-----------------------
Allie replayed the voice mail for the seventh time. It was perplexing, it was frightening, it was exhilarating.
“Miss Caldwell, this is Olin Pond from John Parretta's office. Mr. Parretta requests an interview Thursday morning at precisely 10:40 A.M.” That was the entire message.
“What are you listening to?” Clara, Allie's roommate in Columbus, asked as she entered the room. Allie played the message an eighth time for her roomie's benefit.
“I told you!” Clara said. “You're going to be a feature writer for that paper! It's your first step to the big time!” Clara gave Allie a hug, and Allie returned a smile.
“I hope so,” she said, “but I'm so nervous! Everything has to be perfect. I can't blow this chance.” Clara and Allie had been friends since their second year of college, as Allie was pursuing her double major in Psychology and Journalism and Clara hers in Secondary Education; Clara now taught eighth grade civics and Allie was waitressing in the evenings and spending her morning hours writing cover letters and sending out resumes. She'd been to one interview so far, for a tiny paper in West Virginia, and they hadn't been interested. The Record and Courier was the second paper to call back, of the nine resumes she had sent so far. She received the message on Tuesday; the interview was to be Thursday, and the caller had certainly left no room for negotiation. She was due at the restaurant at 3:00; she would have to be a few hours late, as Broxton was an hour and a half away from Columbus.
“Honey, you are perfect. You'll knock them out,” Clara said, beaming. “You want to go out and celebrate now, or wait until it's official?”
“Oh, I have to be at work in an hour,” said Allie.
“It'll be nice to stop pulling these night shifts, won't it?” Clara said as she poured herself some apple juice.
“And to not have the grease smell all through my hair when I get home,” Allie agreed, grinning.
“Then we'll celebrate Friday,” Clara said, and continued over Allie as she started to object. “That's not floating an idea! You're coming.”
“There'll be more interviews than just this, Clara,” Allie told her. “Three, probably, before they make a final decision.”
“Then we'll celebrate again after the second and again after the third, 'cause the job's as good as yours.” Clara put down a glass of juice in front of Allie, who took a sip from it and set it down, and so they frittered away Allie's last free 20 minutes before she had to change into her work uniform and head off.
Allie took no chances with traffic, and turned off her car in the Record and Courier parking lot—the paper wasn't big enough to require a garage; almost nothing was in this town—at 10:20 in the morning, despite being held up by construction on the interstate. She debated within herself and decided there was no harm in showing up a little bit early, and finally took a deep breath, pulled herself together, took her binder in her right hand, and walked into the building. The receptionist directed her to take the elevator to the fourth floor, which housed the newsroom, where the Record and Courier's staff of about 35 full time writers, editors, artists and such worked their trade, the place where Allie always felt right at home, from the first time she walked into one. There, the receptionist explained in a tone of voice that made clear she would explain it only once, Allie should get off the elevator and walk straight forward the length of the newsroom until she reached the secretary's desk, and announce her arrival there.
She thanked the receptionist and got on the elevator, where she got her breathing under control and smoothed over her brand new interview suit, which she was proud of; she and Clara had spent an entire afternoon picking it out. It was dark blue—Allie always thought dark blue was her best color—with a skirt that stopped just above the knees and a matching professional coat. “Most of these jobs, it'll be men interviewing you,” Clara noted. “No harm in giving them a little bit to look at while you turn the charm on them.”
“I don't intend to sleep my way to a successful career,” Allie commented, and they laughed, but nonetheless she appreciated the wisdom of Clara's observation, and they selected her clothing with all the precision of a bomb squad diffusing a particularly tricky explosive. Now it was show time. This was a job she really wanted, even more than she generally wanted a job: Writing features for the Life section of the paper, the section full of snippets of daily life in a town and a nation, the section where she'd feel the most free, and in a perfect-sized small city. The perfect place to start, even though getting a feature writing job right off the bat was very difficult for any aspiring journalist. She intended to do exactly that.
Heads turned as Allie strode through the newsroom, and especially male heads. Allie was a new presence in what is generally an off-limits area to the general public, but more than that were two notable features about her: First, she was 23 years old and stunningly attractive, a Miss America beauty queen come to living flesh, with playful eyes, perfectly shaped lips that formed a warm, ready smile, and full, long black hair. And second—this caught even the women's attention—it was plain to see that Allie had only one hand. Where her left hand should have been was nothing but a stump crisscrossed with scars.
The secretary, Olin Pond, was a man of about thirty years, and you could tell he was thickly built even though, clad in a perfectly tailored black suit and green tie, he was the best-dressed person in the office. His features were unremarkable, except for his powerful steely eyes that caused just about everyone they met to involuntarily shudder. His face was hard, chiseled, and he had the look of a man who rarely smiled. He looked up just as Allie stopped in front of his desk and met her squarely in the eyes.
“Allison Caldwell,” he said rather than asked.
“Call me Allie, please,” Allie responded with a genuine, happy smile. “I’ve come for an interview with Mr. Parrella.”
“Your scheduled time is 10:40,” said the secretary, not introducing himself. “Mr. Parrella is a very punctual man. Wait there” – with his eyes he indicated a chair to Allie’s right – “and he will see you precisely at 10:40.” He returned his eyes to his computer’s screen, ending the conversation.
Allie lingered for just a moment as though she was going to say something more, but decided against it and went to sit down. Despite this secretary’s apparent best efforts to make her feel uncomfortable, she was still confident that this job would be hers, her deference with Clara aside. Oddly, it seemed as though she was only more confident than ever after this conversation. She did notice one thing: He never so much as glanced at her missing hand. Virtually everyone who ever met her at least stole a glance at it once during the conversation. His eyes had remained locked onto hers with that harsh gaze throughout.
Parrella was, of course, a different kind of editor, quite a lot different from those she had worked with previously on her internships and summer jobs. She sat down in his office and he immediately went point-by-point through her resume, from memory, and drilled her for details. She had graduated in four years with a double major and a 4.0 average, had received rave reviews from two internships, and asserted in her best clear, professional tone that she was well-qualified for a position that normally required some years' experience.
“No, you're not,” Parrella told her. He was clearly unimpressed by her beauty, her hinting skirt and neckline, or her resume. “I'm glad the world is full of young people that think they can do it all and who the hell are these experienced people getting in their way, and your internship record is impressive indeed, but you wouldn't have the first idea what you're doing, thrown out there as a feature writer, and it would take me months to repair the damage. I have three candidates at least as qualified as yourself and much more experienced.” He stopped there and waited for her to respond, which she did after a pause of not five seconds.
“You don't have any candidates that will bring the kind of vibrancy to your Life section that I will, Mr. Parrella.” She leaned forward just an inch and flashed her best smile. “I'm talented and hungry, and I'm full of energy that I'm going to throw into something, your paper or something else, and make it much better than I found it.”
“Vibrancy!” Parrella recalled years later with a laugh. “What a word. I was hooked. I didn't show it, though.” He told Allie she wasn't going to hack it in the newspaper business with a narcissistic attitude like that, that she had better learn to pay her dues and grovel to her elders if she wanted to get anywhere, and told her to consider his advice in her future job search. “She never flinched,” Parrella wondered. “She smiled and shook my hand, thanked Olin for his trouble and left. Never faltered for a single step. Total confidence, or able to fake total confidence, which is basically the same thing.”
Allie held herself together, somehow, for the long, lonely drive home, and then threw off her interview suit, collapsed onto her bed and cried until it was time to get up and go to work. And as soon as she was gone from the newsroom, Parrella told Pond to cancel the other three scheduled interviews and call Miss Caldwell back on Monday morning for a second interview.
Allie's telephone rang at 9:15 Monday morning, after she and Clara had spent more or less the entire weekend analyzing every syllable, every blink and every hand motion of her entire experience in the newsroom and concluded that John Parrella was a pompous windbag that wouldn't know a good feature writer if one bit him on the nose. That was what Clara concluded, anyway; Allie couldn't quite talk herself into it. She had researched the Record and Courier's history, and Parrella's record with the paper was spectacular.
Allie had just stepped out of the shower when the phone rang and was still hurriedly wrapping a towel around her long hair as she grabbed it and answered. “Hello?” she said in her most pleasant voice. She didn't recognize the caller's number, so assumed it must be one of the companies she'd applied to.”
“Allie, Olin Pond. Mr. Parrella wants to meet you here in his office at one o'clock today for a second interview. Can you make it?” Allie's breath caught, and for a moment she couldn't answer; she put her hand over the mouthpiece and took a deep breath. Part of her wanted to tell Olin Pond to inform Mr. Parrella where he could stick his job; part of her wanted to squeal in delight; part of her wanted to develop a monster headache from the stress. What to do? Pond was still on the phone. Answer him!
“Yes,” she finally blurted, and then looked down and realized she still had her hand over the phone. Calm down, girl! She removed it and gathered herself up, summoning her best voice. “Yes. I'll be there.” Pond hung up without another word.
Clara walked upstairs to find Allie in a tizzy, gathering together her pre-selected second interview outfit, a sharp black pantsuit she had just purchased a few months before. When Allie explained that the Record and Courier had called her back, Clara was incredulous. “Why are you going?” she exclaimed. “After the way he talked to you? Why don't you tell them to go to hell?”
“Because I want that job,” Allie said. “Clara, after the way he talked to me, he called me back. What's that mean?”
Clara grinned. “It must mean he changed his mind.”
“Maybe. Either way, I'm finding out.”
This time she arrived at fifteen minutes to one and waited in her car for a few minutes, so as to arrive at Pond's desk at precisely 12:55. “Hi, Olin,” she said cheerfully. He looked up at her, gave a very slight nod and picked up his phone. “Mr. Parrella, Miss Caldwell has arrived.” He hung up and paid Allie no further attention; Parrella appeared from his office a moment later and invited her in.
Parrella explained to Allie that she was asking for a job virtually everyone agreed was painfully boring, interviewing and writing features about cooking, shopping, and local activities that no one besides the people participating in them really cared about. The “Life” section was mainly a few local group updates and a few syndicated columns. Allie responded that she didn’t care what other people thought about the section, she thought it was wonderful, that she would be his most faithful employee in writing whatever she was asked, and that she would make very effective use of whatever liberty she would be given to write as she chose.
Parrella told her it would be a while before she had any such liberty. Allie said she didn’t mind that. He asked her what her real career goal was, and without hesitating she said it was nothing more than to have her own column, which she would use to bring individual stories of interest to the newspapers, and most of all she hoped, years down the road, to replace “Dear Abby” with “Dear Allie.”
“Well,” Parrella told her, “We'll find out how serious you are about it, anyway.” He took her back out into the newsroom, to Pond's desk. “Olin, Miss Caldwell will be starting tomorrow as our new Life section feature writer. Do you have time to show her around the office?” Pond nodded. “Give her Mark Richards' old cubicle.
"Allie, you already know my secretary, Olin Pond?” Parrella asked her.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. You'll have an assignment first thing in the morning.” They hadn't talked at all about salary, benefits or any such thing, but she didn't care.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Allie said to Pond with her brightest smile, and she extended her hand toward him for a shake.
Pond, who had just stood, blinked at the outstretched hand, but reached out and took it, once again meeting her squarely in the eye. “The pleasure is mine,” he said in a clear voice. He didn’t smile. He had a grip of iron; he shook her hand once – down, up, back to center – and withdrew his hand. “Permit me first to show you to your office,” he said as Parrella left.
No comments:
Post a Comment