Page 7 of Make Room for Love
In the middle of the photo was a woman in a wedding dress, looking so much like Isabel that Mira thought it was her for a moment. But Isabel was in the photo too, wearing a dark suit and a pink tie with her long hair loose, and another younger woman with the same family resemblance wearing a dress in thesame shade of pink. They all had their arms around each other in a line, radiantly happy.
Mira couldn’t look away. Isabel was grinning, and so full of joy she was almost unrecognizable. She looked a decade younger.
There were soft footsteps behind her. Mira turned. Isabel was going back into her room; she must have seen Mira looking at the photo. All Mira saw was a blur of dark hair before Isabel shut the door.
3
“I don’t knowif you all saw the bad news in the group chat,” Mira said. “In case any of you missed it, our speaker from the teachers’ union canceled at the last minute, too. So, um, we don’t have any external speakers booked right now.”
Someone on the video call booed. He was clearly booing the speaker, not Mira, but she was still struck by guilt. “Sorry, everyone. I know this puts us in a bad spot.”
The kickoff rally for the union had to go well. Over a third of the graduate student body had RSVP’d, and local news would be there. This was their chance to win over hundreds of their fellow grad students at once, and Mira was in danger of screwing it up.
“It’s not your fault,” Shreya, the vice president, said. Other people nodded in their rectangles on Mira’s laptop screen.
Mira rubbed her tired eyes. It had been a long day, and it wasn’t over. Her work usually followed her home. After this meeting, she had plenty of papers to grade, sitting in tall piles on the dining table next to her.
“Maybe one of us could give another speech after Shreya talks,” someone else said.
“I don’t know if that’s the best idea,” Mira said. “We want everyone at the rally to understand that we grad students arepart of the broader labor movement. I think that’s important for getting people on board, to recognize that we’re not just students, we’re workers, and we deserve rights and protections like other workers do. So we need speakers who do other types of work.”
Shreya said, “Mira’s right. So what are we going to do?”
Mira grimaced. “I’m not sure. Um, I guess I’ll ask our speakers who canceled if they know anyone who’d be willing to step in. And maybe we could all reach out to whatever contacts we have?”
Her despair was mounting, and it wasn’t only about the rally speakers. When she’d been with Dylan, her life had increasingly revolved around him until she’d had nothing left for herself. She’d stopped attending union meetings, stopped seeing her friends, stopped being able to imagine any other life.
If the grad students had unionized years ago, things might have been different. She wouldn’t have been broke when Dylan had asked her to move in. She would have had options. In a different, better world, there was a Mira who wasn’t hurt and struggling to claw her way out of a hole.
She had to take her life back. She had to prove that she was still committed to the union. But both the speakers she’d booked had canceled three days before the rally. Maybe it wasn’t her fault—but she needed to accomplishsomething, and now even this simple task was slipping out of her grasp.
They compiled a list of people to contact. At some point, Isabel came home later than usual in her grimy work clothes. She went to the bathroom to shower, returned to her room in a bathrobe, and shut the door loudly enough to startle Mira. It was the third time Mira had seen her in two weeks.
The chances of finding last-minute speakers were not good. Mira let out a long sigh after she disconnected. She still hadn’t eaten dinner, and her students’ papers loomed.
Her phone buzzed. It was a reply from her father.I have plenty of contacts in the teachers’ union in Chicago, but not in New York, I’m afraid. Your mother is reporting on fisherpeople in Alaska with spotty cell service for the next month.Followed by an article about the farmers’ protests in India.Thoughts??
Mira smiled for a moment. It had been worth a try. She stood up, stretched, and yawned.
Isabel opened her bedroom door. “Mira.”
Mira jumped. “Yeah?”
Isabel was scowling. Her hair was wet from her shower, and her shoulders, bare in a white tank top, were impressively muscled. She was as well-sculpted and cold as a statue. “Can you stop taking your calls in the living room?”
Mira froze. She’d done something wrong. “Sorry.” The word came automatically. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you.”
“It’s louder than you think. If you really need to do it, do it in your room and keep it down.” Isabel glared at Mira’s papers on the table. “And it’d be great if you could stop leaving your hair clips and clothes and papers all over the place.”
“I’m really sorry.” Mira was forgetful when stressed, and she knew it was a bad habit—taking up too much space—but this had been the worst, most stressful month of her life. “I didn’t mean to. I’ll try not to anymore.”
Isabel gave her a hard look, then turned away. The conversation was over. She started closing the door.
Maybe this was Mira’s fault as always. But after the day she’d had, this particular indignity made her snap. Isabel clearly never wanted a roommate, but she didn’t have to remind Mira of it like this. “I didn’t know it would bother you so much.” Isabel turned back around, and Mira knew she ought to shut up, but she couldn’t stop herself. “If you wanted a completely silent apartment all to yourself, as though I don’t live here, you could have told me.”
Surprise flickered over Isabel’s face. Then she shut the door.
Mira’s nausea rose. Why had she tried to argue back? Isabel hadn’t even responded, as though Mira were too unimportant to bother with. Maybe she was.