New Short Fiction: "Otters"

The coffee shop had some trite, cutesy name like “Cool Beans”, and was full of the quiet chit-chat typical of people who somehow have nothing else to do on a Monday morning besides sit in a coffee shop. I ordered an iced chai latte, because it was blisteringly hot outside, and stared at all of the patrons with their hushed library tones, probably being a little too obvious. My husband says I do this a lot – he's constantly reminding me to stop, in the exasperated voice one might use with a child. I used to be terrified of walking into crowded rooms, or coughing in class – basically anything attracting attention. For some reason, I don't really give a crap anymore; I mean, it's not like I'll ever see these people again. Or so I tell my husband. The interview was across the street, and there were 15 minutes to kill, so took my tea and pushed through the wall of heat outside, condensation beading over the plastic cup on the way to my car. I drove to the office and parked far enough away from its entrance to avoid being seen, or looking creepy, or too eager, or something. I had to leave the car running because it was so hot – a second without air conditioning and my carefully flat-ironed hair would take on a sickly frizz. I punched in 90.7 on the radio, because I like to listen to NPR when I'm nervous, and sipped my watery chai. The job interview was with some guy named Marc Cowell. I'm wary of anyone who spells 'Mark' with a 'c'. The possibility of meeting a pretentious douchebag increases by about half. I'm always lamenting not being interviewed by more women – in the past three years I've talked almost exclusively with men, which makes me feel like I'm trying to get a job as a Pan-Am stewardess in 1960. The job was for an athletic magazine, which is a study in irony, because I'm profoundly un-sporty. I really just want to be holed up in some office correcting other people's horrible punctuation. Bliss. I walked into the office at 10 AM on the dot, clutching my portfolio and pasting a smile on my face. The walls were covered in large, framed blow-ups of past magazine covers – sinewy runners, swimmers in intense butterfly-arcs and flat-chested gymnasts who most likely never got their periods stared me down from their places of honor. The receptionist took my name without fanfare, phoning Marc Cowell to let him know that I'd arrived. He was, of course, on the phone, and the awkward wait that was de rigueur at each interview followed. The secretary said something banal about the weather, to which I responded politely, shifting my weight on the chair to appear more interested. Since I'm always in dresses at interviews, I'm constantly adjusting my sitting position to come across as perky, polite, exuberant and ladylike. Hello, Pan Am stewardess. When Marc Cowell finally came out, he had a Bluetooth accessory in his ear and was wearing those black-framed glasses that 40-something men wear to remind you that they used to go to Pixies concerts and are indeed still hipsters. Still, he had a decent handshake, so at least that was something. He made a half-assed apology about the phone call and ushered me to his office, looking harried and not at all interested in conducting a job interview. “I'm sorry, I've just had one hell of a morning. I've been on and off the phone with my ex-wife, my kids - “ Of course. Divorced aging hipster. But still trying to be relevant – or so I figured, as my eyes took in his Wilco poster. “ - otters, it's crazy. Attacked by otters.” I tried so hard not to laugh. I bit my tongue and I think I tasted blood. “Wow . . . were they at the zoo?” It was all I could think of to say. “No! Swimming in some goddamn lake up North.” My husband and I have this theory that everyone should get one consequence-free day a year - at that very moment all I could think was that if today were my Consequence-Free Day, I would rip that Bluetooth out of his ear and ask what kind of moron lets their kids swim with otters. But it wasn't, so I didn't. Marc Cowell had 30s film stills on the walls, and I took the liberty of commenting on his Maltese Falcon 5x11 print. But thenI wished I hadn't, because he launched into some pompous diatribe about film noir, and I had to sound pleasantly surprised when I tilted my head and exclaimed, “no, I didn't know that Fred MacMurray was in Double Indemnity, way before his My Three Sons days!” I jiggled my feet, so out of place in their chic black ankle boots, and watched Marc lean back in his chair, tenting his long fingers. He wore one of those Charlie Sheen bowling shirts and sandals with white socks. “So what kind of sports do you like?” I told him I liked yoga. It seemed like a bit of a stretch, but it was all I had. He flipped through my portfolio, which I couldn't help but notice that he'd accepted reluctantly from my eager outstretched hand. I'd been so proud of it, in it's leather-bound case, until now – now I felt like a kindergartner presenting a sheaf of sticky artwork. “Have you ever thought about writing style articles?” He forged ahead before I could state the obvious, and held up a blog entry on 60s fashion and Tuesday Weld. “Who's she?” “ I wanted to scream back, 'nobody that Fred MacMurray ever worked with', but he had already stood up and was collecting a handful of papers. “Just a brief editing test. You can work on it in an empty office.” I leafed through the “brief” proofreading text, rife with purposeful misspellings and incorrect punctuation. I dug a Dixon Ticonderoga pencil – my favorite – from my bag as we walked. Somehow that little pink-tipped eraser with it's tinsel-shiny green accents always comforted me. I'm not sure why, but I think it's because my eighth-grade English teacher handed them out at Christmas. The office was tiny, with a fake-wood desk and one narrow floor-to-ceiling window covered by those cheap plastic vertical blinds. Fairly hideous, but I could almost imagine making it my own – plants, pictures, NO Wilco posters. My stomach burned nervously at the thought, and I entertained it, just for a minute. That had become about all I had, those quick little fantasies. They shivered up my spine and wormed into my brain, where they floated around for awhile. Marc fiddled with his ear piece and leaned over the desk. “So, it's pretty self-explanatory - the last page is just some current events trivia.” He cracked a half-smile. “I like to stump people.” You could tell he thought that was pretty cute. "Well, good luck." He flipped open his cell phone and closed the door. I looked at the page, suddenly swimming with misplaced semi-colons and run-on sentences. I was really, really sick of 'good luck'.