Page 62 of Breathe
She took a precious second to glare at him. “Why else do you think they’re doing it now?”
The paper had done some “investigation” into the Rosette’s habit of employing people from outside the country, and suggested, very cleverly, without making any overt accusations, that some of those employees were here illegally.
“Okay, but hold on,” he said, while she panic-brushed her hair into static-induced knots. “Let’s just... take a minute here.”
“No time,” she snapped. “I have to get to Jon. Like right now.”
“But what are you going to say to him? What do you have to prove? The visa’s right there, in your passport, with its extension.” But Ellen hardly heard him. “Ellen,” Kane tried again, “talk to me.” He reached out to catch her hand, but she dodged him and ran into his showroom of a living room to find her shoes.
“There’s no point,” she said, and then remembered saying that to him when he’d asked her out. The memory made her pause again in her headlong rush.
From the look on his face and the way he pulled back his hand, he remembered it, too. “Really?” he said.
But Ellen was too full of fear and remorse to respond to the hurt in his eyes. “Look, I’ll tell you what happens later,” she said.
“Let me at least drive you to work.”
“No,” she said at once. “That’ll just...” She waved a hand toward the window, and the cameras outside. “I’ll take the T.” Which was another sign of how far Kane had changed her. She’d always had a vague, amorphous anxiety around the T and the people on it. He’d helped her move away from all those fears.
She felt tears start then, but told herself she didn’t have time to indulge them. Instead she kissed Kane quickly, promised she’d call him later, and hit the elevator call button several times in quick, fear-induced jabs.
She barreled into Jon’s office, not even bothering to go to hers first.
But Claire Holland was already there. She sat in one of Jon’s guest chairs and looked up at Ellen as she burst in. Claire somehow managed to look like Ellen’s old headmistress, if her headmistress had had a helmet of bright red hair surrounding her pinched little face. Claire had reminded her of a snotty teacher since the first day they’d met.
No matter; all the pride and anger that had sustained Ellen over the past week and a half had left her. “Listen,” she gasped. “I didn’t say anything to anyone about my visa, or anyone else’s—”
Jon had instinctively stood when she entered, and now said, “Go ahead and sit, Ellen,” but she was shaking too much, now that she was at this dreaded meeting, to move more than her first few steps from the door. Jon closed it behind her.
Claire was holding the newspaper. “I have a meeting after this with the USCIS,” she said. It was typical of Claire’s pedantic nature that she would use the full acronym for what everyone else still called the INS. “They want to see the records of every L-1 employee we’ve ever,” she paused, as if to let that sink in, “brought over here.”
“But all the visas are legal, aren’t they?” Ellen said, aware that she was pleading. “They won’t find anything.”
“It’s our reputation that’s been damaged,” said Claire. “You know how this works, Ellen. According to the newspapers, we’re guilty until proven innocent.”
She closed her eyes briefly. Yes, she knew that. She’d known from the second she’d opened the paper that morning.
“Because your situation was... different,” Claire continued, and she cut her eyes over to Jon. Ellen had a pang of guilt that he’d been drawn into this terrible spotlight as well, just for keeping her on over the usual time period. “They’ve chosen to suggest that not only are you here illegally, but that it’s a practice we use regularly.”
“Yes. I read it.”
This was all because she flipped them the bird that day. They’d stopped painting her as the slightly exotic foreigner and decided to go for the jugular. And they’d succeeded. She felt as if she were bleeding out.
“It’s all very well-written,” said Claire. “Our lawyers probably won’t be able to pin anything definite on them for libel. They’ll print a small retraction in a few days. But the damage is done.”
Ellen nodded weakly. She waited, worked on breathing past the great mass on her chest.
“In any case, this has brought up another problem,” Claire continued. “Am I correct in understanding that Kane Fielding is a client of ours?”
“No,” said Jon, but Claire was looking at Ellen, and the expression on her face gave the woman the answer she wanted.
“I can’t believe,” she said with obvious relish, “that I would need to remind you, Ellen, of the line you’ve crossed.”
“He’s not a client,” Ellen said feebly.
Jon echoed her, more strength in his voice. “Fielding Paper didn’t hire us because Ellen was leaving. They were never clients.” This was not strictly true. Ellen had never followed up with Lucía. They usually met every week at the gym, but Ellen had been so wrapped up in Kane she hadn’t worked out since she’d taken Penny there almost three weeks ago, and when she had seen Lucía before that, she’d always put her off.
“Potential clients, then.” Claire shook her head. Ellen felt like Alice in Wonderland after drinking the shrinking potion. Claire was only saying what she herself had said to Kane six weeks ago.
