The Vow

Chapter 18

Mo

I pull Satan’s Cat from her corner of the couch onto my lap. Mistake. Painful mistake. Her Highness makes the same feral scream she did the last time I dared to touch her and digs a new set of gashes down my left forearm with both claws.

I scream swear words in English, Spanish, and Arabic (covering all my bases), and she scampers away.

I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m not sure why I keep trying. She is, after all, Satan’s Cat, and has been since the day I took over as her guardian, the day she proved herself totally unworthy of being called Duchess by crapping on my pillow.

My arm kills. I inspect the fresh red lines branding me as her property. Droplets of blood bubble up along the deepest one, but I don’t wipe them away. I stare at the blood, focusing on the pain, trying to harness it to fuel my revenge. Because I think it’s finally time for revenge.

I’ve been trying all weekend to make friends with Satan’s Cat—yes, actually trying to forge an emotional bond with the most sinister feline the animal kingdom has ever produced—but she’s still giving me the hiss-and-fang show. As if lying on the couch crying off and on for the last forty-eight hours hasn’t been emasculating enough, I’m now being rejected by a puffball formerly known as Duchess.

I spent the first few hours in this apartment wandering around baby-talking to Duchess, looking for Duchess’ bunny toy, scooping Duchess’ piss puddles out of the litter box. When I found the diarrhea on my pillow, it was almost a relief, as if she was giving me permission to let the charade go. We were to be mortal enemies. We are mortal enemies. For ever and ever. I should probably eat something—I feel light-headed.

Hopefully Sarina doesn’t mind that her cherished pet is my new nemesis. Not that she’ll know. I promised to keep the animal alive, not sing her songs and braid her hair. The only redeeming aspect of the cat situation is that she’s distracted me from the torn and ragged feeling in my chest every time I think about my family.

I look over at Satan’s Cat in the corner, and of course she starts it again. She widens her eyes. I sigh loudly, but not enough to deter her. Another staring contest. This is probably somewhere around our fifteenth in two days. It goes like this. Satan’s Cat stares into my eyes. I stare into Satan’s Cat’s eyes. After a few minutes I get freaked out and jump off the couch, usually screaming the same string of trilingual curse words as before because she has the most terrifying eyes in the world. They’re amber with long black flecks in them that look like slivers, and I swear after about thirty seconds they start spinning like pinwheels and she’s actually grinning at me the whole time—EVEN THOUGH CATS CAN’T GRIN!—probably because she knows she’s stretching her evil out and into my brain. Demonic ocular poisoning. I’d Google it if I weren’t so afraid of what I’d see. Whatever. Maybe this time I’ll win.

The nasal apartment buzzer—the auditory equivalent of a rusty nail probing the softest part of my brain—sends Satan’s Cat scrambling off the couch. She’s jumpy. Probably related to a guilty conscience.

I drag myself up and off the couch and stumble through the cloud of dizziness swirling my field of vision around like a psychedelic glow stick. Is this the first time I’ve stood up today? Yeah. Maybe. I can’t really remember when yesterday ended and today started, and I must’ve gotten up to pee at some point. I shuffle my way over to the intercom and hold the wall-mounted box for a moment to steady myself. When things look relatively solid, I depress the red button. “Yeah?” My voice is gravel, tar, and a cheese grater.

“Let me up.”

“Who is this?”

“Very funny, Mo. Let me up.”

“This sounds like a girl I used to know. Annabelle, I believe her name was.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. The weekend’s been a little crazy.”

“For you, too? I’ve been wrestling with a possessed feline and contemplating whether a toaster in the bathtub would actually do the job.”

“You’d better be talking about killing the cat.”

“Actually, I was referring to both of us. We’ve made a murder-suicide pact.”

“You can’t make a murder-suicide pact. It’s just a suicide pact, and you don’t make one with a cat.”

“I’m not even sure she’s a cat,” I explain. “She could be, like, I don’t know, the devil incarnate.”

“Let me up.”

“If it’s not a murder-suicide pact, what do you call it when she promised to kill me if I don’t kill myself ?”

“Mo!”

“Fine.”

I press the gray button, look around, and realize too late that I’ve made a mistake. She’s going to go nuts. I’ve got three days’ worth of dirty dishes on the coffee table and half a box of used tissue from when I may have shed a few manly tears about being abandoned, all scattered around the permanent body imprint I’ve left on the couch. Four empty bottles of Mountain Dew on the end table, and oh yeah, and a family-size box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch on its side beside the couch with about two hundred tiny cinnamon toasts sprinkled across the carpet, which I may have accidentally kicked over and trudged through on my way to the intercom. And the boxes I was supposed to unpack—my clothes, my books, some dishes and kitchen crap that I don’t even know how to use, some decorating stuff my mom insisted I keep—are all still stacked in a tower in the corner, unopened. Satan’s Cat is perched stone-like, glaring down at me from the top one. Hell’s gargoyle.

Annie doesn’t knock. The door opens and she takes a few cautious steps into the cave, looking around without a word. She’s wearing another one of those sundress things that she doesn’t seem to realize make her look like she’s a five-year-old time traveler from the 1950s. There’s something else different about her too, but it takes me a moment to figure it out. Her hair is curled. She hasn’t curled her hair since Chris Dorsey. Great.

She places her purse oh-so-gingerly on an open patch of carpet, then turns a slow circle. She saw the place last week after we’d just moved the boxes in, before my family left, so she knows what it’s supposed to look like. I brace for impact. I’m predicting the words “disgusting,” “pig,” and “health inspector” in any order.

What I’m not predicting is for her to turn, put her hand on my arm, and say, “Oh.”

Just oh.

I underestimated her. The way she looks at me, eyes bigger than gumballs, it’s clear I’m not the revolting, unshowered mess of a human being I’ve morphed into over the last forty-eight hours. We’re not even at Wisper Pines. We’re at the Louisville Children’s Science Center, I’ve got piss running down both of my legs, and she’s the only one in the world who sees me.

I swallow and turn away. She doesn’t try to hug me, and for that alone, I will love her forever.

She starts with the food, scooping handfuls of cereal into an empty grocery bag she finds in the kitchen. I watch for a few numb seconds, then go off to find the vacuum cleaner.

When I get back she’s holding an empty Mountain Dew bottle in each hand. “Recycling bin?”

“Can’t do it. Global warming conspiracy theory is way too mainstream.”

She doesn’t even roll her eyes, just tosses them into the trash.

I gather the tissues and chuck them too. “I had a cold,” I mutter, in case she’s wondering, but she doesn’t even raise an eyebrow.

Satan’s Cat watches it all from her perch until Annie opens up a can of cat food and scoops it into a bowl. For this, the beast hops down from her roost, slinks and weaves her way through Annie’s legs, then begins taking dainty little bites.

I glare at the beast. When I feed her, she pounces on it, stopping to hiss every few seconds to let me know her feelings for me haven’t changed just because I’m keeping her alive.

“No offense,” Annie says after a few minutes of cleaning, “but how long has it been since you showered?”

“Uh . . .” I can’t even remember what day I took them to the airport. Friday? And today’s Sunday? No, Monday. Maybe.

“Go shower.”

I obey, relieved to be bossed around, relieved to not be having another staring contest with Satan’s Cat, relieved someone is offended by my stench. And my obedience leads to the discovery of Wisper Pines’s finest amenity: the showerhead. They really should have included it in the brochure. I mean, the tennis and basketball courts plus community gardens are lovely features, but this showerhead is way better because it feels like I’m being pelted by skin-melting lasers, and it’s something I’m going to use every day. Well, theoretically. If I’d known, I would’ve spent the last two or three or four days in here instead of lying on the couch.

Facing the nozzle, I lean into the pressure wash of scalding water and steam until the grime shell is gone. I don’t turn it off until my skin is too sore for one more second. I’m raw all over. But transformed too, because I feel seventeen again—not seventy or seven—too young to be dying, too old to be homesick. Or family-sick. For now it’s all scalded away.

I shave, put on fresh clothes, and leave the bathroom to find Annie digging through my life. Basketball trophies, report cards, immunization records, a badge-covered shirt from my ill-advised foray into the world of the Boy Scouts of America. She sifts through it without taking it out of the box, then moves on to the next one.

“My clothes,” I say. “I’ll do them.” I reach down and take the box from her. She doesn’t protest or ask me why I’m such a lazy piece of crap for just letting them sit here instead of unpacking like a normal human being.

From my room I can hear her taking out the contents of the next box, and I know it’s the one I don’t want unpacked because I can hear the clinking of candlesticks.

The apartment came furnished, but my mom insisted on leaving a few things to make it like home. I know exactly what’s in there because I saw her pack it up. Family portraits in matching silver frames. Her favorite candlesticks, like I’m ever in a million years going to light candles. A hand-woven silk table runner that belonged to her mother. This ancient anthology of children’s stories she read to Sarina and me when we were little. Stuff I don’t want to see right now.

“Just leave that stuff in the box,” I call from the room.

“But some of it’s really pretty. Don’t you at least want the family pictures out? And what’s this old book?”

“I don’t want to see it right now,” I yell, too loudly, and instantly regret the blatant desperation. “Please,” I try again, softer. “Just leave it.”

Silence. I stick my head out the door and I see her small body bent over the candlesticks. She’s rewrapping them in the table runner, placing them gently back into the box like she’s afraid they’ll detonate.

By the time I’ve found drawer space for all my clothes, Annie’s long done with the living room and nearly finished unpacking the kitchen boxes too.

“Thank you,” I say, sliding into a chair at the kitchen table. I know I’m alone in believing this, but people overuse those words so they mean almost nothing at a time like this, when I need them to mean everything. I can only think of a few times in my whole life I’ve ever been more grateful. She deserves a million thank-yous.

“It’s nothing. I should’ve come by sooner.”

“No. I really mean it. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything this nice for you.”

“A couple of hours of cleaning? You spent at least twenty hours tutoring me for chemistry last semester. I bombed the final, by the way.”

“What? Why didn’t you tell me?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s embarrassing.”

“How bad?”

She tucks her hair behind her ears and squeezes her eyes shut like that’ll help her forget. “You don’t want to know. And it was algebra the semester before that, and biology the semester before that, so you do nice things for me all the time.”

I let it go. But this wasn’t nice. This was heroic. Life-altering.

“So, what’s going on with you?” I ask.

“Nothing. Sorry I haven’t called. I knew you were spending every second with your family, and then this weekend has just been kind of busy.”

“You hooked up with that guy.”

“What guy?”

“The one with the plant name. Weed.”

“Reed.”

“Yeah, whatever. Him.”

She bites her lower lip in classic Annie concentration. Her face says: formulating lie, formulating lie, formulating lie, crap, can’t formulate a lie, change the subject. “I hate the term hooked up.”

“Noted.”

“No really. Can we not say hung out with?”

“We can, but it means something different. And it’s obvious you and the Weed have done both.”

“Why is that obvious?”

“Because otherwise you would have just answered the question.”

“Hmm.” She taps her fingers on the countertop. Her nails are pink. This is serious.

“So when do I get to meet him?” I ask.

“Never.”

“What? How is that even possible? As your husband, I demand to meet the dude you’re making out with. ”

“And as your wife, I demand you let it go. When do we meet with the lawyer?”

“If today is actually Monday, then tomorrow at nine in the morning. And he’s just a law student. Supposedly, I don’t need a real lawyer, just some know-it-all with legal tendencies to tell me which forms to fill out.”

“I’m kind of surprised you actually made the call.”

“I didn’t,” I admit. “I kept putting it off until my dad freaked out and at the last minute called for me. It’s in Louisville, but you don’t have to go if you’ve got work or hookup plans that interfere.”

“I’ll go with you,” she says, but I can tell she doesn’t want to. From the way she grimaced under the word “wife,” it’s clear she’s experiencing buyer’s remorse. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at eight?”

“Sure.”

“And do I have to know anything or say anything?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t even see the point of it. I think we just show up and smile.”

“I can do that.” She exhales and her shoulders drop a little. She looks worried. “Are you going to be okay?”

I glance around me. Okay. Am I going to be okay? “Yeah?”

“Really?”

I have no idea. I don’t even know if I want to be okay. Up until an hour ago, dedicating myself to winning the love of Satan’s Cat or killing her was actually starting to sound like a viable life plan.

I lean over, rest my chin on my palm, and stare at the grout between two tiles. Grout is way less likely to make me cry than Annie’s eyes all full of sympathy and worry. “I didn’t think it was going to be this hard. Saying good-bye, I mean. But I can take care of myself.”

“I know.”

“Not that you’d believe me based on the state of this place an hour ago, but I’ll do better.”

“I believe you. But I need you to be okay okay. Like not too depressed to shower or eat or talk to humans.”

“Annie.”

“Mo.”

“My family just left. Left. They did it. It’s over. My childhood, everything, I’m—” I stop myself just short of saying what I really mean: I’m completely alone. It’s too pitiful. “I’ll be okay.”

“You’ve got me.”

I run both hands through my hair. It’s still wet and I feel the water drip down into the collar of my shirt. “I know. But my sister had to leave, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what I’ve done to deserve to be sitting here, while she’s somewhere learning how to wrap up her head so nobody sees hair.”

“So don’t waste it.”

I look up from the grout into Annie’s eyes. Sometimes she says the most brilliant things. “Okay.”

She pulls out her cell, to check the time I assume—of course, the prison guards will be waiting for her—but then she puts it up to her ear and turns to face the cabinets, as if this prevents me from hearing her conversation.

“Hi . . . Yeah, I know, but I’m going to be late . . . With Mo . . . Can’t you just tell Dad I can’t make it? . . . Because . . . Mom . . . his family left two days ago. . . . Maybe. . . . I’ll ask him. . . . I’ll call you back.”

She hangs up. “Do you want to come over to my house for dinner?”

I pretend to think about it for a couple of seconds. She pretends to believe that I’m thinking about it. And then I shake my head no.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to dinner at the Berniers’, but I’m pretty sure it hasn’t changed. Good food, bad feel. Bloodless and brittle. Lena must’ve been the heart that pumped life into those people, the walls, the air. I don’t understand where Annie fits into all of it or how she even survives, but it’s dry and colorless and fragile, and I’d rather eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch on my couch and have another staring contest with Satan’s Cat.

She nods, understands. She takes out her phone, dials her mom again, and turns back to the cabinets. “Hi . . . No, he’s got a lot to do here. Actually, I’m going to stay and help him. . . . I know. . . . I don’t care. . . . Yes, I am. . . . Tell him I’ll be back by midnight. . . . I’m eighteen. . . . Just because. . . .”

I get up and walk back into the living room. Satan’s Cat is perched on a single box in the corner, the one I wouldn’t let Annie unpack. Back when the cat was Duchess, Sarina played games with her every evening, hid her catnip toys, actually stroked her fur.

I wonder what Sarina’s doing now. I’m assuming Jordan has a plethora of nasty cats to love, but I can’t imagine she’s adopted one already. She’s probably lying in bed clutching a stuffed animal, worrying about whether or not I’ve remembered to read Duchess a bedtime story. I check my inbox to see if she’s responded to the email I sent yesterday. Nothing.

“TV?” Annie asks, flopping down on the couch.

“Sure. Don’t get in trouble over me, though. I’m okay if you have to go.”

She purses her lips and examines the remote. “I know. I’m exerting a little independence. You know, being my own woman and all that crap.”

“But they just bought you a brand-new car. Maybe you shouldn’t piss them off.”

Satan’s Cat hops off the box and onto Annie’s lap. “If I was going that route, I’d have told them I got married last week.”

“Good point,” I say, and sit down beside her. “But I don’t want them hating me any more than they already do, on the off chance they do find out and your dad is deciding whether to kill me or only cut my testicles off.”

“Do you want me here?” she asks.

“Of course.”

“Then shut up.”

“Okay.”

We watch a double episode of COPS, then stop to make dinner, which consists of grilled cheese sandwiches—possibly the best I’ve ever tasted—and a pear she finds in her purse. We split it bite for bite, and it’s the first fruit or vegetable (excluding Crunch Berries) I’ve had in days, so it tastes pretty incredible. Next up, a reality show about an animal stuffer with a shop called Xtreme Taxidermy, which completely captivates Satan’s Cat, which reaffirms that my name choice for her was a good one. And the last show I remember is Access Hollywood, but I fall asleep in the opening sequence, vaguely aware that I’ve got my feet on Annie’s lap and that I’m not miserable for the first time in days.

When I wake up at seven the next morning, Annie’s gone. But the cat is asleep on the couch directly above my head, either keeping sentinel or plotting to smother me. Either way she fell asleep and failed to accomplish her goal.

The note on the coffee table says: Pick you up at 8:00.

I check the clock. 7:15.

In the next forty-five minutes I take my second Wisper Pines shower, eat breakfast, brush my teeth, iron a dress shirt in case I’m supposed to look presentable, and lose another staring contest to Satan’s Cat before I decide to go wait outside.

Outside is weird. I haven’t been outside in days. The sun feels slightly abrasive, to the point of making my skin itch, and I’m hearing an uncomfortable number of sounds. Not particularly loud, but too many little ones: birds, cars, wind, bicycles and their bells, leashed animals, chatty walkers—it seems excessive. I’m turning to go back inside when Annie rolls up. The glossy new car surprises me. I wonder if in my mind she’ll always be driving the old truck.

“I forgot how in-your-face this thing is,” I say, climbing into the passenger seat.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That it looks like an obsidian chariot from outer space.”

“I see you’re feeling more like yourself,” she says. “That’s probably a good thing. Would you rather take your car?”

I scan the parking lot for my dad’s Camry. I haven’t exactly driven it around yet. I think it would make me miss him. “No, I just miss the good old days in the truck.”

“Sure. The truck with no AC and a broken door that you couldn’t stop complaining about. Of course you do. How’s Wisper Pines this morning?”

“Aside from the unconscionable bastardization of the English language I have to be reminded of every time I see Wisper without an h, it’s fine.”

“So yes, feeling more like yourself. Do I need to tell you to chill out, or are you going to get there on your own?”

“I’m good.” I put the address my dad gave me into the navigation system and inspect the map it produces. “I don’t trust this map.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“You just don’t trust the car,” she says. “The navigation system hasn’t been wrong yet.”

“Is this the first time you’ve used it?”

“Yes.”

“Awesome. Let’s drive.”

The navigation system, not surprisingly, is as fan-freaking-tastic as the rest of the car. It practically drives us there, and by there I mean to a squat, turd-colored apartment building three blocks from the University of Louisville Law School.

Annie and I sit, neither of us speaking, neither of us moving to get out.

“What are you thinking?” she asks finally.

“I’m thinking I hate that question. And I’m thinking it’s stupid that my dad set this thing up when I obviously need a real attorney. I feel like one of those newborns abandoned on the fire station porch by a fourteen-year-old after being given birth to in a bathroom stall at a school dance.”

“Lovely. Let’s go.”

Annie opens her door first. I follow her.

Inside is less than impressive—not a dorm but dusted with that same institutional aura. “I feel like I should be wearing an orange jumpsuit,” I mumble.

“Did you say third floor?”

“Yeah. Do you suppose the inmates here go by their names or numbers?”

“I’m ignoring you.”

“Okay.”

The third floor smells like beer and cotton candy, probably because there’s a girl sitting on the floor outside the elevator consuming both. Her lips are bright blue and silently mouthing the words as she reads the mammoth textbook in her lap.

“This is the face of higher education in the United States of America?” I whisper to Annie as we move past her.

“Keep moving.”

We find the apartment halfway down the hall, and Annie knocks before I can vocalize one of the many reasons not to.

“Come in,” a male voice calls.

Annie opens the door, and the beer-and-cotton-candy smell is instantly gone, replaced by a moldy-carpet-infused-with-sulfur aroma. A curly-haired guy eating egg salad out of Tupperware is sitting on a couch, staring at his watch.

“Hold on,” he whispers, putting up a hand. We hold on. Apparently Sam Cane is still learning to tell time. I look at Annie, but she refuses to look back at me. “I’m timing something,” he says, still whispering.

Timing something. Like the amount of time it takes egg salad to turn? And why the whispering?

“Done,” calls a female voice from another room.

“Liar,” he shouts, and slams the container of egg salad down on the counter. The plastic fork bounces out and onto the floor.

“How long?” asks the same bubbly voice, and then a girl appears. Or not a girl. A woman, probably midtwenties, wearing about a pound of makeup. Or maybe the pound of makeup is wearing her. She looks a little like Annie—a fuller, older, color-enriched version. The hair is darker blond and a bit red. The eyes are a couple shades darker blue. “How long?” she repeats. She has a folded newspaper in one hand, a pencil in the other hand, and a crazy-competitive smile gripping her face.

Curly-top rolls his eyes and mutters, “A minute thirty-three.”

“Ha!” She whacks him on the arm with the newspaper.

“Here, let me check it. I don’t even think I believe you.” He squints at a little corner of the newspaper, while she turns back to us and grins and shakes her head like we’re old friends.

“Excuse him. He’s a sore loser.”

“I’m not a sore loser.”

“You are, but it’s okay. I might be a sore loser too if I just lost the Jumble for the ninth time in a row. It is nine now, isn’t it?”

He’s still squinting at her answers, ignoring her.

“But seriously,” she says, “not everybody can be good at the Jumble. You’ve got other talents.”

I grip the scrap of paper in my hand a little tighter, wishing I could make it disappear or just not have printed on it the name of this dufus who has lost the Jumble to Miss America here nine times in a row.

He looks at me with sleepy eyes.

“No,” I mumble, “I think we’re in the right place. We’re looking for a Mr. Cane.”

“Then you are in the right place,” the woman says.

“Super.”

“That would be me.”

I wait for the punch line.

She gives me a pageant smile. Apparently there is no punch line.

I shove the paper into my pocket. “Mr. Sam M. Cane?”

“Yeah,” she says, and holds out a hand to shake. “Everything but the mister. You must be Mohammed.”

“Mo.” I shake her hand, feeling strangely disoriented. I’ve had entirely too many carbs and not nearly enough protein in the last couple of days. “You’re Sam?”

“Yeah. Samantha takes too long to write. And you must be Annabelle?”

Annie just nods, so I say, “It’s Annie.”

“Cool,” Sam says.

Cool?

“You two want to sit?”

Annie pushes me toward the couch. Curly-top gets up, mumbling something about having to go to work, and shoves the folded newspaper in the trash on his way out.

“Sorry about him,” Sam says. “He has a delicate ego, but he does most of the cleaning around here so I put up with him.”

Annie and I sink into the couch, while I consider whether Sam and the sore loser are a couple or just roommates. She certainly outranks him in the looks department, but maybe he has one of those lame talents chicks fall for, like writing depressing poetry or playing the guitar.

Sam takes the chair on the other side of the beat-up coffee table, sitting with her feet pulled up, arms wrapped around her knees. Maybe professional decorum is something you get when you graduate from law school. Or maybe she’ll sit like that in court someday. “So I’m told you guys need some help,” she adds.

“Uh, yeah.” We do need help. That government website my Dad directed me to nearly made my head explode, but I’m pretty sure Law School Barbie is not going to be the one to clarify things for me. “We just got married and now I need to apply to become a permanent resident. I think I need a work visa too.”

“Before we start, I should tell you I don’t really know anything about immigration law,” she says.

I fight the colossal urge to roll my eyes and yell, Then why are we here?

“But it’s easy enough to figure out which forms you need,” she adds. “I went on the CIS website last night and—”

“Yeah, I’ve looked at that,” I interrupt. “No offense, but I think we might need to get a real attorney.”

Annie pinches my arm.

“Ow. What? I said no offense.”

“None taken,” Sam says. “You can definitely get an immigration attorney to file your applications for you if you don’t mind spending the money, but you don’t really need one. Not for this situation. I mean, the information is confusing, so it helps to have someone show you which forms you need and how to fill them out, but I can do that.”

“Thank you,” Annie says. “That’s exactly what we need.”

“I mean, technically I’m not supposed to be practicing law before I’m admitted to the bar.” Sam stops and waves her hand in the air, like the detail is a hovering mosquito. “But this isn’t really practicing law. It’s more like giving you friendly suggestions.”

“Sure,” Annie says.

“Seriously?” I ask, but nobody’s listening to me. Annie’s gazing at Sam like she wants to ask to be adopted.

“Do you have your birth and marriage certificates?” Sam asks.

Annie pulls out the file she’s brought along and hands it to Sam, who flips through it. “Wait, you guys are how old?”

“Eighteen,” Annie says.

“And you?” Sam says to me.

“Seventeen.”

She puts the file down. “Wow. So you guys got married because . . .”

“Because we’re madly in love,” I say. “Now what do we need to do to get started on this?”

Sam looks to Annie. “Okay, I can give you guys suggestions, but I can’t help you break the law.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask. “Since when is getting married breaking the law?”

“Getting married isn’t,” she says. “Filing immigration papers based on a fraudulent marriage is.”

“Fraudulent?” Annie asks.

“Not real,” Sam says, her eyes flitting back and forth between Annie and me.

“I thought you didn’t know anything about immigration law,” I say. The pinch from Annie is much harder this time.

“I believe I said I don’t know much,” Sam counters. “But I called a few friends last night and found out the basics. I do know that you guys are going to have to go for an adjustment of status interview in a few months. They’ll separate you and ask you the same questions to make sure your answers match up. You’ll have to show them proof that you’re living together. More than just this.” She holds up the marriage certificate.

“And what if we can’t do that?” Annie asks.

Sam puts the marriage certificate back down and closes the file. I suddenly feel naked. Stupid. We are idiots. I’m not sure why, but we are.

“Let’s speak hypothetically,” Sam says.

“Let’s,” I say. I should probably be feigning enthusiasm, but I don’t like this egg-salad-rotting-in-my-nostrils feeling, and I already know I’m not going to like what’s about to come out of Sam’s mouth hypothetically.

“Let’s pretend that you two just got married.”

“That’s not pretending,” I say. “We did just get married. Do you know what hypothetical means?”

“Right,” Sam says, “so I guess that’s not the hypothetical part.”

I stare at Sam, waiting for something hypothetical to come out of her glossy pink mouth and enlighten me.

“Let’s say you two got married just so Mo could stay here. If I knew that, if one of you tells me that, I can’t help you.”

“What?” Annie asks. “Why?”

“Because I can’t help you commit a felony.”

I think I can hear Annie’s heart thudding. I ignore the voice in my head that’s screaming Felony, felony, felony and say, “Wait. Lawyers defend criminals all the time.”

“But I wouldn’t be defending you. I’d be helping you commit a crime. Hypothetically.”

“Right,” I mutter. “Great. This is why we need to get a real lawyer. Law students still have ideals. Whatever happened to the stereotypical scumbag attorney—Ouch, Annie, pinch me once more and I swear I will never watch Project Runway with you again.”

“Hold on,” Sam says. “We were talking hypothetically for a reason. Nobody has confessed to participating in a fraudulent marriage, and I’m only suggesting that nobody does.”

She pauses to stare meaningfully at both of us, but I’m watching her nose, not her eyes. It’s a perfectly normal nose when she’s quiet. But then she starts talking again and it bobs up and down like there’s an invisible string connecting it to her bottom lip or something. Therefore, I can’t not hate her.

“Let’s talk more about the interview,” Sam says. “They’ll ask you the questions married people know about each other—who sleeps on what side of the bed, that kind of thing—and you’ll bring stuff that proves you’re really married. Wedding pictures, honeymoon pictures, your apartment lease with both your names on it, checkbook with both your names on it, evidence of joint purchases, yada, yada. It’s not uncommon for them to send agents out to interview people you know, relatives, bosses, friends to make sure you’re actually living together and in love. And if he buys that you guys are actually married, and not committing immigration fraud, then you’ll be a conditional permanent resident, Mo.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say. “Agents will come to Hardin County?”

“It doesn’t happen most of the time, but if there’s even the tiniest of red flag in that interviewer’s mind, then they’ll investigate, and at that point it’s sort of impossible to hide the lie. If it’s a lie. Which I’m not saying it is.”

I try swallowing the golf ball lodged in the back of my throat, but it can’t be coaxed down. I should be processing what she’s saying to me, but I can’t focus because all I can think about is why I didn’t know this and if Mom knew any of this, and if she did, why didn’t she tell me? She couldn’t have known. But did Dad?

“When is this interview?” Annie asks, barely above a whisper.

“A few months. Probably October or November. And then two years after that, you will petition to have conditions removed.”

“Can we speak hypothetically again?”

Sam nods.

“What if a couple isn’t living together? What if their friends and family don’t know they’re married?”

“Then that couple should either get their marriage annulled immediately to avoid a felony conviction and a fine and possible jail time for the US citizen”—she pauses to stare at Annie—“or they should make it real.”

“But who’s to say what’s real?” Annie asks, an almost panicky tone to her voice. “What if they love each other like best friends? Because they are best friends. Who is anybody to say that their marriage is less real than, say, my parents, who haven’t had a real conversation in years and have separate bedrooms?”

If Sam is embarrassed by the overshare, she doesn’t let on. She gives Annie a sympathetic look, but I see more. There’s a glimmer of condescension in her eyes. She’s underestimating Annie. People shouldn’t do that.

“Listen,” Sam says, the glimmer still there. “The United States government doesn’t allow people to file for permanent residency because they have a best friend who’s an American citizen. They allow people to file for permanent residency if they have a spouse who’s an American. You could argue about what kind of love makes a marriage a real marriage all day long, but if that couple isn’t living together, hasn’t told a soul that they’re married, and is planning to divorce as soon as the immigrant’s status has been secured, it’s obviously fraudulent, and that couple is screwed. Screwed. Seriously, I don’t mean to scare the hypothetical couple, but they either move in and start doing the married people thing, or march back into that courthouse and get it reversed.”

“And go back to Jordan,” I say.

Sam shrugs. Clearly you don’t need a heart to be in beauty pageants.

“The married people thing?” Annie says. “Are you saying they’re actually going to ask if we’re sleeping together?”

“No. But you’ve got to be living together.”

“For how long?” Annie asks.

“If you’re not still actually married when you’re petitioning to remove conditions—so that’s two years after your interview—you’re going to have a hard time convincing them the marriage was real.”

Annie looks like she’s going to throw up. “Two years,” she mumbles.

“I thought people did this all the time,” I say.

“Oh, they do,” Sam says, flipping open the file folder to the first form in a stack. “They also get caught all the time. They get examples made of them all the time. And then the one gets sent home and the other has a criminal record. I mentioned the fines and possible jail time already, right?”

Annie nods, eyes glazed.

“There’s one more thing you should consider,” she says, turning to me. “The US government gives visas to foreign students all the time. You’d have to go back to Jordan to finish high school and apply to American colleges, but once you’ve been accepted, you could apply for a student visa. It wouldn’t be a sure thing, but it would be legal. As opposed to other methods.”

“But not a sure thing,” Annie repeats. “And what happens when he’s done with college?”

“His visa expires and he goes home.”

“Back to Jordan,” Annie corrects.

“Yeah.”

Annie shakes her head.

“So what’ll it be?” Sam asks. “Do we need to start going through these documents, or do you guys have stuff to rethink? It’s pretty expensive to file them, so it makes sense to be really sure that you aren’t going to change your minds in case you have, um, issues.”

I turn so I’m facing Annie and try for all the world to pretend Sam is not here. Annie’s bottom lip is quivering. This is bad. This is very, very bad.

“Why don’t I give you guys a minute?” Sam says. “I’ll be in my bedroom.”

I wait until the door slams shut before I let out my breath. “We’re being represented by the Legally Blonde chick.”

“Reese Witherspoon. And I like Sam.”

“Let’s argue about how annoying she is later. We can’t do this. We have to get it annulled.”

“No.”

“Maybe I should go back to Jordan and try to get a student visa.”

“No.” She frowns and stares over my shoulder at the wall. “Why should you have to lose everything that’s important to you—your senior year, basketball, your friends? You could be valedictorian, Mo. And you heard her. It’s not a sure thing. The odds could be something crazy like one in a thousand applicants gets a visa.”

She’s right. Sam probably doesn’t even know the numbers, but maybe that doesn’t matter. It’s our only legal option, now that our perfect marriage solution is irreparably screwed up. “We’re committing a felony, Annie. Why didn’t I know that? This is a fraudulent marriage. We’re felons.”

“No, we aren’t,” Annie says. “And we’re not getting the marriage annulled.”

“What, you seriously want to tell your parents? Everyone we know? Move into Wisper Pines and start senior year as the married couple?”

“No.” She swallows and folds her arms. I can see she’s pinching the skin on the undersides of her arms again, probably hard enough to leave bruises. “But I will.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

Instantly, Annie’s eyes are ablaze. I’m an idiot. I just poured gasoline and threw a match at all her nervous energy and now it’s exploding into unadulterated fury. I have the distinct impression that this is what a gazelle feels like, staring into the eyes of a pouncing lioness. Incisors gleaming. Claws drawn. This is my last breath.

“Don’t you dare say that to me,” she spits. “I know what I’m doing. I can do this.”

I put both palms to my forehead. I’ve got to think. Two questions. It comes down to just two. 1. Do I want to do this? But this isn’t even a real question. In the last three days of dark moments, even in the darkest of them, I didn’t consider following them all to Jordan. Even when I felt so guilty about abandoning Sarina that my skin hurt, or when I was too depressed from thinking about the next year without any of them to do anything but stare into Satan’s Cat’s eyes—even then. Of course I want to do this.

And 2. Can I let Annie do this? What’s ridiculous is that she will. She really will. I can see it in her eyes, the fire that’s anger and desperation and survival burning together.

But this doesn’t have to be her decision. I could just get on a plane and leave. Except she’ll hate me if I do that, and I don’t know if that’s more terrifying than what she’ll give up if I stay.

“Your parents will flip out,” I say.

“I don’t care.”

“But your dad might actually kill me.”

“Unlikely. He’ll probably just hit you really hard.”

“You’ll be living at Wisper Pines. What about your mural?”

She flinches, and I think maybe I’ve flipped the switch that’ll reverse this hurtling shuttle, and I don’t know whether to be relieved or devastated. But then she says, “You honestly think I care more about paint and walls than you?”

I lean back in my chair, feeling like a wind has slammed me backward and stare at the dartboard. And I smile. I shouldn’t. I’m selfish. But I’m happy. What else can I do?