This is a second chance, high school sweethearts, story set in a small town.
Lemuel Oliver
“Dad, did you add an interview to my calendar?” I ask through teeth I am trying not to grit. My gaze is fixed on the white cloud floating lazily in the sunny and blue sky this morning. Working for the family business has always been my dream and for the last decade, I’ve been living that dream. My father, Henry Oliver, is the CEO of this company and you would think that now that I am the Director of Human Resources, he would leave the vetting of potential employees and scheduling of interviews to me. Well, to be fair, for the last three years, he has left it to me. Which is why I am surprised this morning that as I open my work calendar, there is a surprise interview for an employee that I am finding about right now.
“Yeah, you have an interview for an office assistant. What’s the problem? Isn’t that your job? To interview people and manage them once they are hired? That’s what a human resources director does, right?”
“But remember how I am supposed to screen their applications first? Everyone has to apply online and then an interview can be scheduled after screening. Plus, I’ve been doing just fine without an office assistant.” Marisol was great. And yes, I miss her efficiency and empanadas now that she retired, but I can manage most of what I do by myself. If I truly need something, there are other office staff that could help.
“Mmm-hmm. Well, I screened this one already. Don’t argue with me. I am your father and your boss.”
Ah. Parents. They bring you into the world one time, and they never let you forget it. I can imagine him sitting at the farmhouse dining table that has been sitting in my parents’ home for as long as I can remember, sipping on his morning coffee from one of his favorite mugs. Mom is likely making him bacon, eggs, and toast as they update each other on their schedules for the day.
Most days, I recommend working with your father. Today, I am on the fence. I shake my head and scrub a hand across my face. Henry is the best kind of father a man could ask for. As parent he’s always been firm, fair, and he prayed for all five of his sons every day when we were growing up. As my boss, he gives me autonomy in my role and ninety-nine percent of the time he trusts me to make the right decisions. Why can’t that number be a hundred? I start clicking around on my computer. I like to researve my mornings for reading and researching ways to make our family businesses, Sand and Pebbles Cabins and Oliver Farms even better than they are right now. So this impromptu interview throws me off my schedule. But considering that there are greater problems in the world, I figure my schedule being disrupted is something I could endure. I huff a sigh. “Fine, can you at least send me the resume for this person. The interview is literally in one hour and I have nothing to go on.”
I hear my computer ding. Dad just sent the email with an attachment. “Thank you for sending the resume,” I say more than a little loudly into the phone. I hear Dad laughing in his booming voice before he says, “Gotta go, Son. See you at the cabins later this afternoon.”
I sign off with Dad and open the email containing the resume of this mystery person I’m supposed to be interviewing. My body breaks into goosebumps and I can hear my heartbeat in my ears the moment I glance at the name on the resume. Anyone could have that name, so I jump the education section. My immediate instinct after reading the university that awarded the degree is to call my father and tell him there is no way I can interview her for the office assistant position. I can do without an office assistant. My hand grabs my phone to call him and tell him just that, but I feel the urge to stop and read the rest of the resume instead. I take two deep breaths and swing my gaze back to my computer. I haven’t let go of the phone now because any moment now, I am going to call my father and tell him I am absolutely not doing this interview. There are other roles around here. There are even other roles in our Oliver Farms business which is less than five miles away from the cabins! Any role but my office assistant role. Read the resume, I feel the prompting again. I take another breath as I focus my eyes on the resume. With a bachelor’s degree in Human Psychology and two years working with a behavioral health company, Mikayla Simmons seems overqualified for this office assistant role. A flicker of light in the tunnel. I’ll call Dad right now and tell him, she’s overqualified. I call but he doesn’t pick up. He’s avoiding me. I know it. I glance at the resume once more. I want to call Mikayla and tell her the interview is canceled.
I should. I am about to. Instead, I get a similar urge to earlier, take the interview. At that exact second, my phone dings. I glance at it. A text message from Dad.
Don’t focus on the past, Lem. Give her a chance. She really needs this.
Nothing in me is emotionally prepared for this day.
Mikayla Simmons
I have parallel-parked in tighter spots than this, I remind myself, which is not actually relevant to anything happening right now but feels like the kind of encouragement I have available to me at the moment. I sit in the parking lot of the Sand and Pebbles Resort for several minutes longer than I need to, hands in my lap, keys already out of the ignition, watching a seagull on the pavement ahead of me argue with a potato chip.
The seagull is winning.
I should go in. The interview is in eleven minutes and I have already done the hard part — I filled out the application Mr. Oliver forwarded me. I sat at my mother’s kitchen table for three nights, staring at the application, wondering if it was the best move I could make. Especially since Lemuel still works here. He always wanted to work here. At least one of us is living out their dreams. I huff a sigh and check at myself through the rearview mirror. The woman in the mirror looks tired and nothing like the bright-eyed eighteen-year old who left this town a decade ago. Nobody and nothing prepares you to be the divorced single mom living with her twin daughters in her childhood bedroom. Also, nothing prepares you for attempting to rebuild your life but feeling like you are so behind, it doesn’t even make sense to rebuild it. Nothing. I’m grateful that I even had somewhere to come to. Despite the fact that I now live with her and she is currently watching the twins, things between my mother and I are not stellar. But that’s just another thread in this complicated web I will figure out later on. Right now, I need a job. Nobody is coming to hand that to me on a silver platter. I look at the navy blazer and pant set I’m wearing as a tear threatens to shatter the stoic facade I’ve been putting up today. I dry-cleaned the blazer. It cost me more than I could justify. But I want this job and wearing a nice suit should help right? I will my tears away, grab my purse and open the car door. “It’s an interview, Mikayla. Not a walk to prison.” I remind myself unsuccessfully.
Your interview has been scheduled with Lemuel Oliver, Director of Human Resources.
I read it three times. Then I had set my phone face-down on the kitchen table, gone to the bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror for a long moment, and said out repeated to myself quietly, “You’re doing this for Serena and Sophia.”
I need this job. I can be embarrassed later. Embarrassment is a luxury I will take out and examine thoroughly when I have a paycheck and my children are settled and I have rebuilt enough of a foundation to afford the weight of my own feelings.
Right now I need to walk through that door.
I check my reflection in the visor mirror. Again. Blazer straight. Edges laid. Lip gloss surviving. I look like a competent person. I look like a woman who did not spend last night lying awake in her childhood bedroom she is sharing with her daughters cataloguing every decision that brought her to this parking lot.
Good. That is exactly the look I am going for.
I flip the visor up, pick up my bag, and get out of the car before I can talk myself out of it.
The morning air off the coast hits me the moment I step out — salt and eucalyptus and that particular Seabreeze Cove light that I had forgotten about somehow, the way it comes in low and gold off the water and makes even ordinary things look like they mean something. I had grown up under this sky and then spent a decade in a city that had its own sky, a fine sky, a perfectly adequate sky, and somewhere in there I had forgotten that this one existed.
The receptionist in the lobby of the Sand and Pebbles welcome lounge is warm and efficient and offers me water, which I accept because having something to hold will give my hands a job. I sit in the small waiting area and keep my back straight and my ankles crossed and look like I am perfectly comfortable.
I wonder if he knows it’s me. He must know. Which means he agreed to do this interview anyway.
I don’t know what to do with that information, so I set it aside and focus on the water glass in my hands and the three things I want to make sure I communicate about my organizational skills and my experience managing administrative workflows and why I am, genuinely, a good candidate for this position regardless of anything else.
Knowing Lemuel, he will be a professional. So will I.
Whatever we were to each other in high school has nothing to do with what happens in that office today.
The door at the end of the hallway opens, and I look up, and there he is. He’s taller than I remember. Or maybe I just stopped remembering accurately. His shoulders are broader. If its possible, he’s grown even more handsome. He has that same steady demeanor that always made him look grounded and confident. His face is clear of the acne he’d been so self-conscious of in high school. I almost allow myself to smile at that memory.
For one moment, before either of us has said a word, we just look at each other across the length of the hallway. Ten years. Two children. One thoroughly dismantled life. Mine. Not his. But this is hardly the moment to dwell on a broken past. I stand up and smile. I am here for an interview and I will be professional.
“Good morning, Lemuel,” I say, and my voice comes out steady, which is the single most impressive thing I have done in recent memory.
“Mikayla.” His voice is even. Maybe even cordial. I wish I could fully interpret the look on his face right now. Tearing his gaze from mine, he steps back and holds the door open, issuing the silent invitation for me to enter.
I walk through the door. I need this job, I remind myself one final time.
Now, if my hands would get the memo and stop shaking.
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