Job Search

by Betty Seek

I'm wearing my grass green suit with the thin red stripe, open-toed red heels and a red bikini top under the jacket. I know this is a good look for me but not everybody could pull it off.

This guy knows why I'm here. I made an appointment to talk about the receptionist job at this company. He doesn't ask me to fill out an application. We just talk about the weather and the traffic and plane crash in the news. He asks my name.

"My name is Sister Blue Nail," I say.

He looks over from the working side of the desk and tries to see my fingernails but I have them in my lap tucked under my red purse so he can't. He looks me in the eye kind of holding his mouth out like it's ready to do something—smile or speak, I mean, not kiss me.

"I believe I'd make a very good receptionist for your company," I say. I smile. I forgot to smile at the right time, I realize, so I smile now.

"Well, you have an unusual name," he says.

"Yes, I do." I agree. I tell him, "The Mother of the Eternal Wide Universe gave it to me in a dream." This is true and I know exactly what his next question is. I could go ahead and answer it but that would be rude.

He leans back in his executive, swively, rolly chair in front of his whitish wall with a picture of a big white flower on it. He looks one hundred percent geeky. "What was your name before," he asks.

I smile now before I speak. I say, "That has no bearing on anything. I am not that person anymore." I am still smiling. I am real friendly.

Pause. I was more ready than he was. He's got to think. He positions his fingertips together with his fingers spread apart like he's trying to do The Eeensy Weensy Spider. He gets all his finger parts and arm parts the way he wants them and says, "We'd need your original name to check your references."

What a drip. Like I wouldn't have thought of that.

I bring out my left hand and slap it gently and quietly but forcefully on his desk. It lies there flat so he can see the Morning Rosebud nail polish. He looks and he gets geekier. Maybe one hundred five percent.

"Oh, no," I say. "I've had this name for 17 years. Mother gave it to me when I very young and I've never worked under any other name."

My hands are in my lap again and he can't see the nail on my little finger right hand. It's robin's egg blue and has little gold stars on it.

He puts his hands behind his head and leans back more. He might tip over. The armpits of his short sleeved white shirt are wet or stained. I don't know which because I'm not going to look at them. I lock onto his pale blue little eyes and I can tell that he thinks I really like him. I have a very convincing smile.

"I have been working at the Hilton Hotel for nine years," I say. I emphasize nine. I don't smile. I am serious—it's not true what I'm saying but I say it seriously. I have worked there three months.

The face between the armpits talks, "You're still there?" Here's what bothers me about that face—it's so bland and uninteresting and blank and he's trying to act like he's a big cheese which no one with that kind of face could be.

"I still work there," I say. "I'm on my lunch hour."

Still pointing those pits at me, he says, "What do you do there?" I see something else. He's looking for me to give him a cue. A little slack comes into his face. I'm good at reading these things and I know he's going to hire me.

"I am hostess in the dining room," I say.

He pushes his chair back further and puts one foot on his desk. Casual. "I guess that explains why your lunch hour is at 9 a.m.," he says.

It doesn't but I say, "Yes, it does." Lunch hours are not at 9 a.m. Breakfast hours are at 9 a.m. I called in sick this morning.

"You married?" he asks.

Now he's scooting his butt around and sitting sort of sideways. He leans one bony elbow on a chair arm and gets himself all bent at different angles, shoulders, elbows, legs crossed. Tinkertoy man.

I shift my weight too. I smile. He smiles. No one speaks. Smile, smile, smile. Ok, I must talk. "Married?" I present a puzzled face.

He raises his eyebrows. He actually looks better this way.

"I'm just caught off guard," I say. "I didn't think that question was asked anymore." It's illegal and I'm not answering. I know my rights.

He shrugs and throws his body forward, opens the long shallow drawer that goes over your knees if you're at a desk and pulls out two green and white candies. He shoves the drawer closed and holds his hand out, offering me the candy. I catch myself making a face—I hate that cheap candy—but I correct myself and I smile.

I know he's going to hire me.

He throws one candy on the desk, casual, and then talking at the same time that he's struggling to unwrap the cellophane around the cheap candy, he says, "Why do you want to leave the Hilton?"

"I like it there. I'm just ready for a change," I say.

He starts sucking on that candy. Smack, smack. His tongue pushes the candy around in his mouth. He needs to work on casual. He thinks he's an outfielder. He puts the candy outside his teeth into his cheek.

He looks at me. Meaningfully. I look back meaningfully, too. He says, "When could you start?"

I smile the same smile I've been smiling. Not too big. "In two weeks," I say.

"We really need somebody now," he says. He starts crunching that candy and smacking again.

"I'd have to give two weeks notice," I say. "You wouldn't want your employees to just walk out. I can't do that." I mean this. Meaning it makes it harder to say because it's the only acceptable answer and he knows it and I know it. But I mean it anyway.

He nods and scratches his upper arm under the hem of his shirtsleeve.

"Two weeks," he says. I know I'm hired. "You start the eighteenth. That ok?" He doesn't wait for an answer of any sort. "Let me take you to Miss Framer and she'll discuss salary and benefits with you." He holds out his right hand but not with candy this time. He wants to shake hands. I give him my hand but instead of shaking it, he turns it over and looks at the blue nail on my little finger. He lifts his eyelids but not his head and looks at me with his lips stuck together. He likes the blue nail, everybody does, but he doesn't like seeing it right now.

"Miss Framer," I say.

"I'll take you to her." His skinny little body springs up.

I rise too but slowly. "Let me see her tomorrow," I say. "I must discuss this with the Mother of the Eternal Wide Universe."

I walk to the door, turn and say, "Miss Framer. I won't forget."

He stands there and looks at me with his arms hanging limp and his shoulders a little forward. He doesn't know how to handle this at all. He has hired me. I have the job.

I sleep on it but I don't go back. The Mother of the Eternal Wide Universe says I wouldn't like Miss Framer. Says she's uptight.

Later on, my friend Harriet comes by. Harriet is perfect looking. She's always dressed up, made up, hair done and she's blonde besides. Some people have told me Harriet gets all those clothes and makeup by shoplifting. I don't know about that. She does not shoplift a haircut.

But she did tell me once that she comes from a family of bankers. "We're all thieves," she said. But she does not look like a thief. She is far too presentable to be suspected of anything.

I look at her leather boots, her blue skirt, off-white jacket and blouse with little pink and yellow and blue flowers on it. I look at her hair, short and combed back and staying there. Makeup. Blue eyes that look like she's wondering about something. Not much emotion ever shows in Harriet, which is good. That wondering look suits her.

"Harriet," I say. "You look better than the women who sell cosmetics at Nordstrom's. You ever think about getting a job?"

"I've had jobs," Harriet says.

"You have one now?"

"No," she says. She's not interested in this subject. She turns to the window like what we're talking about doesn't have anything to do with her.

"I know a job you could get," I say.

"Where?"

"Freedom Insurance. They need a receptionist."

Harriet shrugs and looks at me with those question eyes.

"I'm not saying you have to keep the job but you can have it. I'm sure of that."

"What does it pay?" She's not interested in this but she's not interested in anything else either. The job has the advantage that I'm talking about it.

"Go on down there and talk to Miss Framer. Tell her you were hired for the receptionist job yesterday and you want to know what they expect to pay you. Make them pay you more. You're worth it."

"Come on," Harriet says.

"No, no. It's ok. I was hired yesterday but I can't take the job. You go take it. If you don't like it, don't keep it. What have you got to lose?"

Harriet makes one of the faces where you raise your eyebrows, look down and look disinterested. It means, "Yeah, you're right. Big deal."

I get dressed and we go downtown together. I tell her I'll wait for her in the McDonald's on the corner. They have a sign in there that says you can't stay there unless you're eating. That sign is rude. I'm not going to eat a Big Mac just so I can wait for my friend at a table.

I wait a long time. I get a newspaper and look through it for anything interesting. I look through it a second time. The third time, I read some of the shorter articles.

Finally, Harriet comes back and gives me that question look. This annoys me. She could say something but she's making me ask.

"Well?"

"I got the job."

"I knew you would."

She pours cream into her little styrofoam cup of coffee and says, "Who is Darrell Dagman?"

My turn to shrug. "I don't know. Who is he?"

"My boss," she says. "He asked where Blue Nail is."

"Oh, that shrimpy little guy? Oh, yeah. The boss."

"He's cute," she says.

Now, we're on dangerous ground. Nothing I can say. The man is not cute. I can't say he is and I can't say he's not.

"You think so?" I say.

"I went to school with him," she says. "I had a crush on him." Her smile is beaming; she is so happy.

Copyright © Betty Seek 2004