The Interview

“Trust me, kid… It could always be worse…”

He didn’t look exactly like me, but that still didn’t change the fact that it felt like I was staring into a mirror. His wavy brown hair, light-blue eyes, that nervous fidget he did with his fingers. It was a mirror image alright. One that started my senior year in high school and ended with a slap in the face after a college football game.

He was the fourth person I’d interviewed that day, and truth be told, he’d probably be the last. Not because I was impressed with his resume or blown away by his people skills, but because I’d been fighting back the urge to vomit since he stepped foot into my office and told me his name. He was only sixteen years old and maybe a whopping hundred and fifty pounds. But as he sat there in that rickety old chair, staring at me with that nervous, blank look on his face, I couldn’t help but feel like I was about three inches tall and every bit as nervous as he was.

“So, uh, Chris. Do you go by Chris or Christopher?”

“Oh, just Chris, sir. Only my mom calls me Christopher,” he joked.

I didn’t laugh.

Sarah always talked about how she liked the name Christopher. Said it reminded her of Winnie the Pooh. I guess she wasn’t lying.

“Alright, Chris. Well, uhh, it says here you’re still in high school?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What grade are you in?”

“I’m about to start my Junior year, sir.”

“And are you part of any clubs, play any sports; anything that might interfere with work?”

“I used to play soccer, but I quit about two years ago.”

Of course he played soccer. So did I when I was his age.

“Why’d ya quit? If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”

“Ahh, I just got tired of it, I guess,” he said with a shrug; that nervous twitch with his hands starting to show.

“Alright. Well, nothing wrong with that. Umm. I also noticed that you didn’t put anything down for past work experience. I assume this would be your first job?”

“Yes, sir, it would be.”

“Any reason you decided to put in an application here with us?”

I could tell that question made him nervous.

“Well, because… I mean, if I’m being honest… you were hiring,” he nervously laughed. “That and I really want to buy a car. So, I need to start saving up.”

Nodding my head, I acted like I was writing something down.

I wasn’t.

Uneasy with the awkward silence, he quickly started to ramble; a trait I could only assume he learned from his mother. I always hated it when people rambled.

“My mom’s first job was working as a cashier at a local grocery store. She told me she learned a lot about how to talk to people and how to think on the fly. Said it gave her the confidence she needed to go after a business degree.”

I guess Sarah finished college after all. Good for her.

“Right… Well, I can honestly say that you’d be getting a lot of the same experience here. We stay pretty steady most days. Did your mom ever say anything about where she worked at when she was younger?”

I didn’t mean to ask that last question. Even I knew I wasn’t legally allowed to pry like that. Luckily for me though, Chris was only sixteen, and he had no idea what was and wasn’t legal.

“She just said she started working there in high school and for a little while during college. I think she was still working there when she had me, but I’m not really sure.”

“Uh-huh. Well, it also says here that you just moved out this way. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir. About four months ago.”

“What brought ya’ll to Sharonville?”

“My mom grew up around here and most of her family is from West Tennessee.”

“Really? Well, that’s nice. How are you liking it so far?”

I could tell he wasn’t too sure how to answer that one.

“It’s alright, I guess. Sometimes I miss Portland, but at least here you don’t have to worry about someone breaking into your car every time you go out.”

“Is that why ya’ll moved here? To get away from the crime?”

Now, I was prying.

“I mean… no, not really. My mom just got divorced, and she didn’t really have any family out where we were living. So, she wanted to move back home, that way she could be a little closer to them.”

Nodding along, it was everything I could do not to puke all over myself.

“I’m, uhh, I’m sorry to hear about that. I’m sure that has to be pretty hard.”

“It’s fine,” he shrugged, trying his best to put on a strong face. “My mom’s happy, and that’s all that matters to me.”

He was lying, of course. Not about being happy for his mom, that part was true, but about being ‘alright’. I knew he was lying, because he did the same thing I always did right before I lied; nodding his head three or four times before biting the upper corner of his lip – the little bastard.

“Yeah,” I sighed, “I guess that is all that matters. Well, you know that our hours are from nine to seven, Monday through Saturday; twelve to eight on Sundays. Of course, if we hired you, you’d be coming in after school to help close up and probably for a few hours during the weekend. Is that alright?”

“Uh! Yes, sir,” he replied, a hint of joy returning to his eyes.

“I assume you get out of school around, what time? Three-ish?”

“Yes, sir!”

“So, we could bring you in around four-ish? Would that give you enough time to get here?”

“Yeah, yeah! Yes, sir! That works great!”

“Alright. Well, we’d have to send you off for a drug test before we can start any paperwork, but I doubt that’ll be a problem. And of course, I’d need Sarah to sign a permission slip for you since you’re not eighteen yet.”

FUCK ME RUNNING!

As soon as the words left my lips, my entire world froze.

I just called her by name…

He never told me her name!

What the fuck was I thinking?!

All of a sudden, my ears turned bright red. My heart started pounding. This was it! He was about to know!

Gripping my clipboard, I braced for the worst.

Only, the worst never came.

He didn’t pay any attention to it at all. Didn’t even flinch. I could have said her full maiden name right there in front of him, and he would have been none the wiser. He was too caught up in his own little world to notice what was sitting right in front of him. To notice who was sitting right in front of him.

But then again, what else did I really expect?

He was my son after all.

“Uhh… Mister Snider,” he hummed, drawing me back from my own awkward silence. “Do I, uhh. Do I have the job, sir?”

“Yeah,” I muttered back. “Yeah, we’ll give you a call in a few days.”

Grinning from ear to ear, he shot up from his chair and took me by the hand.

“Thank you so much, sir! Really, this means so much to me!”

“Me too,” I replied, still reeling from the shock of it all.

Taking a moment to pull myself together, I finally looked up from my desk only to realize that he was long gone. Sitting all alone in my office, I had a thousand different questions racing through my mind, and not a damn one of them had a clear-cut answer. Just outside the door, another interviewee sat patiently waiting. And outside in the parking lot, sat the son I’d never met before.

“Shit,” I groaned. “It’s gonna be a long summer.”