Chapter Two
Two
I was always early to everything. And not just a few minutes early. No matter what I did, I was always an hour or two early to things. Did I have a life? That was yet to be determined. There is a prevalent stereotype that Natives are always late to stuff, but it was physically impossible for me to be tardy for anything. It was written in my DNA that Ember Lee Cardinal was and always would be very early to everything. Especially if I was excited about something like, for example, an interview for an accounting assistant position.
That’s right. I had an interview! My first application as the new and improved me was a smashing success. When they asked for my job history, I put accountant for Bobby Dean’s Bowling Alley and Bar. For school I put that I was a graduate of the Oklahoma City Community College, with an associate’s degree in business accounting / finance support. When I googled the school, they didn’t offer just an accounting degree. News to me, and I took two classes there—English and algebra. Accounting / finance support sounded pretty fancy and qualified, so I put that down.
Then, when I got to the last question before submission, it read, “Check Your Ethnicity.” The list included American Indian / Alaska Native (I steered clear of that one), Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, Hispanic or Latino, and then, lastly, White.
I clicked the box.
I submitted it and got an interview request back in a day. A one hundred percent success rate so far. The email in my inbox read, Dear Ms. Cardinal, we are very impressed with your application and would love a chance to learn more about you and discuss the position. Below are the times we are available for an interview. We are hoping to fill this position as soon as possible, so please let us know at your earliest convenience.
So here I was, loitering at a coffee place called Stellar Coffee Café, trying to calm my nerves. What made the coffee so stellar? It wasn’t the price, but it had the best view of the prettiest building in downtown Oklahoma City—the First National Center. BancFirst Tower was taller by a few floors, but that building was an ugly rectangle. Devon Tower was super tall and new, and looked like aliens lived in it. The First National Center was stunning—it might as well have been the Empire State Building with its vintage art deco glamour. And I had an interview with a company that lived inside it. Things were really looking up.
I loved downtown. This was a metropolis, so much more than the mobile home I grew up in outside of Ada. The city center was beautiful and urban with green parks among the skyscrapers. There were cities with taller buildings, but I hadn’t been to any. Sometimes, when I was downtown, I liked to pretend I was in New York City on my Okie-mind version of Park Avenue, with all the expensive shops and restaurants.
I breathed in the warm, earthy scent of my coffee and watched the street come alive with sophisticated commuters. People with what I liked to call dumb money. They drove expensive luxury cars that made no sense for a place like Oklahoma, where thirty minutes outside of downtown was flat rural land full of hay fields. The men and women hustled up and down the sidewalk looking at their phones, diamonds and gold winking in the morning sun. They were just like those people I’d grown up watching on television in Sex and the City and Law and Order . The high-powered lawyers with their briefcases and the bankers running late, needing to make their trades or whatever it was they did in there. I wanted to be just like them.
I stared down at my black skirt and blazer. Boring. And not even comfortable. I was much more at home in a pair of jeans, but rich businesswomen on TV always wore pencil skirts. I’d found this mismatched suit at Goodwill. I was like Goldilocks with a skirt that was a size too tight and a blazer two sizes too big. In my mirror this morning, I thought if I bunched the sleeves up, it looked intentional. It was the best I could come up with on a budget. In the light of my apartment, they looked like they matched pretty well, but with the morning sun streaming like a spotlight, the brightness showed that the skirt was slightly more faded than the blazer.
At least I had my freaky lizard key chain hung proudly on my tote bag. I didn’t need shiny diamonds; I knew the lizard was winking at me and wishing me luck—at least it would if it had eyes, and I meant that in the literal sense. Joanna had forgotten to give it eyes.
I was going to nail this interview and get the job. It sounded really swanky to be in the accounting department for a startup company. The description on the website read, “Technix: A turnkey provider of excellence”—what the hell did that even mean?
I didn’t care. Technix offered insurance, and I wanted it. Technix could be a cover for a Mafia money-laundering business, and I wouldn’t care. Did the Mafia provide a 401(k) with matching contributions? If so, I’d look the other way.
I tipped back the last of my coffee. I was supposed to be rationing sips so it would last longer. The barista gave me the stank eye for taking one of the high-top aluminum tables for so long. I still had forty-five minutes until my interview.
I got up to get back in the long line, and within half a second, two men with laptops and books took my table. I now needed to find another place to prepare for my interview and calm down. My hands were slick with sweat, and the cheap material of my skirt showed the marks from where I kept wiping my hands. It looked like two landing strips on either side of my thighs.
I told myself not to be nervous, it was just an interview. No! It was the first office interview I’d ever had in my life. I told myself it wasn’t like they were going to ask me to my face if I embellished a little on my résumé or ask me point-blank if I was really an Indian from the rez masquerading as an accomplished Waspy accountant. I’ve lied about little things before. So, this one itty-bitty truth-bending episode shouldn’t matter, right? I just needed my foot in the door, and after that I would only tell the truth.
I wanted to feel bad about the lying, but really, I was more worried about getting caught in the lies. It was hard to feel bad about gaming a system that was designed to put people like me down. I was the first person in my family to attend college. It was just community college, and I hadn’t finished—yet. But that still meant something. I was proud of it. If I could get this job, or one like it, then I could afford to pay for night school. I could live the truth then, proudly displaying my accounting / finance support associate’s degree. How were people like me supposed to honestly get their feet over the corporate threshold when you had to have gone to the right schools, been a part of a sorority, and had at least three to five years’ experience for an entry-level position? A real head-scratcher, that one.
Anyway, nothing I put was an overt lie…it was just not precisely the whole truth. My dad was white, and my mom was a Native mix of Chickasaw and Choctaw. That was just how it was now. We all were a mix of stuff. A real American melting pot, as my auntie said. My parents had me super young, and I don’t remember a single holiday or birthday back then that didn’t end with them shouting at each other. I was six when my brother, Sage, was born. Then my dad left.
My brother and I lived with our mom in a one-bedroom apartment for a while before she dropped us off at Auntie’s house and never came back. I was thirteen and Sage was only seven. Auntie was technically her cousin, but they were close like sisters. At least that was what Auntie told me. It was hard at first, but I really loved living in that little mobile home with her. She took us to the library on the weekends and told me I was smart. No one had ever said that before.
So, yeah, checking that box felt like a big “fuck you” to the man. To every single gatekeeper trying to put people like me in a box with that stupid ethnicity question. What did that dumbass question ever accomplish? Some bullshit affirmative action quota? Something to save face and look like they really tried to hire diversely? Everyone likes to say it’s so easy for minorities to get jobs now. That we have some sort of advantage after years of being treated as second-class citizens. Bull fucking shit. If that were the case, then why were all the good jobs still full of white people? Being hyped by Joanna in the bowling alley that night really fueled me.
The line still hadn’t moved, and I was giving up. I had extra time to make it to my interview, and I wanted them to see me early and eager for the job. I turned on the balls of my feet, my orthopedic flats squeaked on the tile, and I collided with a wall.
It was a handsome, muscular wall, and I was going down, sideways. The wall had arms. They encircled me before I did a face-plant. They yanked me upright and pulled my eyeline to a chest with a soft, blue chambray button-up shirt.
I was mumbling my apologies and thanks all in one when the hulking wall bent down. His dark braids draped over his shoulders.
“This yours?” he asked me, looking up from his squatted position. His warm chocolate eyes were framed by strong brows. Smiling, he was holding a green thing.
My creepy key chain. It must have been knocked off my bag in my collision with this Native hunk. How did I know? We Natives have what is called “NAdar.” Like we can sniff the rain or some shit—we laugh about it.
Okay, I was stereotyping based on my experience growing up in Ada.
“Chokma’shki’, thank you,” I said as I took the beaded thing from his outstretched hand. I wasn’t testing him. It’s what I always grew up saying. Our traditional word in Chikashshanompa’, followed by the English translation. Auntie said it was the polite thing to do and helped reinforce the few words I did know to my memory.
“Gvlielitseha, you’re welcome.” He stood and smiled a handsome crooked smile. A smile that could get him in and out of trouble.
I didn’t have time for trouble; I had an interview to get to, but I was rooted in that spot, and my face betrayed me because I was smiling a dumb, troublemaking smile back.
“Cherokee,” he said, speaking with his chin, tilting it up toward me.
“No, I’m Chickasaw…er…an enrolled Chickasaw citizen. And Choctaw mix.” The word vomit poured out of my mouth and I couldn’t stop it. It would have been easier to just say how I was legally enrolled, rather than list my entire bloodline history. I could feel how red my face was.
“No, I’m Cherokee.”
Duh.
“Cool.” That was it, people. All I said to the hottest man to ever pay me any attention was cool . To make it worse, I waved goodbye and walked out the door, leaving Stellar Coffee and the most beautiful man in Oklahoma.
I made it to the corner and waited to cross the street, letting out a relieved breath. And I heard a throat clear. I turned to see the hot Native man standing next to me to my right. He smiled.
“You work around here?” he asked me.
“I do. I’m an accountant.” I wouldn’t call this a lie, per se. I was trying to speak it into existence, to let it be so. But also, I wanted to impress him even though I’d probably never see him again.
Before our conversation could go any further, a woman to my left pushed an empty stroller to the curb, wrestling a wiggly baby in her arms. She forgot to lock the brake, and the stroller started rolling into the street. I grabbed it before it could get hit by a car, tugging the stroller back onto the curb.
“Thank you so much,” she said to me.
“No problem,” I said. “Are you giving your mommy trouble?” I asked the cute baby, who was wearing gray, so I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl.
I received the most adorable smile, and then the baby’s face contorted, and my life flashed before my eyes as a white explosion of spit-up erupted from the baby’s mouth. I was in the line of fire. It was a direct hit all over my shoulder in a hot liquid stream.
I heard the rumblings of a throaty laugh behind me. I chose to ignore it.
“Oh my god! I’m so sorry.” The mom was embarrassed. The light turned green, and it was our turn to walk. She pushed the stroller with one hand and rested her baby on her hip, looking at me as if I were a ticking time bomb about to go off on her.
The traitorous baby smiled happily, as if nothing happened.
It was fine. This was fine. I would just ask to use the bathroom when I got to the office. We made it to the other side of the street, and she dug through her diaper bag and pulled out a wad of baby wipes.
“Here!” She thrust them at me.
“Thanks.” I gave her a tight smile. It wasn’t her fault, nor even the baby’s. I wasn’t mad. Just embarrassed that I had a copious amount of spit-up on my interview outfit. We parted ways, and I walked into the First National Center, wiping away the worst of the mess. It was still pretty bad. I focused only on the stain and filed into the elevator with other workers.
I pushed the button for floor twelve at the same time as a larger tan finger moved in to hit it at the same time. I wasn’t sure if it was the elevator button or the hand that sent an electric shock through me.
“It’s not that bad,” said the deep voice that rolled over me like thunder. I knew without looking that it was the gorgeous Native man who owned that finger. “Impressive reflexes back there.”
I heard an exaggerated sniff, and that pissed me off. I stopped wiping and shot laser beams from my eyes into his face. I had to look up quite a bit to do it.
He laughed.
“Are you following me?” I asked.
“I work here. I’ve never seen you before, maybe you’re following me?”
“You work at Technix?” My stomach dropped. This was karma in action. I’d lied, and now instead of impressing this guy, I had full-on embarrassed myself.
“I do. I’ve never seen you in accounting before.” He curled up his eyebrow in skepticism, and his smirk was full of humor.
There was a beat of silence in the elevator. I was getting lost in his warm chocolate eyes. He narrowed them, and I saw the silent question there: Are you gonna fess up?
“Fine! I’m interviewing, but since I smell like spoiled milk, this is probably the last you will see of me.”
“Nah, Technix is pretty chill. I’ll corroborate your story that you were helping a baby. The HR ladies will love that shit.”
“Yeah? Should we say the baby was in the stroller and I saved its life?” I joked.
He threw his head back and laughed. “I don’t think we need to go that far.”
The elevator stopped at each floor, and before long, it was just me and the handsome human lie detector riding the elevator to the twelfth floor.
“I’m Ember.”
“Danuwoa.” He presented his hand to me. I quickly concealed the wad of dirty wipes before I shook his hand. The electricity was most certainly not from the elevator. This man’s energy zapped right through me. If he felt it too, he didn’t let on.
The elevator stopped with a ding.
“We’re here,” he said, and stepped onto floor twelve.
Technix.