For one thing, you'll have to stay married for years by the sound of it, soup to nuts, and what if you and I want to get more serious in the meantime?” We both blushed deeply, which in other circumstances would have been almost enjoyable. “I wouldn't have a con
versation about this after a normal first date. But there's nothing about any of this that's normal.”

I felt both horrified and thrilled by the direction the conversation was taking. “But let's say we keep seeing each other. It's not like we'd be ready to get married
now,
or even
soon
. I don't know that I'm the marrying sort
at all
. So being married might make things, you know . . . weird.”