But I still take a minute, because I need one. Between my bad weekend and yesterday’s long day of flying across half the country just to get here, I feel discombobulated, all odds and ends, like I’ve been whisked out of the timeline and plopped back in just slightly too late.
The sky is gray. Bluff City is all wide streets, pickup trucks, low buildings, straight roads, and it’s flat, the flattest place I think I’ve ever been.
I take a deep, cold breath, and I go inside.
And almost right away, I relax because this is familiar. Right away, I realize that I know where I am and I know what I’m doing, because there’s a small reception area, a big fake-wood desk with The Bluff City Herald-Trumpet’s logo on the wall over it, a ficus tree in each corner. There’s the ugly and out-of-style glass coffee table with several editions of today’s paper on it, along with a copy of People magazine and two copies of something called Central South Dakota!, the cover of which has two young, attractive white people drinking red wine in front of a sunset and laughing about something, probably what a great time they’re having in central South Dakota.
The only thing missing is a human at the desk. I consider walking on through, heading into the newsrooms and just seeing if I can find the people I’m supposed to be interviewing with, but that seems rude and also, I’m five minutes early, so there’s no need.
I sit. I wait. I pick up Central South Dakota! since I already read this morning’s edition of the Herald-Trumpet at Mabel’s Diner. It’s mostly advertising disguised as journalism for South Dakota’s wine industry, which apparently exists.
Three minutes later, two women come out of the newsroom and walk slowly toward the receptionist’s desk, heads together in a way that suggests gossip rather than business discussion.
“I know and I can’t believe it,” one woman is saying. They’re both middle-aged with shoulder-length hair, one blonde, one brown. Neither woman’s hair moves on its own. “She’s going to get run up the flagpole for that disrespectful mouth one of these days.”
Neither of them glances over at me, but I stand, gather my coat and my briefcase.
One woman — the blonde — holds up a finger in my direction, the universal hold on a minute gesture, without looking at me.
“Well, ever since she came back from school in Chicago she’s been too big for her britches,” the other woman says. “The other day she got upset with me for not taking her phone messages! I wanted to say, missy, I have been here for twenty-three years and if you think I’m going to start taking messages for you just because you went to college, you have got another think coming.”
“Did she try to tell you it was your job?” the first woman asks, still holding up one finger.
I’m getting tired of this, so I walk in their direction.
“Yes!” hisses the second woman. “I told her that just because I took messages for her predecessor didn’t mean I was going to do it for her, and just because Pierce was a lovely man didn’t mean I thought the same of her.”
“Hi, I’m here for a job interview,” I say.
The woman holding out her finger turns and gives me an up-and-down look. I don’t like it, but I say nothing for obvious reasons.
“Just a minute, sweetheart,” she says, then turns to the first woman. “You’ve got to stand your ground on this,” she says to the second woman. “Next thing you know you’ll be picking up dry cleaning too and we don’t get paid enough for that.”
“I know it,” the second woman says, then disappears back into the newsroom.
The blonde still doesn’t look at me. She walks behind the desk, sits in the chair, wakes up the computer, types something.
“The interview is with Edmund Sanderson and Adrianne—”
“Yes, I know,” she interrupts me.
Then she goes silent. She’s still not looking at me, just clicking away at the computer. She could be playing solitaire for all I know.
I’m at a loss, so for a long moment I just stand there, staring at her, thinking about the summer during college when I worked part-time as a receptionist at an accounting firm, and how very, very fired I’d have been if I did my job this way.
Finally, she sighs.
“All right, you can go on back,” she says.
I force a smile.
“I’ve never been here before, actually,” I say, just as friendly as you please. “Could you tell me how to find—”
“Through that door and you can’t miss it,” she says.
“Thank you!” I say, even though we’ve still not made eye contact, because I’m pretty sure I won’t be getting more out of her.
Before I push the door open, I close my eyes for a moment, try to shake her off. She’s clearly having some kind of day, and I can’t let one rude person throw me off my game.