It’s July 1st and 38 degrees Celsius with the humidex. The blue sky beyond the round bus windows is crowded with fat cumulous clouds, the air pregnant with the promise of summer rain. This is the fifth day of Brampton’s “heat wave”. It is also the second week since I moved into my sparse one room apartment with new paint on the walls, new wax on the scratched floor, but no air conditioner in the window. As a new grad with a diploma, debt up the wazoo and desperate for a job, air conditioning didn’t quite fit it my budget yet.
My earbuds blast Basement Jaxx’s “Everybody” and sweat drips down my spine. I lift my arms up, vying for some air conditioning—no one likes a stinky interviewee.
I take a deep breath and go through my list of responses to classic interview questions: What is your worst attribute? Are you a team player? Do you like working in groups? What experience do you hope to gain? What was your least-favourite subject in university?
After attending over a dozen interviews in the past three months, many of them in Toronto and Mississauga, I feel well-prepped to face another potential employer. Though I don’t have a job yet, I tell myself I’m only three months out of school. My mind lays out the simple but terrifying math: 91 days unemployed, $910 a month for rent, $450 for a decent air conditioner, and only $2,500 left in savings.
My heart sinks into my acid-filled stomach. Deep breaths. Not desperate. Not yet.
I stand, push the request stop button, unglue my thighs, and walk to the door. The bus stops in front of a dreary plaza filled with one-level shops and stores with dirty windows, dusty displays, and no shade. I check my phone: 1:45 p.m. Fifteen minutes until my interview at Kwanzo Industries for a junior copywriter position. I drag my frosty Klean Kanteen out of my satchel, chug a large mouthful, and duck into a convenience store two doors down from Kwanzo.
I browse the gum and magazines and steal as much cold air as possible. I think cold thoughts: the snowy landscape of the Arctic, a large Sapporo choked with ice cubes, the thought of being unemployed for another 91 days.
Time drags like the broken leg of a shambling zombie. The convenience store attendant glares at me. I check my phone: five minutes to go. I check my scent: strawberry body butter holding nicely. I check my confidence: not quite as strong as the body butter.
A brisk pace carries my black flats into the first floor of Kwanzo Industries. A delicious, cold gust of air hits my sticky face and chest. A young woman with bangs, thick glasses, and jeans one size too small greets me.
“Hiya, how can I help you?” the woman asks from behind the desk. Her face looks young—unlined with freckles, but her slouched shoulders and tight jeans scream middle-aged.
“Hello. I am here to see Mr. Flange. I have an interview at 2 p.m.” My eyes flick over the Bud Light clock on the wall above the reception desk.
The young woman’s eyes narrow and travel down my body. She takes in my skirt, pink sleeveless blouse, and Oxblood satchel. My blazer is draped over my bag, which holds my résumé and reference letters from my favourite teacher and from my previous employer at U of T. The woman shoots a pointed glance at my blouse.
I look down, following the path of her gaze. Shit, did I spill something on myself? Do I have large disgusting sweat stains? Nothing. My blouse looks perfect. I look up and meet the woman’s eyes.
“I’ll go let Mr. Flange know you’re here.” The woman turns on her Converse and trudges up the stairs to the second floor.
Faint sounds float down the stairs: the clickety-click of fingers typing, muffled and indistinct bites of conversations, pleasant dings that I recognize as Mac computer sounds.
The dusty Budweiser clock reads 2:08. Another sigh slips past my lips and I look around the first floor, walking slowly so that I can run back at the slightest sound of footsteps on the stairs. The room resembles an ’80s bachelor pad. There is a couch, a large circular table, a dead arcade game in the far corner, and a whiteboard with BRAINSTORM written in large letters inside a puffy cloud.
My eyebrows raise. I wonder how long someone has been BRAINSTORMING. Since 1986? A smile tugs at the corner of my lip. The words on the whiteboard are from a black whiteboard marker, and they look dry and chipped. The only thing that’s gonna clear this brainstorm is a bottle of rubbing alcohol and an SOS pad.
Footfalls echo from the stairs behind me. I envision a grizzly bear trudging down them, with a coffee mug in hand and a “Where’s the Beef” t-shirt. I remember the strange glance the woman shot at my blouse. I drop my satchel, whip up my black blazer, and button it over my blouse. I scoop up my satchel and jog over to the staircase.
I straighten up. My mouth stretches into a professional smile and I wipe my sweaty palms on my skirt.
A man with fuzzy grey hair, gold-rimmed glasses, and a scowl trudges down the last few steps.
I nod to him as his worn-looking New Balance come to rest two feet from mine. “Hello, I’m Christy Moffat. I am here for my 2 p.m. interview.” My eyes want to stray over to the dusty Bud Light clock. The big hand points in the vicinity of the blue 3. Mr. Flange is 15 minutes late.
“Hi.” The gruff-looking man, who I assume is Mr. Flange, nods to me and walks past me into the ’80s bachelor pad, taking a seat at the round table. He carries a slim folder in his thick red hands.
My freshly plucked eyebrows raise. I take a deep breath and follow him.
“Have a seat, Miss Moffat,” the man says and points at a chair beside him, without looking up.
Principal’s office, that’s what this feels like. I sit down, place my satchel on the table, and turn towards my interviewer. Knees together, hands on my lap, smile cemented on my face.
The man opens the folder and pulls out a copy of my résumé and a ballpoint pen. There are notes scratched in the margins, beside my work experience, skills, and references. My eyes stray to the sharp and pointed cursive. Question marks and scratched-out words and sentences dot the page, like shit on white sheets. What’s he been writing about me?
“So you want to be a copywriter?” the man asks, finally looking up at my face. “I know from our email correspondence that you are looking for full-time paid work in the publishing industry.”
I pause. This man is Mr. Flange, or at least a person who hacked into his computer and took time to chat with me regarding my career goals. “Yes, my degree is in both professional writing and communications, so I think I would be able to use those skills in any career,” I say, with as much confidence as I can muster.
“Huh?” Mr. Flange’s eyebrows almost kiss his receding hairline. My teeth dig into my inner cheek. Shit, wrong answer.
“You know we don’t publish books here, right?” Mr. Flange asks.
“Yes, of course. I am excited about becoming more diverse in my writing skills and I think copywriting at your company would be an excellent opportunity to do that.” My lips purse. Fuck, I said too much.
Mr. Flange places my inked résumé back into the folder and stands. I look dumbly up at him with what must be a “someone kicked my puppy and ate my ice cream” face.
Mr. Flange lumbers over to the staircase. “Come meet the team,” he hollers over his shoulder. His grizzled white hair is a crazy halo around his head.
“Ah, sure.” I hurry to gather my bag and catch up to him.
Mr. Flange is halfway up the stairs by the time I reach his side. The second floor opens up into a large loft space with four-foot windows, exposed beams, and a dozen desks. White Mac desktops, coffee mugs, pens, brightly coloured brochures, and half-finished lunches dot these workstations.
A woman at the nearest desk—the frowning woman who greeted me downstairs—doesn’t look up as Mr. Flange and I approach. Her fingers blur as they fly across her white Mac keyboard. She chews gum and doesn’t blink.
Mr. Flange walks through the open space. None of them look up from their screens. White noise fills the silence—furious typing and the hum of printers, scanners, and a small fridge in the corner.
As I follow Mr. Flange, I can feel eyes on my bac
k. The suspicion creates an itch between my shoulders. In my imagination, the worker drones turn into flesh-hungry zombies and lunge for my tender peaches-and-cream skin. The desire to turn and confront these confabulated zombies is almost too much. As I plan my attack on the mindless legion, a large oval desk comes into view at the back of the room. A man is already seated at the desk, waiting for us. He has spiked hair, a slick smile, and dark eyes that stare at the front of my blazer and lower before lazily meeting my eyes.
My teeth dig into my inner cheek. I stifle a growl. I understand now why the young woman shot me the death glare earlier.
“So do you know what we do here, Miss Moffat?” Mr. Flange sits across from the other man, offering me a seat between them. Interview sandwich.
“Yes. Kwanzo Industries is a marketing firm that specializes in the sale of veterinary medical instruments,” I say in a strong voice. I looked up Kwanzo Industries’ LinkedIn profile before the interview.
“Uh huh. That’s correct. I know that you are very familiar with the veterinary profession,” Mr. Flange says and tips his eyes up to meet mine, above the gold frames of his glasses.
My stomach churns. True, I was a veterinary technician for almost six years, but I didn’t mentioned it on my résumé—didn’t really fit with my career goals, plus I didn’t want them to know how old I was.
Ageism and all that. How does Kwanzo know about it?
I nod. “Yes, that’s true,” I say, smile a few watts dimmer.
“You also write quite a bit. On your résumé you mentioned that you wrote a book? Ah,” Mr. Flange fishes out my resume again. “Bakemono.” He pronounces the Japanese word for “monster” in two separate English words, “bake” and “mono”—like a pastry-induced glandular fever.
I smile. “Yes.” I pull a copy out from my satchel and lay it on the table. “It is a collection of short stories about monsters.”
Mr. Flange looks down at the pink cover of the book. The eyebrows go up and the glasses dip down as he picks up the book. A picture of a girl in a wolf mask lunges toward the reader.
I go on. “I created the entire book—the cover, layout, stories, and typesetting—using the Adobe Creative Suite.”
Mr. Flange flips over the book and reads the back cover. “Eat someone?” Mr. Flange murmurs. A blush rises in my pale cheeks. Mr. Flange’s lips move as he reads about a girl who eats people.
“Do you think you can write for consumers, as opposed to fiction?” This question comes from the man beside me—the pervert.
I turn towards him. “Absolutely. My degree has prepared me for diverse forms of communication.” I smile, but it is colder now.
The man nods, smiles, and shrugs. “Sounds great, doesn’t it, Willy?” he says, looking over at Mr. Flange.
Mr. Flange looks up. “It does, Kurt.” He turns to me. “One thing, though. We are a close-knit group and we don’t take well to cursing, issues with authority, or attitudes.”
My jaw almost drops. Good thing my body is too tense to let it. For once, I am actually speechless. With my stellar references, graduation with high distinction, and mentoring first-years for my university, I don’t deserve this.
Kurt laughs. “We read some of your portfolio online—my favourite was the one where you dropped the F-bomb in front of that veterinarian you used to work for.”
Fuck. My blood turns to ice. My website, my creative non-fiction, my LinkedIn. Kwanzo’s stalked it all.
“That was a story for one of my professional writing courses,” I say. Kurt and Willy share a look.
“Well, about the attitude: we had a look at your LinkedIn profile pic and you kind of look like a pissed member of the KGB,” Kurt says offhandedly. Willy slides Bakemono back to me.
My LinkedIn picture is a self-portrait from a photography assignment. A black and white photo of me in my winter coat with the collar up and my sunglasses on. No hammers and sickles, machine guns, or vodka.
I let out a strained laugh. A hoarse bray of shock and humour at this ridiculous interrogation. “A friend of mine took it for a photography class.”
Another shared look. The hum of machines, the click of typing fingers, and the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.
“You are a talented writer, Christy.” Mr. Flange turns to face me, eyes locked on mine. Kurt shifts in his seat. “But we are looking for someone who can meet deadlines, write our content, and fit in.”
I take in a deep breath. I think about the chilled skinny vanilla latte that I am going to treat myself to on the way home for this failed interview. Cold, sweet, and bold.
“The junior copywriter position is unpaid for the first three months.” Mr. Flange folds his paws, one on top of the other, and leans back in his chair. “We need to be sure that you are a good fit—not a round peg in a square hole, so to speak—then we can discuss starting salary.”
I nod. Another 91 days. At least. The sounds of barking dogs, hissing cats, and pissed-off clients from my part-time job at the emergency vet clinic fill my mind. Pays the bills, not for thrills or to fulfill.
“You said that you have a few more interviews this week,” Mr. Flange starts.
“Yes. I have one tomorrow and one on Friday,” I say, being honest.
Mr. Flange pulls a business card from his pocket, turns it over, and writes a date and time on it. A week from today, at 9 a.m.
Mr. Flange puts a finger on the card and slides it over to me. Kurt stands, walks over to his desk, and sits down, eyes on his screen. Back to the zombie hoard to type, chew, and stare.
Nice to meet you too, Kurt, buddy!
I try to pick up the card but Mr. Flange’s finger keeps it rooted to the table. Our eyes meet and I can’t help but think of the tractor beam from Star Trek.
“This is only if you are serious, Christy. Time in marketing is commission, clients, and cred.” Mr. Flange’s eyes harden and I realize for the first time how old he is—he’s probably eligible for the senior citizen discount at Shoppers Drug Mart.
“Of course.” After a second’s hesitation Mr. Flange takes his thick finger off of the matte rectangle. I scoop up the business card and stand. “Thank you, Mr. Flange.” I offer my hand.
Mr. Flange stands and shakes my hand firmly. His dry palm scrapes against my sweaty one.
“Maybe we’ll see you next week,” Mr. Flange says, voice flat.
I nod and smile. I turn to the rest of the room. Silence. The fingers on the keyboard have stopped.
Twelve pairs of eyes look up at me. My skin tries to crawl off my skeleton.
I turn on my heel, shove the business card in my satchel, and powerwalk down the stairs and out of Kwanzo Industries. Outside is an oven set to 450 degrees. I suck in hot happy lungfuls.
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Rasheed Clarke