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“I noticed you’ve already filled yours up,” he says. “I thought you’d like a new one so you can keep writing.”
“Thank you.” He’s right. I write in my journal all the time, and the one I brought with me from Salt Spring is full. I’ve been using loose pieces of paper for the past two weeks, folding them and tucking them into the back. I run my fingers over the smooth black cover and flip through the lined pages. “This should last a year or so,” I tell him.
“Then I’ll get you a new one next Christmas.”
My gift to him is a poem I wrote on a piece of parchment paper. I have it rolled up with a ribbon tied around it. He unrolls it now and reads it carefully.
“Thank you,” he says. “I love it.”
We sit down at the small scratched wooden table and share the Christmas meal. Scott carves the chicken and pours us each a glass of white zinfandel wine, and we toast to our first Christmas together.
In the New Year, Scott starts making calls, and he manages to get a hold of his old supervisor to find out where he’ll be placed and when he’ll find out.
“Soon,” he tells me when he hangs up. “Not long now.”
I repeat the words to myself. Not long now. Not long now. It becomes my mantra, pushing me forward and getting me through the days with the endless falling snow. Then, in February, just when it seems that my daily trips to the mailbox in the lobby are pointless, I find an envelope with my immigration card in it. It’s small, credit card-sized, with my picture watermarked on it and “Permanent Resident” etched across the top. I’m now officially allowed to live and work in America.
Finally, something else to focus on. I ask Scott to bring home a newspaper, and that night I circle all the waitressing and housekeeping jobs. The next morning I wake up and start making calls, and I have two interviews lined up by eleven o’clock. One is at a housekeeping service agency and the other’s at a restaurant in the mall. I schedule the restaurant interview for earlier in the day so that if they offer me the job, I won’t have to show up for the other appointment.
Both interviews seem to go well, but I don’t get offered either job on the spot, as I’d hoped. The next day, I ask Scott to bring home another newspaper, but before he gets back, a manager from the restaurant calls and offers me the waitressing position. I start this weekend. I feel a smile spread across my face. Something to do outside the apartment.
I’ve waited tables before, usually for three weeks or so at a time when I needed a bit of extra cash while I was traveling. But experience is experience, and I catch on fast. On the third night, I get my own tables and make decent tips, and I’m invited to stay after work to have a beer with the other servers.
Within a few weeks, I’m working every weekday plus Friday and Saturday nights. I pick up extra shifts, preferring to make money and be around people than to sit at home alone. Scott and I have to juggle one car, but I can usually catch a ride home with Joyce, another server who lives a few blocks from us, so Scott just needs to drive me to work between his classes.
Every night, I ask Scott if he’s heard anything. The answer is always, “Not yet.”
Then, one day in late March, he’s waiting for me when I get home.
“What’s the matter?”
“The southern border,” he says.
“What?”
“I heard from Customs. Apparently all new hires have to start on the southern border now. After two years we can put in for a transfer.”
“Why?”
“Because no one wants to work down there, that’s why. They need more employees, so it’s just what they’re doing.” He looks defeated.
"Well don't accept it, then."
“What?” He looks surprised, as though that never occurred to him.
“You’re not going to accept what you don't want, are you?”
“I don’t know,” he says.
“Let’s find another opportunity.”
“What, though?”
“Could be anything.” My heart’s beating faster. “It's up to us. We can go wherever we want.”
“So, I shouldn’t accept the Customs job?”
“Do you want to? Does it feel right?”
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