job Offers

The air in the office hung stagnant around Sofia. She was dressed in a brand-new pair of slacks and a tan blazer that cut a boxy shape of her frame. The temperatures were in the 90s outside even though it was only April, but at least there was a slight breeze outdoors. She squirmed in her seat, trying to discreetly drain away the sweat pooling beneath the underwire of her bra. She was sticky and hot, but tried to keep her face pulled into a neutral expression.

She sat in an uncomfortable wooden chair, one with stiff armrests and no cushion, that dug into the sides of her hips. She tried to ignore the discomfort and instead focused her attention on the man sitting across from her in a lush leather office chair behind a cherry wood desk. Everything in the room was dark and masculine from another design era, including the brown blinds turned down against the sunlight. The wood paneling in the office let off the faint smell of cigarettes smoked decades before.

Sofia clutched a shiny black portfolio awkwardly across her lap, 24×30 inches to fit the broadsheet pages from the newspaper in South Africa where she had interned the summer before. She waited for an opportunity to show it to the executive editor in his office a few miles from her parents’ home.

“Why do you want to work here?” the editor asked.

“I grew up here,” she started. “I know the city and I care about the community. I think I’d be an asset to the team. I’m finishing up my master’s at USC, one of the top journalism schools in the country. It’s a tough program and I know I’m ready to hit the ground running.”

She cringed as the cliché slipped out. She was full of nervous energy in front of this burly man who was a foot and a half taller than her and built like a former lineman. He was dressed impeccably in a pinstripe suit with a light blue collared shirt and a tie he’d loosened around his neck. The suit fit his frame so well she wondered if it was custom made. She hunched down in her seat, willing him not to notice her own ill-fitting outfit, the buttons of the wrinkled white blouse straining across her body.

“I’ve had more than three dozen pieces published between the campus newspaper, the SoCal Parent Magazine where I interned and the few months I spent at the Cape Town News in South Africa,” she went on, clasping her hands together to hold in her jitters. She waited for him to ask her about the international internship, but he didn’t.

“Your last name is Moreno,” he said. “Do you speak Spanish? That’s an asset around here.”

“My dad’s Mexican, but I never learned the language,” she said. “I took French in high school, actually. Your wife was my teacher one year.”

The editor didn’t say anything but jotted a note down on a yellow legal pad and nodded.

“I babysat for your kids a few times when I was in high school,” Sofia blurted out. “The baby was only about 10 months old, I think.”

He looked up to examine her face, his eyes searching across her features. He didn’t recognize her. She’d been a chubby kid in jeans and baggy t-shirts back then. Not much had changed except for the clothes.

“Ex-wife now. And that baby is almost 11,” he said. “My oldest just finished high school and is heading to my alma mater next year.”

He dropped his pen onto the desk to signal the end of the conversation.

“I’ll be in touch soon,” he said as he walked Sofia out of his office.

When she got outside into the sun, her old ’87 Sentra had reached blistering temperatures and she turned the a/c up full blast before she got in. She glanced back at the office and thought of how much that poor baby had looked like her father, with a square, cinderblock head and tufts of white blond hair. She wondered if the little girl had grown into better proportions, but when she had looked around the office there were no family photos in sight. She shouldn’t have mentioned the babysitting gig. He might think she was trying to use this old connection to get the job –  rather than her own merit.

Sofia hadn’t yet learned that men like him always used their connections to open up opportunities, their rich families and friends offering a wide net to catch them if ever they should fall. Even if they left a job in disgrace, these men landed on their feet with some consulting job with a friend of a friend. Strategy consultant. Management consultant. Financial consultant.

The only job she’d ever landed by accident was that babysitting gig in high school.

When Madame Jensen started to speak in French, she kept reaching toward her desk for a French-English dictionary. Every time she said “Qu’est-ce que c’est…,” which translated to “What is it?” in English, Sofia and her best friend Lara rolled their eyes at each other and tried not to giggle.

At the end of class a while into the semester Madame Jensen asked if any of them had ever babysat before.

“I’ve been watching my little cousins since I was 12,” Sofia volunteered, thinking the question was somehow related to a lesson.

“Great,” Madame Jensen said. “My husband and I are celebrating our 10th anniversary this weekend and our regular babysitter canceled.”

She wrote down an address on a piece of paper and handed it to Sofia.

“Be here at 6 p.m. on Saturday.”

Sofia’s mom drove up to the Jensens’, to one of the fancy houses up on the hill that looked down on the rest of the city. She shooed her mom away, not wanting her teacher to glimpse the beat-up Tercel hatchback.

Mr. Jensen answered the door, a tall, imposing figure who pointed at his wristwatch in agitation as he glared across the room at his wife.

“I’m almost ready, Lou,” Madame Jensen said. “Let’s just go over a few things with Sofia and we’ll go.”

The baby cried as soon as the parents departed and refused to take a bottle. The older girls ran circles around the kitchen and begged for treats, adding to the cacophony and grating on Sofia’s nerves. She finally gave in and offered them popsicles just to have them still and quiet for a moment.

At the end of the night, Mr. Jensen drove Sofia home in a dark blue BMW with tan leather seats.

“Hope the kids were good,” he said.

“Oh yeah, they were great,” she said.

When they got to her house, he handed her a few bills.

“Thanks for taking care of my kiddos.”

When she got inside her house, she unfolded the bills. Two $5 bills and a couple of ones. Not even enough to buy a new CD.

“So how was it babysitting for Madame Jensen?” Lara asked on Monday. Sofia shrugged and made a face.

The next time Madame Jensen asked her to babysit, she said okay. She watched the girls a half dozen times over the months. The last time Sofia went to the house, she watched the baby while her teacher took the older girls to a Brownie event.

“Lou was supposed to be here, but he had to go out of town for work at the last minute,” the teacher said. “We’ll be home by 2 p.m.”

But Madame Jensen came home hours later, into the dinner hour, when the baby had turned cranky and Sofia had grown impatient.

When she finally got home, Madame Jensen took the whining girl out of Sofia’s arms.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? Mommy is home,” she said. “Sofia, do you think your mom can pick you up so I don’t have to load the kids into the van? Let me write you a check. Five hours, was it?”

It had been almost eight hours, but Sofia didn’t correct her. She folded the check into a triangle and shoved it into a jeans pocket.

“I’ll wait outside for my mom.”

The next time the teacher needed a babysitter, Sofia said no.

“I’m sorry, I can’t help out anymore. I got a real job.”

At the end of the semester, when a print out of grades was mailed home, Sofia opened it expecting to see all As. But next to French she saw a faded blue C-. She stared at the sheet as though she could will the letter to transform. She needed a perfect GPA for the scholarships she was applying for over the summer; she couldn’t pay for college without them.

Sofia went to her room and pulled out her assignments and quizzes. Not one of them had less than a B.

“I bet she did it on purpose because I wouldn’t watch her dumb kids anymore,” Sofia said to Lara. “I can’t believe she would do that. What should I do?”

Sofia got a knot in her stomach at the thought of confronting anyone, but she finally rode her bike to campus the next week when the teachers were finishing up an in-service day.

“Madame Jensen, can you take a look at my grade?” she asked, the words coming out as barely a whisper. “I don’t think I should have got a C.”

The teacher waved her hands like she always did when she was flustered.

“Oh dear, I’ll take a look at my calculations.”

***

She hadn’t thought about Madame Jensen in years but being in that office with her husband, ex-husband, brought the memory back. 

The editor called a week later. He didn’t offer Sofia a job. Instead, he asked her to write a trial story.

“I don’t have any reporter openings right now, but I want you to cover a story Friday night,” he said. “It won’t pay, but if I like it, I’ll publish it and maybe I can hire you at minimum wage as an intern for the summer.”

She got the intern gig and managed through the editor’s mood swings and petulant directions.

He relished taking the printed edition of the paper into the office each morning and marking it up with a red pen, then hanging the broadsheets in the hallway for everyone to see. Bloodsheets, he called them. 

“Just giving everyone an opportunity to learn from their mistakes,” he said.

When her stories escaped a red mark, she was elated.

One morning during the budget meeting, he brought the front page of the weekly paper—their competition—with him and slammed the rolled-up paper on the pinewood conference table.

“Did you see this?” he yelled. “They scooped us on this downtown revitalization story. Get your shit together. This kind of reporting isn’t going to earn any awards or launch any careers.”

Despite the editor’s brash attitude, Sofia was elated when the crime reporter announced he was moving to Southern California for a job. Here was the opening she’d been waiting for all summer.

The editorial team went out for a going away party at a place downtown. Sofia found herself seated next to the editor’s wife – his second wife.

The woman was the opposite of her old French teacher. She was slim with wavy chestnut brown hair that curled around her face, skin toasted in a tanning bed. She looked to be at least 15 years younger than the editor, the first signs of wrinkles appearing around her green eyes.

“I’m Julie,” the woman said as she offered a manicured hand to Sofia. “How long have you been with the paper?”

“I’ve been interning for six months,” she said. “I’m hoping to get hired on permanently now that we have an open beat.”

“Oh, I know Lou loves your work,” Julie said. “The hometown girl, right? I’m rooting for you.”

“Yeah, I grew up here so this is kind of my dream job,” Sofia said. “I actually babysat for his kids when I was in high school. How long have you been together?”

“It’s been about 10 years now,” Julie said. “I was working here for Lou as the education reporter and we just fell for each other. Once we started dating, I transferred to one of the other papers.”

The timeline intersected with the year Sofia had babysat for her teacher, when she was still married to the editor. She didn’t say anything, but that night she turned over her memories of Madame Jensen. All the years she’d thought the teacher had given her a low grade on purpose, she wondered now if she had been distracted because her marriage was disintegrating.

The Monday after the going away party, Sofia waited for the editor to make her a job offer, but instead he walked casually by her desk and said a candidate would be coming in.

“He’ll need a computer so can you make yourself scarce tomorrow?” the editor asked. “You’re covering that theater summer camp so just hang out there most of the day.”

After weeks spending her days out in the field at assignments and watching a string of young reporters settle in at her desk for their trial runs, Sofia stepped into the editor’s office.

“Do you have a minute?” she asked, fidgeting with the ends of her tan blazer. She sat down in the wooden chair and looked him directly in the eyes. “I want you to know I am interested in the open crime reporter’s job.”

The editor smiled at her and glanced at his watch as though he was running late to a meeting.

“Okay,” he said. “I just needed you to tell me you were interested.”

The interviews didn’t end. He brought in five more candidates, and then Claire arrived. Claire walked in, all angles, cheekbones framed by a sharp blonde bob.  She wore a white two-button blazer boldly against her skin, nothing but a bra underneath.

Claire sat at Sofia’s desk for two days, the floral scent of perfume lingering when Sofia returned from a city planning meeting to write up a story on deadline after hours. By the end of the week, the editor called Sofia into the office.

“I’ve made a decision. I’m going to hire Claire to cover education. She’s got a great resume. A Northwestern grad and she’s won awards. She has more experience than you.”

“Okay,” Sofia said.

“I’m moving our current education reporter onto the crime beat.”

She looked toward the brown blinds that shut out the late afternoon sun to keep the editor from seeing her cheeks flush in anger. She scrunched her mouth to ward off tears of frustration.

“I can offer you something at the other daily,” the editor said. “They need someone to help with answering phones and covering the front desk. So it would be partially office work, but you’d have the chance to do some writing.”

Sofia knew the paper. That’s where Julie had been transferred.

“I’ll need to think about it,” Sofia said. “Can you let me know when you want my last day to be here?”

He leaned back in his chair and rested his hands on his belly.

“I’m not in a rush to get rid of you. Take your time to think about the job I can offer you.”

The offer was an insult. She had a master’s, just like Claire, and more knowledge of the city than anyone on staff. Sofia didn’t hesitate a week later when she saw The Metro, a local weekly, was looking for a reporter. She took a day off to interview and the publisher hired her on the spot after perusing the portfolio and chatting about her time in South Africa.

Sofia wrote a two-sentence resignation letter and handed it to the editor. He didn’t read it but moved it to the corner of his desk.

“So you took a job with the enemy?” he said. “Well, I wish you would stay with us, but I guess it just didn’t work out.”

At the weekly, Sofia got into the flow of writing four to five stories a week on politics, education and public health. Every time she broke a story before the daily, she gloated internally. She imagined the editor reading her piece over the weekend, then telling his reporters in the Monday morning budget meeting they needed to get their shit together.

A year in, she was leaving city hall when she ran into Nathaniel, the guy who had taken over the crime beat at the daily.

“Congrats on all those awards this year,” he said.

The California Newspaper Publishers Association had just announced the list of winners for the Better Newspaper Contest. The papers were in different divisions, but the weekly had taken home more awards than the daily, including prizes for three stories Sofia had written. She’d noticed that Claire hadn’t won any awards.

“Yeah, it was exciting to get first place for investigative reporting,” Sofia said.

“It’s too bad you left us for the weekly,” the reporter said.

Sofia shrugged and looked up at the light from the streetlamp.

“It wasn’t in the cards,” she said.

“Did you hear about Lou and Claire?” the reporter asked.

Sofia hadn’t.

“Rumor has it he and Claire hooked up in the newsroom after hours,” he said. “Must be true because Claire transferred to the Watsonville Times and then after a few months she quit to go back to her old paper in the valley.”

“What happened to Lou?”

“He’s gone, too. I heard he’s working as a communications consultant.”

Sofia wasn’t surprised. Two years as a journalist had made her stronger, less naïve. She was learning that men like Lou always landed on their feet.