Excerpt: Passed Over Princesses

I sat across from a stern looking woman in a dark office. The walls were draped in tapestries, and all the furniture was a heavy wood, probably chestnut or dark cherry. The desk showed no sign of any electronics. No phone, no computer, no plug ins, and as I glanced around the room I saw that there was absolutely no electronic plug-ins anywhere. In a normal office I would probably think that was horribly strange, but because of the atmosphere… this was the least of my problems. The middle aged woman was the epitome of classiness. Her hair was bound back in a bun that had not a single hair out of place, and her small glasses looked almost invisible on her face. She wore no make up, and especially for a woman her age she looked very beautiful and healthy. In her youth she would have been incredibly stunning. However, right now, she was sitting in a heavy wooden chair with my resume in front of her.
“So tell me why you want to work for Queen’s Ransom Catering, Miranda.” The woman, known as Miss Katherine, cleared her throat.
“I am straight out of college. I know I’m young.” I addressed the main problem that people had been telling me for several months. “But I have some great internship experiences and some great volunteer work. I looked really hard for a great job to line up, and when I saw Queen’s Ransom Catering’s website I was really impressed. I thought, ‘for a young woman just out of college to be given housing is a great perk’. So I decided to apply once I saw the job application online.”
Miss Katherine interrupted me, “May I translate what you said?”
I hesitated then nodded.
She laced her fingers together and looked at me sternly. “In this job market you could not find anything. You could not get into any masters programs, you could not get a job, so you searched desperately for anything. This job was at an obscure location at a smaller firm, and you figured we could stoop so low as to hire someone just out of college. You’re desperate. You would take the job even if all I offered you was housing and food.” She took a look at my application, and as she turned over the pages I noticed parts underlined in flourishing pen marks. “You said on your application that you are growing into your adult identity.”
I remembered the awkwardly worded question that I had no idea how to answer, “Yes, I am very excited to be financially independent from my parents.”
Leaning back, Miss Katherine tapped her right forefinger on the desk. “What percentage of the time do you think you are an adult?”
“What?” I was confused by the question. This was nothing like what I had prepared myself for or workshopped for in my college’s graduation preparation. “What percentage do I what?”
“What percentage of the time do you think you are an adult?” She replied crisply without a hint of change in tone, volume, or pace.
I hesitated, then laughed a little nervously. “That’s a tough question.” Her eyes twinkled, not in a happy way, as she waited for me to say something. I realized that I had to say something, something that would show her I could do the job. “Seventy five percent of time I feel like an adult.”
Miss Katherine shook her head. “So twenty five percent of the time you do not feel like an adult?” She wrote something down quickly, and I felt my heart sinking. I needed this job. This job was my last ditch attempt to not move in my parents. “What do you feel like during this twenty five percent of the time?”
“I suppose that’s the time I spend sleeping and reading and not thinking about what I’m doing…” I trailed off, knowing I was not giving ‘the right answers’. “But I really think my background has prepared me really well for this job.”