The Vow

“Yes.”

“Awesome. Let’s drive.”

* * *

The navigation system, not surprisingly, is as fan-freaking-tastic as the rest of the car. It practically drives us there, and by there I mean to a squat, turd-colored apartment building three blocks from the University of Louisville Law School.

Annie and I sit, neither of us speaking, neither of us moving to get out.

“What are you thinking?” she asks finally.

“I’m thinking I hate that question. And I’m thinking it’s stupid that my dad set this thing up when I obviously need a real attorney. I feel like one of those newborns abandoned on the fire station porch by a fourteen-year-old after being given birth to in a bathroom stall at a school dance.”

“Lovely. Let’s go.”

Annie opens her door first. I follow her.

Inside is less than impressive—not a dorm but dusted with that same institutional aura. “I feel like I should be wearing an orange jumpsuit,” I mumble.

“Did you say third floor?”

“Yeah. Do you suppose the inmates here go by their names or numbers?”

“I’m ignoring you.”

“Okay.”

The third floor smells like beer and cotton candy, probably because there’s a girl sitting on the floor outside the elevator consuming both. Her lips are bright blue and silently mouthing the words as she reads the mammoth textbook in her lap.

“This is the face of higher education in the United States of America?” I whisper to Annie as we move past her.

“Keep moving.”

We find the apartment halfway down the hall, and Annie knocks before I can vocalize one of the many reasons not to.

“Come in,” a male voice calls.

Annie opens the door, and the beer-and-cotton-candy smell is instantly gone, replaced by a moldy-carpet- infused-with-sulfur aroma. A curly-haired guy eating egg salad out of Tupperware is sitting on a couch, staring at his watch.

“Hold on,” he whispers, putting up a hand. We hold on. Apparently Sam Cane is still learning to tell time. I look at Annie, but she refuses to look back at me. “I’m timing something,” he says, still whispering.

Timing something. Like the amount of time it takes egg salad to turn? And why the whispering?

“Done,” calls a female voice from another room.

“Liar,” he shouts, and slams the container of egg salad down on the counter. The plastic fork bounces out and onto the floor.

“How long?” asks the same bubbly voice, and then a girl appears. Or not a girl. A woman, probably midtwenties, wearing about a pound of makeup. Or maybe the pound of makeup is wearing her. She looks a little like Annie—a fuller, older, color-enriched version. The hair is darker blond and a bit red. The eyes are a couple shades darker blue. “How long?” she repeats. She has a folded newspaper in one hand, a pencil in the other hand, and a crazy-competitive smile gripping her face.

Curly-top rolls his eyes and mutters, “A minute thirty-three.”

“Ha!” She whacks him on the arm with the newspaper.

“Here, let me check it. I don’t even think I believe you.” He squints at a little corner of the newspaper, while she turns back to us and grins and shakes her head like we’re old friends.

“Excuse him. He’s a sore loser.”

“I’m not a sore loser.”

“You are, but it’s okay. I might be a sore loser too if I just lost the Jumble for the ninth time in a row. It is nine now, isn’t it?”

He’s still squinting at her answers, ignoring her.

“But seriously,” she says, “not everybody can be good at the Jumble. You’ve got other talents.”

I grip the scrap of paper in my hand a little tighter, wishing I could make it disappear or just not have printed on it the name of this dufus who has lost the Jumble to Miss America here nine times in a row.

He looks at me with sleepy eyes.

“No,” I mumble, “I think we’re in the right place. We’re looking for a Mr. Cane.”

“Then you are in the right place,” the woman says.

“Super.”

“That would be me.”

I wait for the punch line.

She gives me a pageant smile. Apparently there is no punch line.

I shove the paper into my pocket. “Mr. Sam M. Cane?”

“Yeah,” she says, and holds out a hand to shake. “Everything but the mister. You must be Mohammed.”

“Mo.” I shake her hand, feeling strangely disoriented. I’ve had entirely too many carbs and not nearly enough protein in the last couple of days. “You’re Sam?”

“Yeah. Samantha takes too long to write. And you must be Annabelle?”

Annie just nods, so I say, “It’s Annie.”

“Cool,” Sam says.

Cool?

“You two want to sit?”

Annie pushes me toward the couch. Curly-top gets up, mumbling something about having to go to work, and shoves the folded newspaper in the trash on his way out.

“Sorry about him,” Sam says. “He has a delicate ego, but he does most of the cleaning around here so I put up with him.”

Annie and I sink into the couch, while I consider whether Sam and the sore loser are a couple or just roommates. She certainly outranks him in the looks department, but maybe he has one of those lame talents chicks fall for, like writing depressing poetry or playing the guitar.

Sam takes the chair on the other side of the beat-up coffee table, sitting with her feet pulled up, arms wrapped around her knees. Maybe professional decorum is something you get when you graduate from law school. Or maybe she’ll sit like that in court someday. “So I’m told you guys need some help,” she adds.

“Uh, yeah.” We do need help. That government website my Dad directed me to nearly made my head explode, but I’m pretty sure Law School Barbie is not going to be the one to clarify things for me. “We just got married and now I need to apply to become a permanent resident. I think I need a work visa too.”

“Before we start, I should tell you I don’t really know anything about immigration law,” she says.

I fight the colossal urge to roll my eyes and yell, Then why are we here?

“But it’s easy enough to figure out which forms you need,” she adds. “I went on the CIS website last night and—”

“Yeah, I’ve looked at that,” I interrupt. “No offense, but I think we might need to get a real attorney.”

Annie pinches my arm.

“Ow. What? I said no offense.”

“None taken,” Sam says. “You can definitely get an immigration attorney to file your applications for you if you don’t mind spending the money, but you don’t really need one. Not for this situation. I mean, the information is confusing, so it helps to have someone show you which forms you need and how to fill them out, but I can do that.”

“Thank you,” Annie says. “That’s exactly what we need.”

“I mean, technically I’m not supposed to be practicing law before I’m admitted to the bar.” Sam stops and waves her hand in the air, like the detail is a hovering mosquito. “But this isn’t really practicing law. It’s more like giving you friendly suggestions.”

“Sure,” Annie says.