Fourth Comings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [70]
I stopped talking when I realized that Dr. Kate had stopped listening.
“Well, then,” Dr. Kate said, glancing at her diamond-faced wristwatch. “Time’s just about up.”
I waited for her to say something about the next step in the hiring process. She didn’t.
“Well, thank you for meeting with me,” I said. “I know you’re a very busy woman.”
“Yes, I am,” she replied. “Which is why I’m not going to waste any more of my time, or yours.”
I sat up straighter, hoping to hear her say “Congratulations…” But her next sentence began “Unfortunately…”
I wanted to politely excuse myself and ask the Sentinel to borrow his dagger pendant so I could slit my wrists.
forty-two
After my dismissal, I didn’t leave the hotel right away. I wasn’t ready to give up this job that had been mine until I blew it. I went straight to the reception desk, grabbed a complimentary W pen (“Whatcha thinking?”) and postcard (“Whenever Wherever”) to write a quick, apologetic note to Dr. Kate, one that I hoped might salvage the first half of the interview, the part that had gone so, so, so well. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said about the part that had not.
“Unfortunately,” Dr. Kate had said, “I can’t hire someone who doesn’t believe in iLoveULab.”
“But—”
She raised her hand to shush me. “I didn’t get to be the groundbreaking scientist, author, and entrepreneur I am today by being wishy-washy. Working for me will require no less than a hundred and fifty percent of your time, energy, and enthusiasm. iLoveULab has to be your life.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I—”
“No apologies necessary,” she said with a smile. “This job isn’t right for you, and you’re not right for this job. We’re both better off severing our ties now. I’m being pragmatic.”
“You sound like you’re breaking up with me,” I said, mustering a lame laugh.
“It’s not all that different, actually.”
“But—”
“No buts.” She stood to encourage me to do the same. “Many psych majors are analytical to a fault. It’s the nature of the beast, I suppose. But they do too much thinking and not enough doing.”
She jerked her head on the last word, and I responded with my own empathetic head bob. But it was too late. The mirror was shattered.
“You seemed like the bright, highly motivated go-getter I need to launch this new venture, but you lost your way during our conversation. You tuned out and turned your attentions elsewhere….”
Still wincing at the memory of her admonishment, I sighed and put the pen and the blank postcard in my bag. There’s no point in arguing with someone you know is right. When I trudged outside in defeat, I discovered that the sunny afternoon was quickly turning gray. By the time I emerged from the subway in Brooklyn forty-five minutes later, the heavens were deeply unsettled by the oncoming storm. The sky crackled with electric tension throughout my ten-block walk home.
(PROPHETIC FALLACY ALERT.)
The common area in our subterranean apartment was dark as night, with only a bluish light coming from the TV. I was surprised that anyone was there at all, let alone to find Hope and Manda doubled over in hysterics on the rug. They had obviously been laughing so hard and for so long that their contagious laughter had spread to inanimate objects. Not even the Olga could contain itself, having shaken off the tasteful green slipcover to reveal its true colors, a garish arrangement of orange and yellow stripes.
“Jess! You have to see this!”
“What is—” My question was cut off by their shushing.
I set myself down on the floor in front of the television. An out-of-tune piano plunked out a simple melody I’d never heard before, sung by a class of six-year-olds in loud, unintentional, atonal twenty-five-part harmony. I could barely make out the words:
“April is the month of showers and gloooooom!”
Two kids stood up from the risers, a boy and a girl in matching