Stepdog Read online

  “What, working under the table? In construction?” Sara said, mildly appalled. “What a waste of your talent!”

  “If I’d a shilling for every time I’ve heard that,” I said with a rueful smile. “It’s grand. I had a good run at the museum, and I learned loads of stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise, and I met some cool people, and anyhow I was getting tired of looking at Washington’s horse’s arse.” I shrugged. “And I’m sure to get a play soon, something always comes along. Meanwhile, back I go under the table. Keeps my biceps manly. You’re going to be late for work.”

  She started slightly, then reached for my plate.

  “I’ll do that,” I said, in the hopes this gesture assured I would find myself breakfasting here at this fine establishment soon again.

  She smiled. “What a lovely houseguest. Stay here for a while if you like, take a shower, watch TV. Cody always likes company, and you got canned yesterday, so I know you’re free.”

  I declined. But I enjoyed watching her go through her morning routine; the domesticity felt almost as intimate as helping her undress. She opened the dog door to the boxy little yard, changed Cody’s water, left little treats hidden round the flat, “to give her something to do, ” and turned on the radio to NPR, “so she feels less lonely.”

  “So that’s not to deter burglars,” I said.

  “I have a fierce guard dog for that,” Sara said.

  “Nuzzles them to death, does she?”

  We left the house together, both saying good-bye to the dog, who looked at Sara with a bereft expression. Sara cheerily promised to return, but Cody turned away and heaved a disbelieving sigh as I pulled the door closed.

  I walked Sara to her bus stop and promised to call later. We still had not really defined what this Thing was going on between us. But it was definitely a Thing, with a capital T, and that was fantastic. We almost ate each other’s lips off saying good-bye to each other as the bus drove up, and I could see her waving through the back-end window for two whole blocks.

  It was a gorgeous late-August morning, and being unemployed—so with plenty of time free—I decided to walk part of the way home to Somerville. I needed time to soak all of this in. So many changes in so little time.

  I headed off along the Emerald Necklace toward Jamaica Pond, the warm moist air already curling my locks against the back of my neck. I hazarded jaywalking across the Jamaicaway when the lights were in my favor, reached the far sidewalk, and stepped onto the plush green grass that led down to the pond. I took off my boots and socks, then my shirt, and just lay under the trees for a while, pretending to be on holiday. It was heavenly, if I ignored how the grass tickled my back. Later on I’d have to call Danny’s uncle about getting my old construction job back, but for now, I drifted off into a lovely dreamscape full of Sara. That ended when my pocket buzzed.

  Lazily, without sitting up, I reached for my phone. I saw a California number that I recognized but (for superstitious reasons) had never saved into my contacts. It was Dougie Martin.

  Dougie was an L.A. talent agent. He was not my agent; I didn’t have an agent, since my arts visa didn’t let me join the unions. But he was a friend. He’d actually started out years ago as an actor in Boston, where he was my understudy in the H.M.S. Pinafore (so, unsurprisingly, my sound track for him was “A British Tar,” although Dougie himself was a Vermonter). It had been a long run, and we all started to improvise a bit. I upgraded Ralph Rackstraw’s brief lament about “misery” to a longish soliloquy on “Dostoyevskian darkness,” and Dougie, watching from the wings, was transported; he had been my biggest fan ever since. He wasn’t half bad himself—we went on to be dead together as Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and a year later, he’d gone to New York to give it a go there, but decided the competition and the crap money wasn’t worth it. So he’d started working as an agent’s assistant, and seeing there was money to be made, he got into that game. Then the agency opened offices in L.A., and voilà, now he was out there. He was always on me about getting a green card so I could move out to Hollywood and make us both a load of money. He was gas. He talked as boisterously while sober as I once did while drunk.

  “Morning, Dougie,” I said into the phone, with the mellow cheer of somebody thoroughly and lovingly shagged after a long celibacy. “What’s the crack?”

  “Morning, Rory!” His voice was tight with excitement. “I just learned about a project coming down the pike and I wanted to see where you were with your immigration status.”

  I sat up abruptly.

  “I’ve got a performance visa,” I said. “But it’s up soon. Still no green card.”

  “Weren’t you talking with your cousin’s widow or someone about getting married?”

  “Sure, we’re still talking about it, but everyone thinks it’s so easy—it’s a nightmare, and nowadays you need authenticity to prove it’s a legit marriage, you know, they’re all seasoned pros in the JFK Building . . . and why are you asking anyhow?”

  “There’s a cable pilot in development, a series about an Irish detective whose cover story is he’s a rock musician and master of disguises.” (“Sounds ridiculous,” I said, plainly audible, but he didn’t pause to hear me.) “They haven’t cast it ’cuz it’s still in development but they need someone Irish, sort of Colin Farrell Black Irish type, midthirties, who acts and sings and plays guitar and can do lots of accents. And it’s shooting in the Boston area! It’s like, you, man. Like they were creating it just for you.”

  Jesus, yes! “Ah,” I said, feeling my pulse quicken. “But I’m not SAG, I don’t—”

  “I’ll take care of all that once you’re legal,” he said. “I know the producers. Just get yourself the green card, Rory, and I’ll get you the audition.”

  As I listened, eyes wide, he said he expected it to take a year before shooting began, and even auditions were probably still months away—assuming the whole thing didn’t fall apart first anyhow. Cold lava progresses more swiftly than a project in development in the entertainment business. If I started the paperwork right off, I could probably get documented in time for an audition. Which was important, since before I was even allowed to audition for the studio, I’d have to sign something called a test-option contract, which from Dougie’s description would require more paperwork than adopting a child from Kazakhstan.

  My heart was fluttering, my palms were sweaty, my mouth was dry. I managed to thank him and promised I’d get married right away. We hung up.

  I was so agitated and excited, I couldn’t focus on the pond and the buzzing insects and the gentle heat and the lush trees and all that I thought would be the highlight of my morning. Now, with adrenaline coursing through me, all I could think about was . . . well, really I could hardly think at all, except I knew I had to call Laura, widow of my favorite cousin, Martin. When he got cancer I’d been there to help with the boys, so we were all close (in a Gordon Lightfoot sound-track sort of way), and she’d offered to give me a green-card marriage if I ever needed it. I’d deflected for a few years, because what a pain in the arse it is for someone to extend themselves that way, and I’d been managing with performance visas all right. But I’d recently been in a premiere that was supposed to transfer to New York—a great role, a drunken Dublin thief, supporting part but I stole the show . . . only the New York producers got nervous that I hadn’t a green card, just a visa . . . so it had fallen through.

  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. Fi
ve 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.”