Page 58 of The Warmth of Our Closest Star

“Of course! I don’t want to be a househusband forever.”

Alex chuckled, then thought on this for a second, watching me, as though unsure if he should speak.

“Can I be honest with you, Enzo?” he asked finally.

“Yes. Please.”

I desperately needed honesty. What was I doing wrong? If Alex knew the key to unlocking the mystery as to why American employers didn’t want to so much as interview me, I wanted to hear it. Even if it was painful.

“You’re going to need to work in fast food, a restaurant, or custodial services,” he said. “For now. Until you’re a citizen.”

“Oh.”

“It’s fucked up,” he said, “but as an immigrant, it’s going to be hard to find anything else right away. I wouldn’t give this advice to anyone because it’s not fair. But you really want to work? Apply for the custodian, waiter, or cook jobs. When you get your citizenship, you can apply somewhere else. For a job you really want. Or you can work your way up in the company. Let the assholes in charge think you know your place. That’s how you sneak in the backdoor around here. Again…fucked up…but it is what it is. If you want the truth, there it is. An employer is going to look at your application right now and figure it’s not worth risking having to replace you in a few weeks or months if you don’t stick around. They can easily replace lower-paid jobs.”

“That is…fucked up,” I said with a sigh and an exhalation of smoke. “Thank you.”

He chuckled. “America, man.”

“It’s not all that bad, is it?” I asked. “I haven’t chosen poorly?”

“Coming to America?” he asked. “Nah. Well, it’s no worse than any other country where white people think they’re more important than everyone else. It has its good points and bad points. You just have to learn how to work with the system. Until someone fixes it, I guess. Marrying Peter? I don’t know on that one, man.”

I laughed raucously.

“You are so awful to him!”

Alex and I tapped our cigarettes on the mouth of the can at the same time.

“Peter’s all right,” Alex said, sitting back in his chair. “For an uptight ginger. I just have to give him shit. That’s what you do with friends.”

Looking around, as though there was anyone nearby who might hear us, I leaned in to whisper to Alex.

“I feel so out of place here,” I whispered. “Peter is so…refined? When he has to be, I mean. And I’m just…I don’t know? I’m just not refined. I cannot even pretend to be. I don’t understand his friends or his job. I’ve never had money as he does. His car is fancy. Our house is huge. I don’t really know how the television works because you have to push too many buttons to make it do anything. It’s all…confusing.”

Alex was grinning.

“I love that,” he said.

“What?”

“Enzo,” he said, “you’re going to make him more human.”

“What?”

“I think you’ll make Peter better. That’s what.”

“He’s so wonderful, and—”

“Well, yeah,” Alex dismissed me with a flick of his cigarette against the can. “To you. He loves you. Wants to sex you up and shit. That’s different. He wants you to think the best of him. But he’s obsessed with himself and his life sometimes. I think you’re going to make him a better person, Enzo. You severely underestimate your worth here.”

I blushed.

“And maybe he’ll make you a little more refined,” Alex added. “Make you a little more elegant.”

“I hope so,” I mumbled, embarrassed.

With a sigh, Alex’s head rolled back on his shoulders so that he could look up at the inky, star-mottled sky. I mimicked his actions and stared up at the pinpricks of light blinking down at us. Though I was no better off, as far as figuring out how to make America—my new homeland—work for me, I felt less hopeless. Alex had laid out the truth for me. It wasn’t ideal, but the truth rarely is. However, once you know the truth, you know how to plan your next steps.