Picky by Julie Kinn

Author:Julie Kinn [Kinn, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

After class, Adrian comes over to help me get ready for the interview. She sits on my bed and nods as I tuck my blouse into the skirt suit I’ve borrowed from Paula. I’m thicker around the middle, but magic with a safety pin fixes that.

“How conventional do you want to look?” Adrian asks. “You’re fine except for your legs.”

I forgot about pantyhose (barf). But I guess my first real job interview is a reasonable time to bow down to the patriarchy. I go to Paula’s room to take a pair of hers, and return to find Adiran going through my jewelry.

“Do you have anything that’s less ironic?” she asks, holding up my lime green translucent dinosaur earrings.

“My grandmother’s pearls.” I dig out the velvet bag from under my thief-deterring socks.

We dump the necklace and earring set onto my bedspread. “They’re from my dad’s mom. When my aunt gave them to me, she said not to wear the necklace until it’s been re-strung, which is a thing rich people do?”

“It costs, like, a hundred dollars,” Adrian says as she prods the necklace with her finger. “But you could wear the earrings. They convey, ‘I like to fit in!’”

When I’m ready, she takes pictures and walks me to the bus. I’m half paying attention to all her teasing now that this is getting real.

Please don’t sweat through the blouse, I beg my armpits.

I get there twenty minutes early, so I loiter around the corner outside a bank. I probably look suspicious while I pace back and forth in front of their entryway. At five till the hour, I return to Conway & Cranos Real Estate and check in with the admin at the front desk. She gives me a warm welcome and asks if I want anything to drink while I wait. I avoid the trap of spilling liquid on myself and try not to fidget on an upholstered chair in the lobby.

So far, I have a good feeling.

I like the sounds of staff laughing in the distance and that the art in the lobby isn’t mass produced. I get up to look closer at the small business-card shaped placque on the wall see that all the paintings had been purchased from a local high school on the south side that had free after-school programs devoted to fine arts.

The plaque is showy in a virtue-signaling kind of way, but at least the firm spent money on the school rather than one of those companies that supplies art along with other decor as a total vanilla package.

Things change when the admin brings me back to see Mr. Alich. She has me follow her to his office and gives me a little squeeze on my arm before she goes back to her desk.

Arm squeezes are odd. If she’s related or a friend, maybe it’s okay. What’s she trying to convey? Maybe she’s one of those touchy-feely extroverts. I’m little, so people assume I want hugs and touching. If they bring me on, I’ll have to be assertive with her.

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