Brave Hearts

by Nicole Falls

  “Hey Walt, you seen Frankie?”

  “Not since Thursday morning when some suits came here looking for him.”

  “Suits?”

  “Yeah, a group of three dudes looking like extras from Men in Black. He came down to let them up, there were up there for about twenty minutes then left, came back an hour later and took Mr. Mora with them. I left midday Thursday, so I don’t know if or when he came back.”

  Now this here, coupled with him not answering my calls had me hella nervous about Frankie’s whereabouts. I pulled out my phone to see if he’d responded to my text from earlier, but still nothing. I tried calling, but it rolled straight into voicemail like the phone was powered off.

  “Mr. Mora!” Walt suddenly exclaimed and I turned to see Frankie strolling through the doors looking decidedly…un-Frankie. He was dressed in sweats, a t-shirt, and AirMax90s. His hair, which was normally loose and perfectly tousled, was pulled into a low ponytail. Besides him was a handsome ass white man who was suited and booted and looked like a finer Travis Kelce. I wanted to rush over to him, ask if he was all right, but I waited near Walt’s stand which was closer to the elevators. As they walked toward us, he and his friend spoke in hushed tones, truncating their conversation abruptly before they reached our earshot.

  “Valora, what are you doing here?”

  “I…I was worried, you were a no-show at work, and weren’t answering your phone. I just…wanted to drop by and make sure you were okay.”

  Frankie reached in his pocket to retrieve his phone, but when he pressed the button to light up the screen, nothing happened.

  “Of course, those assholes let it die,” he grumbled.

  “What assholes? Where were you? Did you go to jail? Is that why you’re dressed like this? Is this your lawyer? Can you not discuss the case?” I shot off questions in a rapid-fire succession eventually garnering that classic Frankie smirk.

  “Valora,” Frankie started, resting his hands on my shoulders, “breathe.”

  I drew in a calming breath before continuing my barrage of questions. “Well, are you not going to answer me?”

  “You said she was intense bro, but whoa,” said fake ass Travis Kelce.

  “Hi, who are you?”

  “I’m Kip,” he said smoothly, extending a hand, “An old friend of Cisco’s from college.”

  My brows lifted at his peculiar shortening of Frankie’s name.

  “Come,” Frankie said, “Let’s go upstairs and I’ll get you up to speed…after I shower that place off of me.”

  “Damn, so you were in jail,” I muttered.

  “Not quite,” Frankie confirmed.

  After his shower, Frankie joined Kip and I in his living room where we sat in silence watching figure skating. Before he’d left the room to shower, Frankie pinned Kip with a glare that I can only imagine rendered him mute because I tried engaging him in a bit of conversation, but his responses were one word or not at all. I gave up after just a few minutes because I didn’t have to force anyone to talk to me, let alone some stranger who I didn’t give a damn about. Frankie entered the room and sat right next to me on the sofa. I turned my gaze from the triple axels on screen to him.

  “So…”

  “I don’t even know where to begin with this crazy shit.”

  “The beginning is usually a pretty solid place,” I supplied, which earned me an eye roll.

  “Right. So, Thursday I was getting ready to leave for work when Walt tells me there are some guys waiting in the vestibule for me. I wasn’t expecting anyone so I came down to see who it was. Turns out it’s INS.”

  “INS?”

  “My thoughts exactly, what the hell do they want with me? I’m here on a legal visa that is not set to expire anytime soon, so I’m all good. Except they have no record of my work visa ever being filed. Just my student visa, which is well past expired. So, I invite them upstairs and they go into a bit more detail about the paperwork not being accurate and my visa never having been approved. I pull out the copies I have of the notarized application and one of the guys points out some missing signature or initials or some bullshit that nullifies the validity of the visa. At this point, it is all honestly white noise because they’re throwing around words like detaining and deportation.”

  I’m staring at Frankie, mouth agape at this point because I cannot believe this story. He went on to explain how he was lucky that Kip was in town visiting. Although he wasn’t an immigration lawyer, he was an attorney and able to act on Frankie’s behalf enough to get him sprung from the detention center.

  “Oh my God, so what happens now? They just ship you outta here, just like that?”

  “Well, there’s a little more…legalities that we have to contend with first, but if I don’t come out on the winning side of that battle…” Frankie sighed.

  “Frankie…” I groaned, feeling myself becoming a bit overwhelmed with emotion.

  “Valora,” he replied, pulling me into his embrace, rubbing my back in a soothing manner, “Hey, it’s going to be all right, you know? They can’t just immediately boot me back to San José. I’ve established roots here and I’m hoping that will work in my favor. It’ll be okay, baby, you’ll see.”

  “If I may?” Kip interjected.

  “Kip, not now, man,” Frankie said.

  I’d forgotten he was here, so wrapped up in Frankie’s story. I pooh poohed Frankie’s attempt to shut him down and motioned for Kip to keep speaking.

  “Valora, you’d be willing to help out? If Frankie needs you?”

  “Of course, however I can. I’ll write letters, be a character witness, whatever,” I said, pulling back to look Frankie in his eye, “You know that, yeah? However I can help you, I will?”

  “Even if that means marrying him?” Kip asked.

  “Huhwhuh?” I replied dumbfounded, sounding like my baby sister Juju.

  “Nah, forget it. It’s a silly idea Kip had in the car on the way over here from the detaining station as we were trying to brainstorm ways to show that I had way more ties in the community here than I ever would at home in San José,” Frankie quickly replied, “It was nothing seriously considered. We have other ways.”

  “Dude,” Kip interjected, “If it worked for Tom Haverford?”

  “Who the fuck is Tom Haverford?” Frankie asked, “One of your little preppy frat bros?”

  “Nah man, on Parks and Rec…” Kip started.

  “Pause. Your frame of reference is a goddamned television show?” I piped up, “Frankie, I hope you find a real lawyer soon because your friend is buggin’!”

  “Sometimes fiction is rooted in reality,” Kip pouted.

  “Bro, I thought you told me you knew someone in real life that this worked for, not a damned TV character.”

  Frankie sighed deeply, running his hands through his hair, bringing them to rest intertwined at the nape of his neck. His eyes were closed, his breathing steady and deep as he leaned back into the couch. The three of us sat in silence for a few minutes. Kip looking at me and me looking at Frankie willing him to say that this was just an elaborate prank that he and Kip cooked up. Suddenly Frankie popped up, moving through the loft space like he was looking for something. He shuffled through some paperwork on his desk, cussing and fussing until he finally came up with a small address book.

  He pulled a business card from between its pages and then ran up the spiral staircase near the back of the loft that led to his room. Since the loft was pretty much open concept, I could hear him on the phone with someone talking a mile a minute. His steady stream of chatter was punctuated with brief moments of silence, during which, I presumed, the person on the other end was speaking. When Frankie returned to the living room, his walk lacked all of the swagger it normally held. With his shoulders slumped in defeat, he slunk back into the room and plopped back down on the sofa next to me.

  “You remember Maria Paz from undergrad?” he asked Kip, “Long brown hair, ridiculous body and that little mole near her upper lip? U
sed to stay kickin’ it with…”

  “Beautiful ass Susan Delfino,” Kip interrupted, “Yeah I remember her, why?”

  “Ran into her and ol’ Suzy a few months ago at a bar randomly. They still looked good, too. But we exchanged cards, with plans to meet up for drinks at a later date that never came to pass. But my point here is that as I sat racking my brain for solutions to this problem, I remembered Maria saying she was an immigration lawyer. That’s who I was on the phone with.”

  “Fantastic! So, what’d she say? Can she be with you at the preliminary hearing on Friday?”

  “She absolutely could…if she were in the country. But it just so happens that she and Suzy are off in Japan for their honeymoon. She’s going to get in contact with some of her colleagues to see if one of them can help though. Hopefully one comes through in the clutch,” Frankie sighed.

  “Shit,” Kip swore lowly.

  A few more minutes passed in silence and I finally couldn’t take it anymore.

  “I’ll do it,” I said, “I’ll marry you.”

  “Valora, I can’t ask you to do that,” Frankie replied, immediately.

  “Well technically, you didn’t. He did,” I said, pointing to Kip.

  “I can’t put you in danger of potential jail time if they find out. This is serious, Valora. Fraud is a punishable offense. You’re not thinking clearly and this isn’t television.”

  “You know I hate it when you talk to me like a child, Francisco.”

  “Well then do not make decisions so rashly and behave like one.”

  Kip whistled.

  “Okay, time out. Frank, c’mere, dude.”

  “Nah. Don’t go anywhere,” I said, grabbing a hold of Frankie’s wrist and directing his attention to me, “Look, I know you might think I’m acting rashly, but honestly I’m not. You need help and as far-fetched as this may seem? It could help. And I want to help you. There’s nothing and no one back in Costa Rica for you, so if we have to fake it for a few months to a year in order for you to stay here? It’s nothing.”

  “Valora, baby, try five years?”

  “McScuse me?”

  “Yeah, part of the conversation I had with Maria? I told her about our crazy hail Mary marriage for green card slash permanent residence option that we had on the table and she said while it’s cute in the movies and on television, the actual process of naturalization is one that is lengthy and time consuming. I cannot ask you to put your life on hold to deal with my mess.”

  “Again…you didn’t ask, I volunteered,” I insisted.

  “Valora, you’re not thinking clearly.”

  “Stop saying that! I am of sober and sound mind. I know what I’m saying.”

  “Valora, just…please, take a few days. Think about this a bit more deeply. And if you feel just as strongly on Monday as you do in this moment. Perhaps we will revisit.”

  I huffed before just shutting my mouth because I knew that it was fruitless to argue with Frankie right now. His mind was set and there was no changing it. And true, my offer was definitely ruled more by emotional rather than rational thought right now, but I really did want to do this for him.

  “Fine, we’ll table this until Monday,” I agreed, finally.

  “Now that this is out of the way…” Frankie started, as Kip and I looked at him like he’d lost his mind.

  The hell if anything was out of the way. Everything was still up in limbo.

  “Okay,” Frankie acquiesced, “Perhaps out of the way wasn’t the best way to put it, but…there is nothing we can do about any of these matters until Monday, so…anyone up for drinks?”

  I couldn’t help the smile that unfurled across my face at his suggestion. Of course, Frankie was ready to turn up in the face of…well hell, it wasn’t danger, but the circumstances certainly seemed dire. I got it though, he was likely fatigued of thinking about the looming situation and wanted to blow off a little steam. I, on the other hand, had plans for a day with my sister Ginger tomorrow and could not get through any activity with her nursing a Frankie induced hangover.

  “Hell yeah,” Kip said, “Let’s go to that place we went the last time I came out to visit. The joint where you walked in and the shit was like cheers with everyone calling out to Frankie as soon as walked through the door.”

  “You must be talking about Brady’s,” I said.

  It was a bar Frankie and I went to often, situated halfway between the office and Frankie’s place which was a bit West of where we worked in city center. Further west, in the suburbs was where I lived, so it was kind of, but not exactly on my way home as well. More often than not I found myself there chatting with the bartenders and witnessing Frankie do his thing once he started feeling his drinks. He never abandoned me completely when we went to Brady’s though, always ensured that I was cool and made it home at the end safely at the end of the night. Now what happened once I was safe and sound was a whole ‘nother story.

  “Actually, I was thinking about staying in. Got a bottle of this nice ass Japanese whisky I heard about…somewhere. Was thinking about cracking it open.”

  “What’s the name of the whisky?” I asked.

  “Yamazaki,” Frankie replied.

  “Never heard of it. Sorry. You guys are on your own tonight. I’ve got some heavy thinking to handle over the weekend. Can’t be wasting time drinking with the likes of you,” I said, standing up to put on my coat.

  As usual, before I could even begin the maneuver to swing it over my shoulders, Frankie grabbed it from my hands, assisting me into it. I just shook my head before buttoning it up, draping my scarf and grabbing my bag. A brief hug and exchange of pleasantries with Kip, then Frankie was walking me to the elevator. Before pressing the call button, Frankie pulled me in for another hug. My eyes closed of my own volition as his arms bracketed my body, pulling me in tight for a significantly longer squeeze than usual. He was slow to disengage, pulling back and looking at me for a long moment.

  “What?” I asked, growing increasingly uncomfortable beneath his gaze.

  “You know you don’t have to do this. You don’t even have to think about it. I’m giving you the out here. This would be a really big inconvenience for a really long time, Valora.”

  “You let me worry about what’s inconvenient, Francisco,” I trilled, trying and failing to roll the r in his name, which earned me a grin. “No seriously, I’m going to give this some thought this weekend. Even make a pro/con list. And if I find that I can’t or am longer willing to do it? I’ll let you know on Monday, how about that?”

  Frankie said nothing, just pulled me into another of those tight hugs and dropped a quick kiss on my forehead before pressing the elevator call button. When the ding sounded, announcing the elevator’s arrival, Frankie said, “Thank you for coming to see about me. I’ll see you on Monday.”

  As I stepped into the elevator, I remembered something.

  “Hey,” I called to get Frankie’s attention, hanging halfway from the elevator, “You never let me know if you were gonna be my plus one for the show?”

  “Show?”

  “Yeah, the one I’m shooting…indie kids on the come up?”

  “Ah yes, I had forgotten all about it. Let me check with Kip, I’ll text you.”

  “Aight. Later,” I replied and slid back into the elevator.

  On the descent, the weight of everything that Frankie had dropped on me over the past couple of hours came bearing down on me in a remarkably rapid fashion. Holy shit, did I really volunteer to be his green card wife? Could I really go through with that? God knows I was barely trying to let a man make me his real wife. What in the hell possessed me to volunteer to be Frankie’s fake one? And for multiple years? Thankfully, he didn’t jump right on it, but this was definitely going to take a lot more thought on my end. I wanted to do whatever I could to help him for sure, but I didn’t know if my whatever could truly extend this far.

  Saturday, February 9, 2013

  I might have been biased, but my niec
es were definitely two of the cutest little girls I’d ever seen in my life. If Ginger and Josh did nothing else well in life, they created perfection with these two. Payton looked like Josh had zero to do with her conception and could pass for Gigi’s mini-sized clone. They shared the same warm, peanut butter colored skin, delicate small-boned form, and dark almond-shaped eyes. Jordan was all Josh from her deep chocolate hue, large, wide-set eyes, and an adorably full, incessantly puckered set of lips that gave her a cherubic look. Initially Gigi and I were supposed to be going to lunch alone and doing a little shopping, but Josh had a work emergency that threw a slight kink in those plans.

  So instead we ordered in and were cyber shopping, which actually worked to my advantage. I’d had my eye on a pair of booties for a few weeks and had planned on finally pulling the trigger to buy them from Nordstrom while we were out today. Not only did Ginger find the boots marked down twenty percent off retail, she also managed to find some extra promo code for the shoe website that took an additional fifteen percent off. The delay of waiting five to seven business days was worth the savings.

  “So what’s new, Lolo? You’ve been super low key lately, hadn’t heard from you in a minute and wasn’t sure you would actually come today. You like to cancel all willy nilly these days. Boss still unbearable? Still in denial about your crush on that fine Spanish nigga at the job?”

  I rolled my eyes, “Ain’t nobody crushing on Frankie. And he’s Costa Rican, not Spanish. Like I’ve told you fifty times before. But speaking of him, so…okay, before I go into this I need for you to have an open mind.”

  “When do I not have an open mind?” Ginger asked.

  “Ever. You never have an open mind, but I’m going to tell you this anyway. And you cannot tell a fucking soul. Not even Joshy.”

  “Oh my goooooood,” Ginger started.

  “What?”

  “You fucked him didn’t you? You let him give you some of that pingalinga?”

  “What?! No! I told you we’re just friends!”

  “Then what, pray tell, could be so dire that involves him that you need to swear me to secrecy about. He ain’t kill nobody did he? Are you a witness to the murder? Are y’all about to go on the lam? Am I aiding and abetting a criminal right now? Are my babies in danger?” Gigi asked, laughing.