“Manuela, get in here, please,” I hear James call from his office. Except it sounds more likeMan-you-elle-ahthan how you would actually say my name.
“Hi, James, good morning,” I say with a smile as I enter his office. It’s the corner office on our lower floor, but he treats it as if it were the one-hundredth floor in the most prestigious building in Manhattan.
“Yes, good morning,” he says dismissively, reclining in his overpriced chair with his feet crossed on the desk. If this isn’t a power move specifically to intimidate me, then I don’t know what is. “Did you see this?”
He points at an article pulled up on his computer about an upcoming cold front.
“I did,” I say. “But the forecast doesn’t call for rain, so the installation shouldn’t be affected. And honestly, I still don’t fully understand Fahrenheit, but I don’t think it’ll be that bad.”
James drops his feet to the floor, eyes widening like I just confessed to embezzlement. I swear I can see him foaming at the mouth with anger. If I’ve learned anything in the months since he’s been my supervisor, it’s that he’s volatile and things with him change a lot. It’s always better to be prepared.
“Manuela,” he spits, “you live in America now. You have to get used to the way we do things here. For fuck’s sake.”
I blink up at him, trying to really understand why this is important. The app on my phone can easily convert the temperature, so why is he berating me this way for accepting I’m having difficulty with something that is so easy to correct? But I flush nonetheless, the heat curling up my chest, to my neck, and finally rising to the tips of my ears, where it sits and burns.
But with everything with James, it’s easier to smile and nod. It’s not the first time he’s made somewhat derogatory comments about me and my style, as he likes to refer to some of my more… Latin-American nuances. I overheard him once talking to our HR rep that my accent was too thick and he didn’t understand when I pronounced the word “strategy.” Another time I mentioned how it’s summer in Argentina over the holidays and I was excited for my first-ever white Christmas, and he muttered, “Classic third world country,” under his breath.
“Understood,” I say simply as I tap my foot on the carpet, waiting for the final instruction before I vent to Elle.
“Fix it.” He adjusts the bottom of his sticky notes so that they are perfectly parallel to the edge of his desk. “No one is going to emotionally engage with the exhibit’s storytelling if their hands are cold.”
It’s fruitless to argue with him for many reasons. The biggest one being that I cannot control the weather.
“You got it.” I smile despite the heaviness that lands on my chest. I don’t think I’ve had one civil conversation with him since I started in this new role. And it infuriates me because it seems like all his common sense goes out the window when he’s talking to me. There’s nothing we can do about the weather, even if we had all the money in the world, and the campaign with the immigration justice organization we work with is going to be amazing regardless.
He dismisses me with a wave of his hand while the other one moves his computer mouse impatiently, clicking until the log-in window for his email flashes in his eyes. I turn on my heel, walking back, Elle looking at me with eyes wide and a subtle shake of her head. She wants to strangle him for me, I know that.
And I agree, but I also really enjoy my job, and I’ve worked my ass off to get to where I am. So I shake my head and walk back to my cubicle and sink into my chair without a word.
The hum of the office fills the silence—keyboards clacking, phones ringing, James’s muffled voice bleeding through his door. I stare at my screen, not really seeing the blinking cursor, and Elle just sips her drink like nothing happened.
It’s our unspoken pact: she won’t push me to talk, and I won’t crumble in front of him. Not here. Not yet.
2
MANUELA
“He’s such a fucking dick!”Elle screams at the top of her lungs the moment we step through the building’s doors. There’s a regular stream of people walking out with us and another significant amount in and out of the subway entrance at the corner of the street. All of them turn to watch what’s going on, but Elle continues cursing, her indignation entirely on my behalf.
This is normal New York City behavior, I remind myself—crying on the street or the subway is practically a rite of passage. I haven’t done it yet, but I’ve come close. Maybe today will be the day.
“Why do you let him treat you like that?” Elle says, pushing her purse up her shoulder forcefully. “I just?—”
“Elle,” I say with a sigh. I’m resigned, really, at this point. There’s nothing I can do to change him. If he’s a racist asshole, then let him, but there’s too much riding on this job for me to do something about it. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.” She turns again and takes her phone out of her slacks pocket, her thumbs moving wildly on the screen. It’salmost like I can see her thoughts whirring in that brilliant brain of hers. “I’m going to text my dad, and he?—”
“Absolutely not,” I cut through her spiraling thoughts, and her thumbs slow down slightly. She looks up at me expectantly, like I should give her a definitive reason to abort whatever she is doing right now. Her dad is a big-name attorney and was able to hook me up with a firm that took care of my Green Card process, and luckily, it’s been smooth sailing. “It’s just a few more months, I swear.”
“Girl,” she replies, sighing dramatically and draping one arm around my shoulder, tugging me towards her. “You are fucking amazing. I hope you know that.”
“Sure,” I say, shrugging it off even though a small part of me wants to lean into it.
We walk in silence for a beat, the city buzzing around us, and we let her optimism carry us down the block, even if mine is running a little thin.
After a few blocks of chitchat, we each go our separate ways, and I wander through the city streets in the direction of my apartment.
By the time I get home, it’s close to eight, and the grime of the city has clung to me like a second skin. My blouse smells faintly of coffee and printer ink, and my feet ache from a day pacing between my desk and James’s office. The air in the apartment is heavy, muggy in that way it always is since the A/C died last fall and our landlord keeps promising he’ll “send someone.”
