Page 9

She didn’t want Isabel to snap at her again. Trying to make Mira feel better with an unrelated favor wasn’t going to be enough, and Isabel should have realized that. “Sorry. I… To be honest, I’m not used to having anyone else around. I’ve been living alone for half a year.”

“I can understand that.” Mira’s smile was strained.

Isabel winced. Admitting all this was like pulling teeth. “I’m not making excuses. I’m saying, I might be bothered in the future. Just by not being alone in the apartment anymore. And that’s not your problem, and I’ll deal with it myself. Or, uh, I’ll talk to you about it without blowing up at you.”

“Okay. Thank you for saying that.” Mira hesitated. “Are we okay now?”

“That’s up to you.”

Mira gave her another smile, sweet and warm. And pretty, too, but Isabel had no business thinking that. “Okay,” Mira said. “I think so. We’re okay.”

That could have been a lot worse. “Uh, I’ll talk to those guys I mentioned. Have a good night.” Time for Isabel to quit while she was ahead. She went back into her room.

Her friend Anthony was busy.So was Steve, though it had been good to hear about his grandkids and the old cars he was fixing up. So were the few other people she had asked as a long shot.

At least she’d tried. Hopefully Mira would appreciate that.

She found Mira at the table surrounded by piles of papers again. She was wearing reading glasses, chunky frames perched on her elegant nose. Isabel nearly stopped short. She hadn’t known Mira wore those.

Now was not the fucking time. She broke the news to Mira. “Oh,” Mira said. “Well, thanks anyway. I appreciate you asking.”

“Did you find anyone else?”

“Sort of.”

“Yeah?”

Mira clearly hadn’t expected Isabel to keep asking questions. “Well, a grad student organizer from NYU agreed to give a speech, which is at least something. I’m not sure anyone else would agree to fill in, at this point, since it’s tomorrow. I guess we’ll just have to go with what we have.”

Mira’s disappointment made Isabel ache. She didn’t want to let Mira down, not after getting her hopes up. “How important is it to find someone else?”

Mira still seemed suspicious of Isabel’s interest, but she started to explain. “I want everyone to understand that it’s not just about us,” she continued, “and not even just about grad students everywhere, but about every working person. And that we, as grad students, are going to show up for the dining hall workers and the adjuncts because we’re all in this together. But…I don’t know. Maybe that was too ambitious and it doesn’t matter.”

Mira was so sincere. So hopeful. It had been a long time since Isabel was hopeful about anything. “I’ll do it,” she blurted out.

“What do you mean?”

That had been stupid. Isabel had never given a speech in her life. “I figured… I’ve been an electrician for a decade. And I salted a shop a few years ago, so I know what it’s like to be organizing people. Never mind. You probably want someone else.”

“No, I didn’t mean… Sorry. I mean, that’s kind of you to offer, but you don’t have to.”

Isabel shrugged. “I can. If you want a regular person.” Mira was frowning. Probably trying to figure out whether she’d really be stuck with Isabel for something that mattered this much to her. “Hopefully you find someone else. I just figured… As a last resort.”

“Well, of course we want a regular person. I think people would love to hear from you. What you said about being a salt sounds fascinating. So you got hired at a non-union shop, and then you convinced your coworkers to unionize?”

“Pretty much.” What Isabel remembered about it wasn’t their victory. It was that she never got to tell her older sister about it.

Isabel had locked up her memories from that unspeakably awful year. She could pick out a few of them for this speech. But maybe she shouldn’t have offered in the first place.

“Wow. Are you really okay with it?” Mira might have sensed her discomfort. But Isabel wasn’t going to explain.

There was no backing out now. She couldn’t let Mira down. “Yeah.”

Mira’s frown turned into a hesitant smile, which became less hesitant as she realized Isabel was serious. “Thank you so much.” Once again, that smile was radiant. Something dangerous stirred in Isabel’s chest. “You don’t know how much this helps. Are you going to have enough time to prepare? I know it’s on short notice.”

Time was something Isabel had far too much of, these days. “Yeah, that’s not a problem.”

4