Genre: Lyric EssayPhoto by
Holly Andres1
A girl is waiting for a boy. She is nervous, but not really about the boy. She is nervous because she wore her prettiest dress and is not sure it will make a difference. She is not sure of much, which is why she’s here, she thinks. She’s been told this is what she is supposed to do, instead of drugs. She has brought her report card because she needs something to impress the boy so he will let her stay. She’s not even sure if she wants to stay, only that she’s been told to, and also not to do drugs.
Finally, after years and years go by, the boy and the girl meet. They do a dance. She was told this might happen, so she tries her best to remember the steps. She tries very hard to remember the steps but the music isn’t the music she had practiced to. It’s slow and fast at the same time and the boy acts very normal, bored, boy-like. She isn’t sure what sort of dance she’s doing, nor what sort of dance he’s doing, or how long it’s going to last. She’s only sure that she’d much rather have done drugs. Or done anything rather than putting on this very pretty dress, only to fumble and fall about nervously.
The boy doesn’t care about the girl really. He’s one of many girls he’s seen and the truth be told he doesn’t like seeing girls. He doesn’t even like girls. He really doesn’t like to dance either. But the boy has danced for years and years and years and now it’s all he really knows how to do. It’s become easy for him and easier to tell who is a good dancer and who can’t dance at all.
This girl is trying very hard and he’s making it pretty easy for her, he thinks, because though she’s awkward and fum-tumbling about, he likes her. When the dance is over (which is when he stops dancing, not when she gives up, which she’s about to) he says she can stay. Suddenly, she forgets that she ever questioned whether or not she wanted to stay and dance and dance and dance. It seems so clear that she loved dancing all along and she’s very happy she never did drugs (except that once. Well maybe a little more than once). Everything is happy and pretty for the girl now.
But the boy is not happy. He only wishes that he didn’t work so hard at dancing and that he could be happy and stupid like the girl. The boy wishes he were a girl. He wishes he could wear dressed and dance like he cared for it.
2
I’m outside his office in a chair that is far too close to his door, I decide. If it weren’t for the catchy radio tunes coming from his assistant’s desk and the opening and closing of the elevator door (ding-dang), I’d be able to hear whatever very important phone call this hard-headed editor was taking. On second thought, I bet he is letting me stew. I bet that’s it. That’s the reason – the reason that it’s 2:15 and my interview was scheduled for 2:00. Letting me stew, what a dick. Well this gives me 15 minutes of will-I-get-this-internship-limbo, combined with will-I-cry-if-I-do-not indecision. Finally his assistant, a blonde-bobbed NYU journalist-looking girl with cat-eye frames, picks up the phone before almost immediately setting it down and says “Miss James? He’s ready to see you.” I hate that fucking assistant. I hate her for having a job where she actually gets paid, but with far less responsibility than I’m about to lie about having the drive to take on. I hate her and her fucking cardigan.
I gather my briefcase, which is only filled with my resume and some Tic Tacks, because what twenty-one year old even owns a briefcase, let alone has a reasonable amount of documents with which to fill it? As I walk to the door, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to let the assistant open it or open it myself. I stall for a moment. She stands and gestures to the door. What the fuck is she gesturing at? Yes, I can see. It’s a door. Now fucking open it so you can get back to that bag of Snickers in your desk drawer. Bitch.
My mind wanders just from my hatred for her to why he (the hard-headed editor) didn’t just open the door himself and say “C’mon in!” and be jovial and light-hearted and like-my-father like I’m hoping he’ll be as to make this entire interview just a little bit less jaw-locking. I hate everything about this fucking office.
To my surprise, and slight alarm, he opens the door himself and I hope I don’t look too nervous or panicky or young or old and in the end I just smile sweet and calmly and let my hand greet his already outstretched hand for my best this-is-the-way-my-father-taught-me-to-shake-hands firm, firm, firm business handshake. I hope it worked and before I can decide if it did I find myself swim-walking in the very dim light of the office. I always do this, slide into some sort of auto-drone when I’m so nervous I could cut myself. My voice smoothes out and I start talking like a soft-porn actress.
I’m not sure if it’s a chair I’m approaching, but my hand finds it in it’s so dark or if this is the sort of thing I should question before my eyes slightly adjust and I am sitting, smiling and he’s explaining…
“I’m sorry for the lighting. I’m afraid I suffer from migraines here and there and I find it best to avoid those horrible, fluorescent office lights.”
“No problem, completely understandable,” I say, hoping I don’t sound too agreeable/ass-kissing. But he moves right along without much eye contact or notice and says…
“So, you’re interested in interning at this find establishment, I see.” He’d looking down his nose, over his thick-framed glasses and at a piece of paper which I assume is my application, which I faxed a week earlier. “What makes you want to work here, for us?”
“Well, uh…” I begin, quickly scrambling for the answers I practiced on the subway ride here, which I now realize was not nearly enough time for them to fully sink in. “Jane Magazine really represents the path I see myself taking… uh, in life, as well as a career. It’s fun, it’s feminine, it’s edgy, but it’s also very sophisticated in terms of it’s delivery… much more than other fashion and lifestyle magazines of it’s nature.” I wonder if I made any sense or if I just delivered the same speech that he’s heard a million times and before I can fully decide he nods, clears his throat, and says…
“Well, I see you’re doing very well in school… a senior… Any other internships on your resume?” and he looks up right at me, for the first time since I shook his hand.
“I…” I start to speak, and I’m not sure where my eyes are focused or if they’re avoiding his eyes, but I know I’m thinking about what an ass-hole I am for not doing this sooner, for not building some sort of life a little bit earlier, for just going out on weekends and never working and how (and I hate this the most) I should have listen to my parents. Ugh, so instead of continuing on, I pull my resume from my briefcase and say… “Well, as you can see here, on my resume, I’ve had quite an interesting three years at college, and I’ve been involved with some really great groups on campus and my course-load…” Oh, fuck it. I keep talking, he keeps nodding. I cross my legs and uncross them and I’m fully satisfied that I have been royally unprepared for everything I’ve ever tried and somehow got by, until now. I know I won’t ever be a journalist. I won’t even be an intern.
3
I’m sitting in my office, sure there’s something I am actually meant to be doing, but avoiding it, heavily. Instead I’m flipping through last months issue and regretting things (font sizes, photo layouts, entire stories). I hate my job. That’s not entirely true. I love avoiding talking about. I love being at a bar and one of my friends casually mentioning who I am and what I do to someone. There’s this beautiful moment where they’re impressed and I’m actually caught off-guard by the fact that I actually hate my job, but someone else wants it.
There’s a 2pm appointment, an intern interview. I’ll let her (I’m sure it’s a blonde-bob NYU cougar) stir – soak in the juices of the office, make sure she really wants to work here – for free. I literally stare at the wall for fifteen minutes before deciding I should really tend to the little cartoon deer that’s waiting ever-so-patiently in the waiting room. I decide I need to do something about the waiting room. It’s not right for people to stare at my door and wait for me to open it. I swear, sometimes I can feel them, eager eyes – they could burn through it, really.
I pick up my phone and ask my assistant (whose ass is growing by the minute, what with the drawer of fun-sized candy bars she shovels down her throat every time I close my door) and ask for her to send the cartoon deer in. There seems to be some major dilemma, however, because I make the phone call and watch the second hand tick tick tick tick tick and still I get nothing so I charge the door and open it to find the deer startled and afraid of the big-bad-gay wolf inside.
I feel bad for her and her sorry little disoriented state. This is clearly, as it always is, something she’s built up to be important and life changing and will probably call her big-mother-deer and tell her all about it and although I feel bad for her (bad in the same sad way she looks at me) I have forgotten how to do these intern exchanges with anything more than the normal hum-drum-impress-me-now series of questions I’ve always asked.
“I’m sorry for the lighting. I’m afraid I suffer from migraines here and there and I find it best to avoid those horrible, fluorescent office lights,” I say. Which is not true. Well, it is true, just not right now. The truth is, I think more of myself, my life than someone who sits under that dry lighting and works works works, busy busy bee, and I think the dim (but is it too dim?) light is just classier.
“Coo, Coo,” says the deer.
And then, like a robot, I forget about feeling sorry for the little speckled fawn and robotically ask questions for what I feel to be a decent amount of time – time enough for her to feel like I paid her some attention and lookup from a piece of paper that has nothing to do with anything, but is conveniently located on my desk for moments just like these. And as I lookup, I catch a glimpse of her sadness. Her complete lack of guts or drive or anything that would ever make me hire anyone. But I see that she, like myself, probably believes that her life would be better than this. Better than an H&M suit, a knock-off, empty briefcase, and cheap questions with cheap answers.
“You’re hired,” I say, interrupting her valiant efforts to impress me.
