LIGHT A FLAME

Chapter Two

“Hi, you must be Stefanie Bailey?”

Some man greeted me before I had had the chance to say anything to the receptionist upon entering the building, my heart almost jumped out of my chest. I had been here 15 minutes early, just pacing around outside, trying to calm my nerves.

I couldn’t screw this up, I just… couldn’t.

“Hi, I- yeah- yes, I’m Stefanie.” I shook the man’s hand rather nervously, almost forgetting to smile, really wanting to throw up.

“I’m Ethan Johnson, we talked via email. Thank you for coming in on such short notice.” It didn’t look as if he was joking, so I tried to be serious as well. Not like I had anything else to do.

“Of course, thank you for inviting me.”

I had sent the email only two days ago, and now I was already here, after having gotten a no from the other place I had applied for the same day. So… this was it, my last chance. At least it felt like it.

“We can go to the meeting room to talk, I’ll show you the different departments on the way.” Ethan was smiling, and it sounded as if he genuinely considered offering me the internship and I felt a bit of hope growing inside.

The building was huge, and from what I had gathered, it was a big-shot publishing firm. I was pretty sure I had heard of it before, but probably only through Amara and not because I read so much. I had done my research last night though, the whole entire night, and then had two cups of coffee before coming here, so that wasn’t a great start, but at least I felt a bit prepared.

“The internship is mostly an assistant job. We’re running low on staff, it’s not a secret. You’d work for different people, and pretty much dip into everything a bit, which is pretty cool, I think. If it goes well, you’ll get a long-term contract.”

Sounded promising, but I didn’t really want to make myself hope.

Ethan kept talking while we were walking to the conference room and I tried to listen and ask smart questions, but at the same time, I was hoping not to forget whatever I had planned on saying, whatever I had googled on how to leave a good first impression. And mostly, I had tried to remember whatever I had done wrong in previous interviews.

“And this is the confer- Josh- Mr. Hood?” Upon opening the door, it seemed Ethan was really surprised by a man sitting at the long table with his laptop opened, and my brain immediately emptied. “Sorry, I was going to do the interview in here, but we’ll just go to-“

“No, do it here, I was planning on listening in.”

Shit. I was screwed because THIS guy looked like his expectations were through the roof.

“You… okay, sure. Yeah.”

Ethan seemed surprised, but he overplayed it well, motioning for me to enter and I wanted to punch myself in the face, trying to somehow overplay it all as well, but probably failing miserably.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Stefanie Bailey.” I went over to the cold-looking man with a shaky smile and a stretched-out hand… which was probably shaking too.

“Joshua Hood.” Was all the man said, but he stood up to shake my hand, not a hint of a smile on his face.

Joshua Hood was wearing a suit that looked like it had cost more than my life had ever had at one point, but then again, I wasn’t very familiar with these kinds of things. The man’s cologne was also very prominent in the room and he was easy on the eyes as well and I just KNEW he was an Alpha immediately. It wasn’t hard to guess. Anyone could tell. “Should we start then?”

I didn’t know which chair to choose, so I just chose a random one, and Ethan sat opposite me, with this Joshua Hood guy at the head of the table now. No idea who he even was, or whether he was really just going to listen, but I already knew this would all end in a disaster.

“Alright then, Ms. Bailey. First, I just wanted to ask you, how did you hear about this internship?”

For a second, I was taken aback, because Ethan KNEW, because he knew Amara and they had literally written emails mentioning it, but then… I got it.

This other man couldn’t know about this apparently, and I had no idea whether it would’ve been wise to mention Amara, but something told me no.

“A friend told me about it, I’m currently looking for a new job, so she thought I might be interested,” I explained, worriedly watching as the man at the head of the table reached over to take whatever papers Ethan had put on the table. My CV, sadly.

“Do you have any experience in the field?” Ethan continued, and… yeah, this was where it was going to go downhill.

“I don’t,” I admitted, for a moment, having thought about lying, but my CV was literally right there, and this other man was furrowing his eyebrows reading it.

“Well, it’s not a requirement, so that is fine.” Ethan smiled, but I couldn’t even concentrate anymore. “So what-“

“Ms. Bailey.” Joshua Hood interrupted, and Ethan shut up immediately while I felt on the verge of tears.

God, I was such an i***t, I couldn’t even stay calm during a stupid job interview that I knew I had already screwed up anyways. “It says here you dropped out of high school in 2010 and went back a year later and went on to graduate. What did you do in that year?”

“I… I was working on my music.” I told him, my hands having started to sweat as I played with my fingers in my lap, the memory of that year was not the most pleasant.

The man just kept staring at me, so I continued. “I was writing songs and I… I had a few gigs.”

“So that didn’t work out?” Joshua asked, and I almost thought he was mocking me, but I remained completely serious and professional.

“I thought it’d be better to have a Plan B so I went back to school, I continued to work as a musician after that. Mostly on the side.” Up until a month ago pretty much, but there was no need to say that.

“Hm.” Was all Joshua Hood replied with, looking down again, probably trying to figure out whether I was lying straight to his face because I hadn’t put anything about my music on that CV.

Joshua made some hand movements, so Ethan continued asking me a few questions. Up until Joshua interrupted again. “Are these all the jobs you’ve worked over the past 9 years?”

“Um.” I gulped, not having been prepared for this question, but this man was looking at me so intensely that I didn’t dare to lie. Well, I did leave out one job, but that would’ve really… crossed too many lines, and I wanted an internship and not get arrested. “No, I also- I also worked as a babysitter, I used to help out at a car repair shop and I worked at a dog salon, but these were all just for a couple of month-“

“May I just ask… what exactly does one do at a dog salon?”

See, this was where I might have as well said goodbye.

“I washed the dogs,” I told him, because what else would I have said? Seriously?!

There was a lot of uncomfortable silence following that, nobody said anything.

Joshua Hood looked down at my CV again, then at me, then at the clock over my head, and then he leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Ms. Bailey, I’m a bit lost here. Would you please explain to me how you went from musician, dog stylist, babysitter, working at a car repair shop, being a waiter in three different restaurants, as well as a cleaner in a hotel and various other public places, a shop assistant, a cinema employee and working at a… cemetery? To sitting right here applying for this internship?”

“I just… the cemetery was just watering the plants and keeping it tidy, I didn’t actually ever see any dead bod-“

“Okay, thank you for that explanation. But back to the question?” Joshua kept pushing, and well, what was I going to say?

“I, um, I thought I’d like to try something new.” Was that a good answer? Probably f*****g not.

“And you read the description of the internship? Do you know what we do here?” Okay, now did he think I was dumb?!

“Yes, it’s a publishing company, the internship is mostly an assistant job and you-“

“Okay, then you did your research, and you chose us. Now, why would we choose to give this internship to you?”

Plain and simple, they shouldn’t, and everyone in this room knew it.

“I’m a quick learner. I do well with direction and I’m good at fitting in and doing my job, I don’t get distracted and I work well with others, but also by myself.” See, this was what I had memorized last night, and it probably showed. This Joshua guy was reading me like an open book while I was wasting his time.

“Do you think if I gave you three book scripts to read right now that you could adequately judge whether they are worth my time or not?”

Well…

“I, uh, I’m… I think so.” I lied.

And then Joshua looked at me, with this ice-cold look on his face, and he asked the one question I genuinely had not expected to be asked. Although I probably should’ve, because… this was a publishing firm. “What was the last book you read?”

“Mr. Hood, that’s a bit-“

Joshua shushed Ethan with just one finger, and well, now they were all sitting here, enjoying my suffering. Or only this Joshua guy was, but he was probably just annoyed right now. “It’s, uh, I- I, um- it’s like, it’s because, I, uh, I was, like- I was babysitting, so it was a children’s book, umm… do you- do you want me to tell you the title, or d-“

“I think I’m gonna use my imagination, thank you.”

Well, I might have as well admitted I hadn’t read a normal book in probably 8 years. Not even Amara’s, which I knew the titles of, but I couldn’t have even lied because this Joshua guy had probably read them too. Or he could’ve just looked up the plot of every book I could have lied about. “Are you familiar with any of the social media platforms we use?”

“Yes.” Finally, something I didn’t have to lie about, but it probably didn’t even really matter anymore, but obviously I had to say even more and make it all worse. “I used them to promote my music, so I’m familiar with that.”

Joshua just looked at me again while I wanted to punch myself in the face because… well, obviously I wasn’t doing a good job at promoting my own music, was I? “Do you think your music is good enough to make it in the charts?”

“Uh, maybe, one day.” Why was this even still relevant?!

“So you would describe yourself as musically gifted and as a creative genius? Do you think you could outsell every artist that is popular right now?”

Wait, what? Were they now at some singing competition show?

“Probably the first part, but I’m not a creative genius and I don’t think I could outsell-“

“Well this job right here is all about creativity, why would we hire somebody who doesn’t view themselves as creative or doesn’t think they are the best at what they do?” Wait, what about the genius part, I had never said I wasn’t creative or- “Anyway, what made you decide to leave your last job, the… what was it? The cemetery or the shop assistant?”

“Um, the shop assistant. I was, um, I was let go. But it was because they had to make budget cuts.” Well, who was going to believe me now?

There was more silence, then Joshua just nodded, and suddenly, he stood up. “Well, thank you so much for coming in, Ms. Bailey, Mr. Johnson will contact you as soon as we have made a decision. Have a good day.”

“Um, yeah, I- thank you, uh- you too.” I scrambled to get up as well, almost knocking over the chair as I hurried to shake the man’s hand, and then Ethan's over the table, who had a really weird look on his face.

“You will find your way out?” Joshua Hood asked, and I simply agreed, quickly taking my bag and jacket before hurrying to leave the room.

I managed to wait until I was in the entrance hall before I started crying… so that was progress compared to my last job interview.