Chapters (45)
- Cover
- Blame Iton Paris
- Copyright Notice
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Book One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Book Two
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
“She said he needed a visa. So he showed her his visa, and I showed her his visa, and all she would do was repeat that he needed a visa.”
A pause. “Well, it would have to be an acceptable type of visa, like the I-94, for example.”
I gritted my teeth. “It is the I-94.”
Another pause. “Well . . . you know, ma’am . . . I think it would be much more efficient for you to just apply by mail through Philadelphia. You know, that’s all they’re going to do at the local office anyway, is accept your application and then mail it on a few days later. You’ll save so much more time bypassing them.”
“Evidently, but that doesn’t give your local office a right to refuse the application without putting themselves in a very dubious legal position.”
“Ma’am,” said the woman who had just claimed her local IRS employees were practiced hands at foreign national applications and in no way prejudiced, “it’s a question of comfort. Our employees do handle lots of foreign national applications without any prejudice, but they aren’t necessarily . . . comfortable about it. So of course they can make errors. I really do suggest you apply by mail through Philadelphia.”
She hung up, and I stared at the phone, dumbfounded. “I’m glad to know the U.S. is so much more open to foreigners,” said Sébastien, the smart-mouth.
“It was that damn Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty,” I said. It occurred to me that I got most of my facts about America from other Americans. Was it possible these sources could be biased? “It gave me entirely the wrong impression. Do you know I memorized it when I was a kid? I was so proud to have a country with the Statue of Liberty ‘lifting her lamp beside the golden door’ and telling all those ancient lands to keep their storied pomp because we would take their people.”
Sébastien patted me on the shoulder. “The French built the Statue of Liberty. I’m just mentioning it.”
Twenty-eight
By November, I was beating my head against my desk. “You’re going to hurt yourself that way,” Sébastien said, deep in the 3D airplane he was modeling for a French newspaper that wanted to do an article on the Concorde accident. He was trying to get the light on the wings just right.
“Maybe we should just get married,” I growled.
“I love it when you use that romantic tone of voice.” He poked his head out from behind his monitor and gave me a wary look. “Are you saying—now? A civil service? I thought you loathed the idea of a civil ceremony.”
“I do! It’s so sordid. It’s so—I want us to get married in a church. With all our families there.”
Sébastien retreated behind his monitor again. He knew that tone of voice.