Page 16 of Give & Take
She lays her head on the table.
“You’re a goddess,” I tell Shelby. “Thank you.”
I take a sip, feeling energized as fuck. “So, Mac. How would you feel about lending me a shirt and a tie? I’ve got an interview to destroy.”
Chapter 5
Lana
“Mrs. Bloor.” The motherly looking woman in a busily-patterned floral blouse and polyester pants leans forward in her chair. “I do admit I’ve never run into a child with a…problem such as what I understand you’re dealing with. But I’d be willing to consider the poor girl.”
I stare, shocked, at the gray-haired woman in front of me. She’s my third interviewee, and the third person who’s said something completely unhinged. “Problem?”
“You know.” She cups a hand to the side of her mouth, even though we’re alone in my living room. “Theglandular issue.”
“Excuseme?”
The woman tuts. “It’s a shame. Excessive mucous is certainly a difficult handicap, but as long as you supply ample tissues and we spend our time entirely at home, I think we could manage.”
I don’t understand it. She looked so good on her application. They all did.
“Well, thank you for your time,” I say, abruptly standing up. I need this woman out of my house. Just like I needed the last three out.Glandular problem?The woman must have applied for a job at a hospital and gotten her wires crossed.
The woman looks surprised, but rises, looking around the house a little warily, like a child with a firehose snot problem might appear at any moment.
This whole morning is going a thousand times worse than I feared. And I feared the worst, given my luck with filling this position.
“When will you?—”
“I’ll call you either way,” I say, knowing I’m being curt and this time, not caring.
Nova, who’s been waiting in the wings—AKA at the top of the stairs—bounds down two at a time, then calmly opens the front door for her.
The woman gives her a wide berth.
Nova slams it hard behind her.
“Nova!”
I’m surprised the door didn’t hit her on the way out. Not that I would have minded at that point.
“She was weird,” Nova says.
I sigh. “She was insulting, is what she was.” I flop down onto the couch. “And yes, weird. What’s going on, Nova? I don’t understand it. Was it the ad?”
Nova shrugs, looking at her clipboard. While I arranged a playdate for Aurora today during the interviews, Nova insisted on staying behind and being my assistant.
I take a long sip of my ice coffee, relishing the feelingof the milky-sugar-caffeine seeping into my bloodstream. Nova made it for me—she’s been shockingly helpful today. She—and the coffee—have been the only bright spots in this hellish process.
“Okay,” I say. “Who do we have left?”
Part of Nova’s process has been answering the door, then seating the interviewees in our makeshift waiting room—aka the wraparound porch outside. I’m not allowed to go out there. If we still lived in Vancouver, having my eight-year-old answering the door to strangers would be a no-go. Here in Redbeard Cove, I’m not nearly as worried, especially because my loveable and slightly nosey 80-something neighbor Mrs. Brown is keeping vigil on the proceedings from her porch next door. She may not be fast on her feet, but she is with her phone to mine if anything’s amiss even in the distant vicinity of our block. What Iwasworried about at first was not getting to greet everyone personally, but I figured it would be a good test to see how they deal with a headstrong girl running the show.
Nova consults her clipboard. “There’s only one person left before lunch. But I have a good feeling about them.”
I can’t help but smile. Sometimes I feel like my eldest is just a little too much like me. Cynical. Sarcastic. Slightly temperamental.
An occasional misanthrope.
