Page 88 of You Had Me at Hello World
As I wait, my eyes fall on the television mounted on the wall. The digital clock at the bottom of the screen says it’s 8:54 a.m. On TV, there’s a news anchor speaking into the camera—boring—and I’m about to look away when the news ticker catches my attention.
DEFENSE COMPANY NEXUS ENABLING ICE IMMIGRATION RAIDS.
As a video of an arrest plays, a female voiceover says, “Recent government documents have revealed Nexus’s role in aiding Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents by providing software that identified the whereabouts of undocumented people. To date, ICE has arrested over a thousand people with Nexus’s help.”
Onscreen, there’s someone with a blurred-out face being led away in handcuffs. And even though I intellectually know the blur isgood, that they deserve their anonymity, that they don’t need their face blasted all over the news, it still hurts. Like this person isn’t even a person anymore.
It feels like somebody just stabbed me in the solar plexus.
Suddenly everything that Khoi said about Edvin Nilsen makes sense. The defense contracts.Do you truly think they’d be a good partner for Hello World?
There’s thedingof an elevator, and Edvin’s assistant, Janelle Lim, strolls toward me with a clipboard.
“Char? Come upstairs. Mr. Nilsen is ready to see you now.” Then she sees my face. “What’s wrong?”
I can’t muster the words, but she glances at the television screen and does thisoh, dearkind of sigh. “Oh. That.”
Her nonchalant attitude makes me blurt, “How can you work for a company that does this?”
“The media blows things out of proportion,” she says. “They thrive off sensationalism.”
So she’s not outright denying it. “So you guysarehelping with…” I wave at the television screen. “Whatever the hell this is.” When she says nothing, I add, “My mom is an immigrant.” And Janelle is Asian too.
“They aren’t like us, Char.” Janelle fiddles with her glasses. “They came here illegally. Our parents came here therightway.”
“I don’t think we’re all that different,” I say, thinking about the people I interviewed while doing product research for Hello World. The lady from Venezuela who sobbed because she couldn’t go back to see her sick mother. Or the guy who crossed the border by himself at age fourteen.
The people in my own life. Lola’s mom is undocumented. My mother only got her citizenship through marriage.
If I sign with Edvin, am I betraying all of them?
I want to hurl.
She shrugs, her face impassive. “You shouldn’t make any rash decisions here. Working with Mr. Nilsen could be very good for your career.”
She’s not wrong. I need the cash and the clout. I need the safety net that comes with being all buddy-buddy with a billionaire like Edvin Nilsen.
I wonder why aligning myself with a white guy so often ends up with me hiding some part of myself. Like with Drew and letting him call me Mulan. And it’s not just me. My mother with Michael. Stella with Lucas.
“Just… give me a moment,” I say. My head is woozy.
“Mr. Nilsen is a busy man,” Janelle says. “He has a hard stop at ten a.m.”
But before I can respond, the elevatordingsagain and Edvin himself struts out. He’s wearing a Patagonia vest over a plain black T-shirt and a Swiss watch encrusted in diamonds.
He gives me a perfunctory nod. “What’s taking so long?”
Janelle tries to motion to the TV screen, but the story has already shifted to whatever recent dumb remark our president made about another world leader. I guess the Nexus scandal was only worth two minutes of airtime.
So she goes, “Char found out about the collaboration with Homeland Security.”
Is that why Edvin pushed to close this deal so quickly? He probably knew this news was about to break and wanted me to sign before I heard.
He tilts his head. “So…?”
“So it’swrong,” I say, and then immediately cringe at how childish it sounds. If Khoi was here, he’d be more eloquent. He’dbe able to nail exactly what is so gross about this. But Khoi isn’t here, and my thoughts are too frantic and blobby to translate into words.
Edvin groans. “Are you serious, Char?”
