Moira was the replacement child. She feared the immaculate conception, sharks, baptism by proxy, and Fluff. The very idea of a Fluffer Nutter made her soul quake. She loved scones, high heels, and British comedies. Today, Wednesday, Moira was wearing four inch heels and a fitted gray pencil skirt. She’d had an interview that morning, it had not gone terribly well, and a date scheduled for late afternoon. Moira liked to plan late afternoon dates or ‘after work’ dates, as she liked to call them even though she wasn’t working, because they were more low pressure affairs and they got her home in time to watch her favorite shows. Tonight was Criminal Minds and her lovely ‘husband’ Matthew Gray Gubler. Mrs. Moira Gubler, Moira would mumble to herself as she settles into her armchair, hot tea in hand, she could get used to the name.
Moira trudged along the city street under the low gray sky, in her fitted pencil skirt, to her favorite cafe. The people around her were wrapped up in gray and brown scarves, gray and brown trench and puff coats, and gray and brown blankets, or so it appeared. This pulled the heaviness of the sky down to the sidewalk so that Moria, too, felt wrapped in gray and brown. Oh, great its Wednesday, Moira thought, not at all enthusiastically, as she pushed open the door. She had momentarily forgotten it was Wednesday.
Wednesdays meant Betty’s was crammed full of losers who did not want to pay full price for a scone. Moira was a full week regular and resented the intrusion. Half pricers hogged the seats, ate all the scones, and did not even have the decency to tip the workers. Moira swore that the scones were smaller on Wednesdays. They weren’t.
“Hey Kelly,” Moira greeted the lanky blonde behind the counter.
“Hey Moira. You look nice. Did you have an interview or something?”
“Yeah. Over at this architecture firm downtown.”
“How’d it go?”
Moira pulled a face.
“Well maybe it was better than you think. You don’t know how everyone else did.”
“Thanks.” Moira really did appreciate Kelly’s attempt at optimism, but she was getting a little tired of having to be appreciative. “Any new scones today?”
“We have a sour cherry. Its pretty good.”
“Great. I’ll have one and a non fat lattee, please.” Moira stuck two dollars in the tip jar while Kelly was steaming milk. She believed in over tipping, even when unemployed. She thought it was both good form and good karma.
“Here you go,” Kelly chirped, handing over the thick porcelain dishware. Moira loved that Betty’s had cups and saucers for their lattes and solid plates for their baked goods. It was one of the reasons she stuck to Betty’s. Moira was a sucker for a good plate.
“Have you seen Leo yet today?” Moira asked before turning away.
“Yeah, he was in this morning, but got all huffy cause Will was sitting at his table. He’ll probably be by later.”
“Is Will one of the Half Pricers?”
“Definitely,” Kelly laughed.
Leo was this old guy who came to Betty’s everyday. He would shuffle in wearing baggy corduroys and All Star high tops, order black coffee and a chocolate chip cookie (never a scone) and play checkers at the table by the window. The one with the chess board painted on the top. He would sometimes play for hours. Kelly, or one of the other girls, would occasionally pass by and sneak him a second cookie.
Leo was a fierce checkers player. A raze the buildings, salt the earth, take no prisoners kind of checkers player. He would laugh when he beat you. The more fully he trounced you the harder and louder he would laugh. Moira respected his enthusiasm.
She settled into Leo’s table, stuck a to go coffee sleeve under one leg to stop the wobble and took out her planner to jot down notes from the interview. Moira liked to review. She was not an architect. The job was an assistant position to the head of the firm. Emails, phone calls, dinner reservations. Moira had a Masters degree in late Tsarist Russian poetry.
The ‘stay at homers’ were out in full force today. They were not a Wednesday only group at Betty’s, but there did seem to be a few more of them today. They had circled up the buggies and taken up nearly every table. They seemed an impenetrable force to Moira. Career women who had given up their careers for late in life children. Both genetic and adopted.
“Now ladies” projected a woman in a well tailored shirt, “we are here today to learn about the available resources for nurturing our babies’ heritage.”
“Its a support group,” Kelly said, pulling the full garbage bag out of the trash bin.
Moira jumped slightly, caught unawares by Kelly’s nearness “What?”
“The women you’re starring at. They’re a support group for moms who adopted out of China. They usually come on Thursdays, but they had to reschedule.”
“Oh,” Moira paused.
“I think its kind of cool,” Kelly continued, pulling a tray of dirty dishes off the shelf, “You know, they learn about Chinese culture, food, history; that kind of stuff. Plus, apparently, there are classes on the language and play dates and stuff.”
“Huh. Which Chinese culture?”
“Um. Is there more than one?”
“I think so.”
“Probably the normal one. Anyway, I think its cool that they’re keeping the kids connected, you know.” Kelly starred at Moira, awaiting a reply.
“Um, yeah. It’s great” Moira responded in her best interviewee voice with matching smile after slightly too long of a pause. Really she was thinking, wow Kelly says “you know” a lot, is it meant to be a question?
Moira remembered a case a few years ago about a European couple sending a girl they had adopted back after seven or eight years. She remembered the couple lived in Hong Kong, but she couldn’t remember where the girl was from, or where they were sending her. Apparently, she wasn’t what they had wanted after all. Moria decided not to share this story with Kelly, it seemed inappropriate for the moment.
Moira looked down at her patterned tights. Perhaps this was where she had gone wrong. She thought the tights added a bit of personality and artistry to her otherwise professional outfit. The office had been sleek and gray in a sleek glass building. There were no plants, no posters, no pieces of framed art on the walls. No colors outside of the spectrum of shades of gray. The woman from human resources had been wearing a slightly too tight and boxy gray suit with a white blouse and what Moria suspected were shoulder pads. Moira had been surprised to see that women still wore collared white shirts to the office. Her carefully chosen wine blouse with a ruffle down the front suddenly seemed opulent and presumptive. Perhaps this is where she had gone wrong.
“So why do you want to work for Stewart, Murray, and Schmidt?”
“I respect the firm’s history of innovation in architecture and participation in the city’s urban renewal movement.” Moira had gotten that off of the web site.
Shoulder Pads nodded and wrote something down on her legal pad. “I see on your resume that you have no experience working in architecture.” She looked up at Moira. Moira looked back. It wasn’t a question.
“Um, no.”
Pause.
“Do you think any of your professional experiences are relevant to this position?”
“Well, I worked for two years in the offices of a university department as an assistant, and for over a year as the executive assistant to the Director of a nonprofit.”
“Yes.”
“... and while these were not in architecture firms, I believe that the experience in these office environments would transfer nicely to the needs of your firm. Both positions demanded the ability to multitask, interact with a variety of individuals, produce and monitor large and diverse amounts of correspondence.”
Pause.
“I kept the calendar for the Director at my last job.”
Pause.
“I type 85 words per minute.”
“Yes, I see that. It also says that this job was for Women Against the Bomb.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Can you tell me what that is?”
“Women Against the Bomb, is an pacifist women’s organization that fights against both nuclear weaponry and military action and expansion.”
“So how does this relate to architecture?”
“Well, of course the work of that organization does not directly relate to the work of your firm, but my experience working for and assisting the Director of that organization has, I believe, well prepared me to assist the head of your firm. I believe that many of the tasks and demands would be the same.”
“I also see that this position was over two years ago.”
“Well, yes.”
“What have you been doing for the last two years?”
“Ummm, well until about four months ago I was a teaching assistant.”
“A teaching assistant?”
“Yes.”
“That is not on your resume,” Shoulder Pads accused, turning over the single piece of paper as though Moira might have hidden this piece of information on the other side of the page.
“No. I didn’t really think it was relevant work experience for this position.”
“Where were you a teaching assistant?”
“NYU.”
“What?”
“NYU.”
“You were a teaching assistant at NYU?”
“Yes.”
Pause.
“In the Russian literature department....”
“I’m sorry, but I see that you have a BA here from Wellesley, but how does that qualify you to be a teaching assistant at NYU?”
“It doesn’t.”
Pause.
“I also have a Masters. In Russian literature. From NYU.”
“You have a Masters Degree?” again Shoulder Pads turned over Moira’s resume. “So you speak Russian?”
“Yes. That actually is on my resume.”
“I don’t see it.”
“At the bottom, where it says “Skills” I wrote that I speak, read, and write Russian, Serbian and French.”
“But your Masters degree...?”
“Oh, yeah. Um, I didn’t think that was relevant.” Of course, Moira had purposefully taken her degree off. After four months of futile job searches and disheartening interviews, all ending with “why do you want this job?”, Moira had deleted her degree at the recommendation of a friend who had stumbled into recruiting.
“You speak three foreign languages?”
“Yes.”
“But not Spanish?”
“No,” Moira almost sighed. “No, I do not speak Spanish.” No one really cared how many languages Moira spoke, they only cared that she did not speak Spanish.
“We really would prefer someone who speaks Spanish.”
“Yes of course, Spanish is a very useful, and lovely language, but Russian is a useful language as well.”
“Really? Have you found it useful?”
“Yes.”
“How so?”
“Well, there are quite a few Russian and Eastern European immigrants in the US now a days.”
Pause.
“And with the expansion of the EU more former Soviet nations are joining the Union, potentially becoming more active in the global economy.”
“And how would that affect the firm?”
“Well, I understand that your firm is looking to expand their international design division. As assistant to the head of the firm, I would need to speak and correspond with a growing variety of people from a growing variety of nations... Russian... and French and Serbian could be extremely usefully in ... facilitating communications... and... increasing the appearance that the firm is an international firm.”
“The firm is international.”
“Yes, of course.”
Pause.
“So do you find Serbian is useful?”
There was a woman leaning against Betty’s window talking on her mobile. She was fighting with her boyfriend. It was unclear what exactly the man had done wrong, but it had been unforgivable and disrespectful. Evidently.
Leo shuffled over to the table.
“Morning,” Leo said, in spite of the fact that it was half past three, placing his coffee mug down on the table and yanking his box of checkers pieces out of his briefcase before settling down into the chair across from Moira.
“Hey, Leo. How goes it?”
“Well, well. Can’t complain. You are red.”
Moira nodded. And so it began. There was no conversation for the next thirty minutes as Leo destroyed Moria.
“You aren’t trying,” Leo charged.
“Not a good day, Leo.”
“No reason not to try. A bad day is all the more reason to try. Winning makes the day better.”
“I was never going to bet you.”
“Well, of course you weren’t. That is not the point.”
Kelly slid another cookie onto Leo’s plate. She left the piece of wax paper on top. Leo took it off, examined it, and folded the paper carefully before sticking it into his jacket pocket.
“Your shoes are ridiculous. You are red again. But you have to try this time or you have to move. I’d rather play alone if you aren’t going to try.”
Moira sighed, hunching her shoulders, preparing to try. “Why are my shoes ridiculous?”
“The heels are too high.”
“I like them high. They make my legs look longer.”
“Make your ass look good too, but they aren’t practical. You’re too smart to be running around in those things?”
“What do my heels have to do with my intelligence?”
“Can you run in those things?”
“No. My heels have nothing to do with my intelligence.”
Leo scratched his chin.
“Why’d you shave your beard, Leo?”
Leo smiled. Menacingly. Chuckled a bit and moved his piece across the board.
“Your beard?”
“I decided I need a change.”
“I liked the beard. I think you looked distinguished.”
“Yes yes, well. You know sometimes a change is nice.”
Leo thoroughly beat Moria a second time and then hastened her away in disgust.
“Fine,” Moira threw over her shoulder as she shoved her planner back into her large purse, “I have a date anyway.”
“Come back Friday when you are more focused,” Leo shouted at her.
The two remaining Stay at Homers glanced askant at Moira as she pulled open the front door. The little bell tinkled. The women were gossiping about their husbands. One was cheating with his new high heel wearing secretary.
Out on the sidewalk once again, Moira noticed that the wind had picked up. She was regretting her choice of tights over pants. She thought the skirt would be more impressive at the interview, would make her feel more authoritative. It clearly had not worked. And really, authoritative was not what they wanted anyway. A plastic bag, caught in the wind, wrapped around Moira’s right ankle, tripping her.
“Shit,” she exclaimed under her breath as she reached out for something to catch her. Her hand grasped the lapel of a gray tweed coat.
“Hey,” cried the man inside the coat.
“Sorry, sorry, crap” Moira muttered looking up and tripping again. Maybe Leo was right and these shoes were stupid. But they were so cute. The man had grasped Moira’s elbow to steady her.
“You okay there?” he asked, ducking his head slightly in an attempt to make eye contact.
“Yeah, I’m fine. This stupid bag tripped me” Moira explained, trying to shake the bag off her foot. She didn’t want to touch the thing anymore than need be. She didn’t know where it had been.
The man in the gray tweed coat reached down and removed the bag. He balled it up and threw in into the trash bin on the other side of Moira, leaning in a little close. “I hate litters, don’t you?”
“Absolutely,” Moira, scanned the gray tweed coated man. Tall, dark, and handsome, if a little soft around the middle.
He smiled at her, partly because she was attractive, if a little frazzled at the moment, and partly because her scan was not at all subtle. “Aaron,” he stated, releasing her elbow and sticking out his hand.
“Moira,” she responded sticking out her hand in return.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
“A date, actually.”
“Really?” he sounded a little disappointed.
“A first date.”
“Lucky guy.”
“Don’t worry it wont go well. Today is not a good day for a first date.”
“Do you think Friday will be a better day?” asked Aaron, a little hesitantly.
“I think it might,” Moira bit her bottom lip and glanced at her heels and patterned tights. Leo was wrong.
The low clouds started to rain.
“Fucking rain,” some guy muttered as he passed.
