Page 70 of Paradigm

“I lost my job. Arlowe, I… can’t live here without it.”

Arlowe could barely understand her over the sound of her crying, but she thought she got the basics. Eline had lost her job, and that job had been the reason she’d been able to move here.

“What? Why? What happened?”

“Can you…”

“Yeah. Yeah,” she said, knowing what Eline was about to say. “Are you home?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’m on my way. I’ll be right there.”

“Okay,” Eline replied.

Arlowe jumped out of her chair, grabbed her stuff, and hurried down the hall, not stopping to say goodnight to anyone, including Sarai and Gabi, before she hit the stairs and jogged to her car. She couldn’t process much on the drive to Eline’s apartment. All she could think about was the fact that she hadn’t heard Eline cry like that since the day they’d both decided that ending it had been the best option. She’d never wanted to hear that sound again.

She pulled into the guest parking spot that she had used the other night and rushed to the building’s front door, where she pressed the buzzer. A second later, the door clicked open, and she made her way to Eline’s apartment. Eline was already outside of it, and she moved into Arlowe’s arms before Arlowe was ready for her, but Arlowe held on to her and walked them inside, closing the door behind them before wrapping both arms around Eline now and holding her tightly.

“Hey, it’s okay.”

“Arlowe, I can’t… If I don’t…”

“Can you tell me what happened?” she requested, pulling out of the hug and cupping Eline’s face. “Let me get you some water, okay?”

“Arlowe, I don’t have a job.”

“I know. Just sit down for me,” she said, moving them over to the sofa, where she sat Eline down and hurried into the kitchen. “Do you need Kleenex?”

“I have some,” Eline replied and pulled a tissue from the box on her coffee table.

She wasn’t sobbing anymore, but there were still a few tears rolling down from her very red eyes. Arlowe filled a glass with water and carried it over to her, more to have something to do than anything, because she didn’t know how to handle this.

“Can you tell me?” she asked after Eline took a gulp and set the glass down next to the tissues.

Eline took a moment to gather herself and said, “They let a lot of people go today. I guess… they over-hired in some departments earlier in this year, expecting more growth than they’ve gotten, so the layoffs were planned.”

“They told you they were planning layoffs?”

“Yes, but that it was going to be small… until the hack and the data breach.”

“Oh,” Arlowe replied.

“They needed to… act fast because they’d lost a major advertiser on the site, along with thousands of customers. I don’t know all the specifics. I was only told a little because I don’t work there anymore.”

“So, your role was eliminated, I’m guessing?”

“Yes, that’s what they said.”

“Okay. Well, we can deal with that.”

“What? Arlowe, how?”

Eline looked over at her in confusion that was mixed with a little anger.

“You’ll get another job. If you need money in the meantime–”

“It’s not that simple. Do you know how hard it is to get an H‑1B visa? It took months and months for it to be approved the first time, and I don’t have months and months this time. The company has to be the one to do the process, too, and that’s only if the company is open to hiring someone like me because they have to demonstrate that they can’t find a US citizen for the job, meaning that role had to be posted first, and they couldn’t find anyone qualified. Do you know how long that’s going to take?”