“Karen Baldwin?”
The girl sitting next to me rises from her chair and follows the guy in the pinstripe suit into the interview room. Another girl arrives to join the chair queue in Karen’s place. She limps a little and I guess she may have one leg slightly shorter that the other, like she might have survived polio or something. I strain my ears to try and pick up a question or two from the interview room, but it’s like a subwoofer is jacked up to eleven.
A little time goes by before the girl with the bum leg pipes up. It’s not that she’s ugly or anything, far from it, but you wouldn’t give her a second look on the street. She wears this little grey frock with white tulips on it that makes her seem limp and damp, like she’s been hung out to dry.
“I’m Tracey,” she says meekly.
“Bess,” I reply.
“Here for the interview?” she asks. I’m sitting here in line in front of the interview room and she asks that.
“Yes.”
“Going for the receptionist job then?” she asks, like there is another position on offer… which there isn’t.
“Uh-huh.”
“Me too,” she says and smiles a closed-lipped smile.
I’m impatient at the best of times, but more so when I’m trying to escape inanity. I drum my nails on the arm of the chair, producing a clacking sound against the wood. It seems to make Tracey shift in her seat and I take some pleasure from it.
“I lost my job when Fielding’s closed down last month,” Tracey says.
“That’s rough,” I reply. Hearing my own voice I almost seem sympathetic.
“I could really do with this job. But so could we all, I suppose. No reason why I should get it over anyone else, I guess.”
Damn right there, sister, I think. In truth, I am only going for the job so that I can have a little more spending money for my Saturday afternoons with the girls. My husband works for a city law firm and shovels his wages into a joint account. But I’m bored and could do with some company during the day.
Tracey’s phone rings to something resembling choral music. Mercifully, she answers it quickly.
“Hi Momma,” I overhear her say. “Did you pick up Billy’s prescription? … Aw, Momma! You know how Billy is in the mornings without his meds. How’s his breathing? … Well, he needs his meds, Momma … oh there’s no point now. I’ll pick them up on the way back from the interview … yeah, Momma, fingers crossed.”
She puts the phone in her bag, but her hand lingers half in, half out, of the bag. I’m curious about Billy’s condition. I assume it’s asthma. But then I notice the great big teabags under her eyes and wonder if it’s more than that.
“Sorry,” she says, snapping out of her mini trance. I should really switch that thing off. But, I suppose I have to have it on just in case.”
“Of what?”
“It’s my Billy. He has CF.”
“CF?”
“Cystic Fibrosis.”
My heart sinks. I go out of my way not to engage in conversations like this.
“That’s rough,” I say again, this time like I really mean it.
“And what with his father gone and the mortgage arrears… oh, but listen to me prattle on, burdening others with my woes.”
Mercifully, the interview door opens and Mr. Pinstripe sees Karen out.
“Elizabeth Walker?”
I get up and he leads me to the room. Mr. Pinstripe introduces himself as Bruce Winters, C.O.O.. He smiles broadly and spreads his arms wide as if to indicate the spaciousness of his surroundings — though the room is no bigger than eight by twelve.
“So, you want to work for JJ Edwards?”
“Yes.”
“So do a lot of others, Elizabeth.”
I don’t tell him I go by Bess. Perhaps over a drink I could tell him.
He asks me a lot of questions. I answer competently, almost robotically, to each. It becomes clear that I tick all the boxes and we start to get more relaxed, more conversational. But not so much that I would correct him about my preference for Bess.
Finally, when it seems like he is all but ready to hand me a contract there and then, he asks:
“So, Elizabeth, do you really, really want this job?”
I think it’s a fairly standard question on motivation. Then I think of Tracey, of her poor son Billy, of him coughing his lungs out because Mommy must go to an interview rather than get his meds first. I think of the repo man banging on her door to take away her TV, her car, her home. I think of Tracey and her mother scrounging at the thrift store looking to exchange food stamps for a pair of shoes for Billy. I think of Billy in a little white coffin.
But then I think of my friends, Jenny, Ashley, and Chelsea. I think of those Saturday afternoons on a department store crawl, of Gucci, Prada, and glasses of wine at the river-side restaurant afterwards.
“Yes, Mr. Winters,” I say beaming. “There’s absolutely nothing I could want more.”
Larkin Cunningham was born and raised in Cork, Ireland. He is currently a full-time graduate student of creative writing at The University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
This story was sponsored by
Naked Metamorphosis — All the world’s a stage… and Franz Kafka wants to direct. An absurdist’s version of Hamlet complete with heretofore unexplored heights of depravity, cockroach transformation, Shakespearean bawdiness, and split infinitives!
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18 Responses to “KNOWING HER PRIORITIES • by Larkin Cunningham”
Comments
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December 7th, 2009 at 12:43 am
Nicely written but predictable.
December 7th, 2009 at 2:02 am
Whoops. I accidentally clicked on “Submit Comment” before I was done.
Anyhow, in addition to the predictability that I previously mentioned it also struck me as odd that a COO (I assume Chief Operating Officer) would be in an eight by twelve room conducting the first round of interviews for a company that many “others” want to work for. Thereafter, when the main character is asked if she wants the job its as if time abruptly stops just for her as she ponders the plight of her competition for the position and then thinks about how much fun she will have shopping at swanky stores with her lengthy list of friends and the glasses of wine they will have afterwards before she finally answers the COO that there is nothing she wants more.
Hopefully the COO picks up on this lengthy pause in her reply and moves on to the next candidate (whom seems to be an incredibly pathetic character to me rather than someone I can sympathise with given the possibility that she may have had polio (which I’m surprised someone as self-absorbed as Bess is would even pick up one), a son that has CF, a mother that neglects to pick up her child’s precious medicine, a husband that has run out on her and left her in arrears on her mortgage and choral music on her phone and Billy in a little white coffin…and…and…and…
I got the message a long time ago! She needs the job a lot more than that bitch Bess whose husband ia a lawyer and “shovels” money into their joint account!
Ultimately, the choice of certain characters, redundancy and social interaction in this story is poorly portrayed versus what the average reader would expect in this situation.
Technically speaking, I did like the writing.
I’ll leave the rest for the grammar and spelling police.
December 7th, 2009 at 5:11 am
Game Theory suggests Tracey was just trying to out-psych her competition. Good thing Bess didn’t fall for it.
December 7th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Pretty good. I don’t really care for stories written in present tense, I find them a bit harder to read, but I guess it’s a choice available to the author and I shouldn’t come down too hard on it.
Also noted one little error – in “yeah, Momma, finger’s crossed” kill the apostrophe.
December 7th, 2009 at 7:57 am
The sort of real-life turn of events that many people discourage writing about. Nice to see someone write about it anyway.
December 7th, 2009 at 8:08 am
I actually thought Bess was going to turn out to have a heart of gold and pass up on the job, thereby making this story predictable and somewhat treacle. I’m so glad you threw me for a loop, Larkin.
Good story – I enjoyed hating Bess!
December 7th, 2009 at 8:24 am
I wanted to like this more than I did, but selfish Bess reminded me too much of an ex. That’s not the writers fault, so I won’t deduct rating for that. I just couldn’t gather any sympathy for the main character. Anytime I don’t like the central focus character that will bleed over into my general feelings for the whole piece.
The couple of grammatical issues brought this down to an average flash at best.
December 7th, 2009 at 9:00 am
God, Bess is a cold!
Assuming that’s the reaction you wanted, good story.
December 7th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Ha! The other woman was probably full of crap anyway. Good one!
December 7th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Tracey really overplayed that part. I suspect she’s actually from HR sent to weed out potential employees. I don’t know that they want someone quite as ruthless as Bess for a receptionist position, but you never know.
December 7th, 2009 at 11:22 am
I don’t think she’s going to enjoy a receptionist job very much is she gets that annoyed about that much that easily.
But I agree with, some, of #2. The situation is overstated, and then overstated again. But I think that’s the point, right?
I liked the idea overall, the writing, and I enjoyed reading it.
December 7th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I’m with Ramon (#3) in that I thought Bess was getting gamed by Tracey, so the ending took an unexpected twist.
I think this would have been a bit more effective if Tracey had come across as sympathetic without bludgeoning Bess with her problems. Poor girl has issues but the way she went on (and then started listing), made her seem kind of whiny. I know how much writers love to hear other people tell them how they “should” have written their stories, so I usually refrain from inflicting that sort of opinion, but for what it’s worth: Maybe paint Tracey as you had, sort of a pathetic figure, but then rather than overhearing a convenient conversation, Bess realizes she knows the girl (or has a text-chat with a mutual friend, all sorts of vehicles in this modern age), and knows something of her dire situation.
The “stun” in this story is to show how cold some people are. Tracey complaining to Bess makes her potentially sound like she’s trying to get a leg up, which diminishes the finale a bit, imo.
Of course, Tracey could be the ultimate deceiver in all this and I’m way off base. It’s a Johnny Fairplay world; we’re all just surviving in it.
–John
December 7th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Too many questions left unanswered here, with no hints or subtle clues to take away and wonder and think about. E.g., if Tracey has an iPhone — that would be enough to make me want to guess. As it stands, it’s not.
December 7th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Pretty good, I thought, and mainly because it raises a question. Is it immoral to pursue a job that you believe someone else “needs” more. I don’t actually think it is.
Let’s not start an argument on the moral question, though. My point is that raising the moral question gives the story power, which largely renders over some of the problems raised above.
December 7th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Bess was easy to hate and Tracy easy to pity. Bess probably took the job and quit out of boredom three weeks later after boffing the C.O.O. and ruining his marriage. Luckily Tracy won the lottery the very next week and was able to take Billy to an expensive private hospital in Sweden where she met Lars who was buff and rich and wanted to marry her more than anything. Bess ends up divorced and selling shoes at Nordstoms where Tracy goes to shop for shoes on a visit home to dear mama. Karma debt baby!!
Keep at it – you held my attention.
December 7th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Like a sub-woofer is jacked up to eleven?
December 7th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Fixed “fingers crossed”; thanks, Jim.
December 12th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Tracey came over as a potential bitch – prepared to give Momma a hard time during the child-minding duties,meticulous exercise programme and all: and the medication should have been home days before. She had it coming from Bess but I didn’t see it until the end. Liked the tale and the writing but share reluctance to present tense.