Exclusive Interview

I
excel at only two things in this world: the first is feeling sorry for myself, and the second is housework. The first inspires the second, and my whole family knows it. This makes it difficult to hide my feelings, but it doesn't stop me from trying. If I can't clean out in the open, then I have to do it stealthily, after everyone has gone to bed. I'm like one of those shoe-making elves, except instead of making shoes I scrub the crappers.

Even crapper-scrubbing elves, however, sometimes give themselves away. Bright and early one Monday morning, one week after I had showed up on my older sister's doorstep and begged for a place to crash, Rose stumbled out of her bedroom in search of coffee and found me on my hands and knees on the kitchen floor, grinding borax and lemon juice into the grout with a toothbrush. I'd forgotten that she had to go into work early this morning, and I started guiltily when she cleared her throat.

“Rebecca...” she said, crossing her arms and sounding just like our mother.

I was caught red-handed, but I still tried to cover things up. “Haha!” I said. “Just getting some housework done.”

“I see that,” she replied. “I appreciate the effort. But I can't help but wonder what you aren't telling me. What time did you wake up to clean?
Don't
look at the clock.”

Dammit. “Five-thirty?” I hazarded.

“I see,” she said. “You mean five-thirty last night, yes? Because it's only five o'clock right now.”

Double dammit. “Sorry, I meant, er, four-thirty.” I tried to meet her eye while I lied my ass off, but unfortunately Rose is not like me, always thinking the best of people and getting shit for her trouble. Rose is the go-getter sister, the one that doesn't take crap from anybody, the one who went to law school and is now an excellent lawyer who mows down all who seek to oppose her. I'd always hung back and tried not to screw things up. That's why Rose landed a sweet job as an associate at a prestigious law firm here in LA, dealing in entertainment industry contracts and I am a shiftless—and now homeless—bartender whose last known residence was a studio apartment in San Diego.

And while I can smell vodka on someone's breath, Rose can smell a lie from a hundred yards away. Sometimes she can even sniff one out over the phone. I didn't stand a chance.

I only lasted twenty seconds before I dropped my gaze. “I didn't go to bed last night,” I muttered. “But it's okay! It's the least I can do since you're letting me stay here rent free!”

Rose shook her head. “Rebecca, I let you stay here free because you are my little sister and I'd be a terrible person if I didn't. I don't need you to clean my apartment.”

I couldn't stop myself from saying it. “Actually,” I said, “you, uh, kind of do.”

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, and I knew it was all over. She knew I was in a Bad Spot, and now she was going to help me in her usual go-getter Rose sort of way.

"Rebecca, I'm afraid it's time for you to get a fucking job," she counseled.

Yeah. That's Rose.

“I'll get a job,” I said. “I promise.”

Rose dropped her hand and stalked across the floor. Bending over, she grabbed my wrists and hauled me to my feet. “No you won't,” she said. “I know you. We are going to find you a job
now.
Whatever shitty personal thing you're working your way through, it will help if you have something else to think about. And stop
cleaning!”
She grabbed the toothbrush out of my hand and tossed it in the trash.

“Hey,” I said, “I was using that.” My despair at losing my precious toothbrush was very real. I'd been in the zone. I'd been about to conquer the forces of entropy. I didn't need a job, I needed a Nobel prize, or at the very least some grant money.

"When was the last time you showered?" Rose demanded, steering me into her room. "The last time you had a decent meal? The last time you talked to someone besides all those dumb parents on
Supernanny?
They can't hear you, you know. They're
in the TV."

I opened my mouth to reply, but honestly, I couldn't think of the answers to any of those questions, and Rose's face told me she knew it.

“See? You need something to take your mind off things. Therefore you are getting a job today.”

Defeated, I let her have her way with me. Rose sat me down in front of her computer, pulled up Craigslist, and found every listing in the downtown LA area for a bartender. Then, because those listings were slim, she looked for 'housekeeper' and 'maid'.

"What?"
I said in protest. "What makes you think I'd be a housekeeper?"

"Because A, judging by how fanatically you clean
my
apartment, you'd be good at it, B, the pay is better than fast food, which I don't think you'd get into anyway, and C, it doesn't pay as much as tending bar, but it's an honest living."

Says the woman with a law degree,
I thought, but I sucked on those sour grapes in silence.

With a click of her mouse, Rose sent no fewer than ten job openings to her printer, seven of which were for a maid or housekeeper. Then she shoved me into the shower and supervised me while I got dressed to make sure I was actually going to drag my carcass out of the apartment. As I pulled on clothing appropriate to a bartending gig—which were totally inappropriate elsewhere—she typed numbers, information on companies, and addresses into my phone. When I was dressed to my satisfaction, she pressed a fifty dollar bill into my hand, gave me a bus schedule and a file full of the printouts and shoved me out the door.

I stumbled into the light of the rising LA sun. It was going to be another beautiful day in southern California, and I was pretty sure it was going to just go downhill from here.

“Have fun!” Rose called from the door of her apartment. Then she went back inside and slammed the door.

“Thanks,” I said.

She meant well. To Rose, the right job could cure, in one fell swoop, my broken heart, my wrecked life, and my degenerate homelessness, though she only knew about the last bit. I hadn't shared the other parts with her. I'd burdened her enough already.

With a sigh, I shoved the file folder into my messenger bag, checked the bus schedule, and started down the street, determined to, if not find a job, then to at least try.

After all, who knew? Maybe the right job
would
cure all my problems.

I walked into the rising sun.

––––––––

W
hen I opened the door to the lobby of office suite 305—my final application of the day— fifteen well-coiffed heads whirled around. Fifteen pairs of shrewd eyes narrowed as they scoped me out. Fifteen noses lifted higher in the air when they processed what they saw. Then a tiny bit of tension melted away from fifteen pairs of smartly dressed shoulders as, almost in unison, the other applicants turned back around, dismissing me from the competition for the job.

It was a bit unnerving, to tell the truth, but I really should have twigged to the fact that somewhere, somehow, some wires had been crossed. After all, every single applicant was dressed in some variation of a business suit. Pressed, prim, and utterly proper in dark fabrics, white shirts and polished shoes. Each one had a shiny leather briefcases with gleaming brass buckles, and some of the briefcases even had those little spinny numbers on the locks.

Me? I wore a sparkly black- and silver-striped tube top, skinny jeans from the sale rack at H&M, a ratty pair of Chuck's that I'd had since my senior year in high school, and an old white polyester tuxedo jacket passed down to me by my grandfather from his '71 wedding. The buttons had long since fallen off the sleeves, so I wore them rolled up to my elbows. It was my bartending uniform. You had to look somewhat hip to land the good gigs at places where rich yuppies liked to go, so it's safe to say I was severely underdressed compared to everyone else.

So yeah, that should have tipped me off. Unfortunately I had been awake for almost thirty-six hours at that point, so my only thought was,
Holy crap, all this for a lousy part time housekeeping job? This economy
sucks.

...I'm serious. I was
tired.

Besides, I had just been witnessing first hand exactly how terrible the economy was so at the time the situation made perfect sense to my sleep deprived brain. I'd been on my feet all day, running all over downtown LA looking for a job I didn't really want. I mean, I
needed
a job—that much was obvious—but after a whole morning of job hunting I remembered why I'd been so reluctant to do so in the first place. Job hunting is
brutal.
And I'd recently been through the wringer. Subjecting myself to the Rejection Roulette was just cruel.

I'd had no luck at all yet. I'd spent the morning riding the bus and walking from place to place getting rejected, so by the time I walked into suite 305 I was tired, bruised in spirit, and in no mood to get scrutinized by a bunch of yuppie wannabe housekeepers.

Still, the place seemed like it
might
be a nice place to work—you know, if I managed to not get laughed out of the building upon first contact with HR. I didn't even know the name of the business I was applying to—the notes in my phone said it was a software consulting firm—but I had to admit it looked swank as hell.

The lobby was decked out in cool, modern furniture, all sleek lines and irregular curves and angles that ended abruptly. The couches and chairs were pastel pink with lime green accent pillows, and the walls had been painted in cream and turquoise stripes, as if the sixties had vomited all over an Ikea. Large frosted glass doors with brushed steel handles stood at the entrance to the rest of the office, and next to them the secretary, a middle-aged woman with bottle-blond hair and steely gray eyes, sat at a hammered steel desk typing away at a slender computer that probably cost more than my last car.

As I stood just inside the entrance, trying to muster the courage to sit down next to one of these intimidating strangers, the secretary looked up. Raising an eyebrow, she peered at me from over the top of her dark-rimmed glasses.

"Are you here for the job screening?" she asked me. Her tone of voice was incredulous.

A few titters rose from the other applicants, and I had to fight down a blush. "Um, yes?" I said.

She raised the other eyebrow. "You sound uncertain."

Oh,
god.
I
was
uncertain. I wanted nothing more than to turn around and run back out the heavy glass doors. How could I have known this was a position that required a business suit? I didn't even
own
a business suit. I hoped I
never
owned a business suit.

But if they're laughing at you now,
my brain whispered,
imagine how much they'll laugh at you if you turn around and walk out.

The thought paralyzed me. My defensive reflexes rose up and took over.

A bright smile slid over my face and I shook my head. “No, I'm sure!” I chirped at the secretary. “That's what I'm here for!” And with a bounce in my step that sent my boobs jiggling in their tube top I turned and took the last remaining seat. I set my messenger bag down between my feet, then bent over to look for my cell phone within its cavernous depths. This also had the bonus side effect of hiding my flaming cheeks.

“Well, that's good to hear, although you are a little late,” the secretary said. The note of mockery in her voice was clear as crystal. Then she coughed genteelly and seemed to sober up. “Well, at any rate, I'm afraid Mr. Hudson has been slightly delayed by an emergency phone call, but he will come greet you all as soon as possible. Please be patient.”
Mr. Hudson.
That must be the office manager or whatever. Why did the name ring a faint bell, though?

I shook the thought off—I'd tended bar in a popular touristy night spot for almost three years so most people and names seemed familiar to me now—and nodded at the secretary on the off chance that she had been addressing me specifically and continued my search. At last I managed to locate my phone. Pulling it out of the bag I turned it on and began scrolling through my contacts, trying to convey the impression to anyone who might be watching me that I had some very urgent business to attend to.

Inside, of course, I wanted to die of humiliation. The laughter echoed in my head, like a cheesy flashback in an old 80s flick.

I hated myself for it. Why did I care what a bunch of stuck up douchebags in business suits thought of me? They were douchebags, and after I got turned down for this job I'd probably never see them again. Douchebag opinions were, by definition, inconsequential.

Except I
did
care. I cared very much. If they laughed at me I wouldn't be able to bear it. And they probably weren't douchebags, to be honest. They were probably all very nice people who rescued turtles from the middle of the road and called their grandmothers every Sunday. Disappointing
them
would be even worse.

Good little Rebecca,
I thought sourly.
So sweet. So nice. Always aiming to please.

Yeah. That's me.

And look where it got me.

I bit my lip and kept my head down as I scrolled around my phone. I avoided the potential minefields of my email and Facebook, as I'd been doing for the past eight days, and instead checked innocuous things like the weather (always pleasant) and my agenda (always empty). I hoped I looked busy. I felt as though the word 'LOSER' were written above my head in neon letters. You know, just in case people couldn't tell from simply looking at me.

I didn't dare risk a look around. I didn't want to accidentally catch anyone's eye.

After about a minute or so, the silence in the room began to grate on my ears, so I took a deep breath and peeked from beneath my lashes to scope out the rest of my comrades, but most of my fellow applicants were staring at tablets or typing on laptops. I surreptitiously studied them as I paged through my mixed drinks cheat sheet app, trying to size them up.