Chapter 18
LYSSA
This afternoon I had an interview! Finally! It was for an online retailer that needed a stylist for product shoots. It wasn’t my dream job by any stretch—this place loved minimalism and their colorways were boring—but I wasn’t in a position to be fussy.
The first challenge was finding a plain outfit.
I had a white T-shirt, but the front said elongate your eggs, with an embroidered egg with spindly limbs doing a barre class. I put it on backwards. They would never know.
I didn’t have any boring skirts, but in an online interview, they wouldn’t see my red shorts and sunshine yellow clogs. I did however paint a pair of my press-ons a boring chocolate brown, (with a mental apology to my nail artist,) and take off all my jewelry.
The hiring manager let me into the online call.
She was a crisply dressed white woman with makeup that looked simple but was so seamless, it would have taken ages.
Her name was Lauren. We swapped small talk while she waited for her colleague.
Ten minutes into the half-hour interview, we were joined by a middle-aged white man wearing a T-shirt for an unrelated brand, his hair pulled into a low bun.
His name was Julian. He didn’t say what he did at the company, but I got the definite impression it wasn’t something tangible.
Julian and Lauren asked me all the usual questions, and I gave the answers I’d practiced in the shower this morning.
“Lyssa, I see you used to work at Bossi,” Lauren said. “Being a Bossi girl is the dream for a lot of fashion grads. Why?—”
“Why did you leave?” Julian interrupted to ask the same thing.
I gave the answer I’d rehearsed about wanting to explore new opportunities and work for a fashion retailer. It was a lie, but no one ever answered this question honestly in interviews, right?
“So that’s why I’m excited by the possibility of joining your team!” I finished, beaming like I was Miss America.
“Really?” Julian leaned back in his chair. The lazy gesture instilled a sense of foreboding, immediately confirmed by his next words. “Did you work for Paul Barker at Bossi? He’s a very good friend of mine.”
I deflated like a balloon animal.
With a smug expression, Julian studied me through the screen. “Paul’s old school, like me. We have high standards, and we only work with the best of the best. New grads these days don’t have the same work ethic. You like shortcuts.”
Lauren’s expression was sympathetic but distant as I stuttered something about learning from my past experiences and becoming a model of professionalism. But it no longer mattered what I said. All three of us knew I wasn’t getting the job.
After the call, I let the tears break free, cuddling my pillow and wishing it was Root Beer. I also wished I could pour my heart out to a certain mustachioed man and have his rumbly, deep voice soothe me.
Mostly, I wished I’d never been so naive as to fall for a vengeful snake like Paul Barker.
He’d ruined whole chapters of my life, and all I wanted now was to close them. Instead of taking his boot off my neck and walking away with his victory, which he could and should have, Paul was still interfering in my career. He wanted me to stay down and suffer.
I was beyond feeling guilty about how I had reacted in his office that day.
Caroline was right—the only reason people thought I was wrong was because I was yelling when I said it.
And strangers on the internet would look for any reason to blame a woman for a situation.
My yelling wasn’t the problem: it was just a convenient excuse not to hold a man accountable.
Being right sucked though.
And it didn’t improve my situation.
After I cried myself out, I made a cup of tea with the hotel supplies. Then I felt a bit better.
I told myself that it was actually good that Paul was still interfering in my career. It meant he still thought I was a threat.
That knowledge galvanized me, made me determined not to give up.
If he’d tried just a little less to ruin my life, he would have been successful—because even if he hadn’t called his fashion friends and blacklisted me, I wouldn’t have gotten this job anyway.
I wasn’t the right fit—both Lauren and I knew that within five minutes.
But now I was determined that Paul wouldn’t best me.
I would pick myself up. I would succeed.
I would be happy and satisfied and loved and sexy and confident.
And Paul could fucking watch.