I read it three times just to be sure. I'd been fooled into thinking that a job was exactly what I wanted once before, and I wasn't in a hurry to do so again. Yet, what harm could a job interview do? I didn't have to take the new position, but it might be a better fit than what I currently had at ZephTech.
I put the phone back in my pocket and looked up once more at the sky. The universe really was looking out for this baby, I decided and I went back inside.
Chapter 20
It was now Friday at three, and I was ready for my interview. I'd barely been at ZephTech as a full time employee for a week now, and I was ready to pull my hair out. I hated it. Without having an end date, every day was worse than before. My heart just wasn't in doing everything for the company with only a pat on the back for reward. I was looking forward to this job interview. I was hoping it would give me something a little less demanding, something that I could continue to do once the baby was born. Even if it didn't pan out, I was excited for the job interview as a chance to expand my horizons.
I wore my best suit. It was a dark gray with strong lines that I felt projected strength and dependability. At least, I hoped it did. Paired with some cute low pumps, I felt ready to take on the world.
My phone buzzed. It was another phone call from Jacob. I didn't answer it. I still didn't want to talk to him. I'd told Lauren that he wasn't allowed in the apartment, and upon hearing that he had used my programming ideas, she was furious. She had actually gone out in the hallway the one time he had tried to see me and she told him off herself.
After the cops were called by some worried neighbors, he stopped trying to come to the apartment. I was just glad his emails, texts, and calls were easy to delete, even if every one of them reminded me that I needed to tell him about the baby eventually. But, the key word in that sentence was eventually.
I parked my car and made sure my resume was still tucked neatly in a folder along with some samples of my work. I was ready for my interview.
Thankfully, my morning sickness was behaving itself. Since figuring out that was the culprit, I had changed my eating habits. I had ginger ale on me at all times and made sure that I had saltine crackers to keep something in my stomach. It wasn't exactly a cure, but it did seem to help.
I parked my car and started walking to the interview location. We were to meet at a chess table in the middle of a large park nearby and I was given exact GPS coordinates. I was rather surprised that it was outdoors, but the woman on the phone said that the boss liked to be a little informal for job interviews. He felt that putting people in nature tended to show their true qualities, or something like that.
Either way, it was going to be a unique interview.
I easily found the chess table and took a seat, making sure that I looked put together and ready for my interview. I was a couple of minutes early, so I double checked that I was in the right location. According to my GPS, I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
I took a deep breath and rehearsed my job interview questions in my head. I was half way through telling myself of a time when I went above and beyond on a project when I noticed someone walking toward me. It was a younger man in comfortable clothing, but considering anything went in the tech world, I wasn't terribly surprised. I stood up and smiled, ready to greet my prospective future employer.
“Mr. Brandish?” I asked, holding out my hand. “Peter Brandish?”
The man looked up from his phone and shook his head. “No, I'm here for the monster.”
I stared at him for a good two seconds before he motioned to the table behind me. “What?”
“Oh, I see it,” he replied, pointing to my table. He held up his phone and spoke into the speaker. “I'm Sorry Alicia.”
I continued to stare at him like he was speaking in tongues, but he wasn't paying attention to me now anyway. He moved his finger across the screen and grinned before walking away.
I wasn't quite sure what to do, so I just sat back down at the table.
“Excuse me,” a young woman said, coming up to me. She held up her phone and spoke into it. “I'm Sorry Alicia.”
“What?” I asked, not sure I had heard her correctly. “How do you know my name?”
“I don't,” the woman replied as she grinned at her phone. “But it's how you catch the monster.”
“The monster?” I was so confused, but the woman was gone. More people had come up to my area and were speaking into their phones. A murmur of “I'm Sorry Alicia” was filling the air as more and more people came and said it.
“What in the hell is going on?” I asked completely confused.
The question was really to
myself, but a young boy heard me and responded. “We’re here for the I’m Sorry Alicia. It one of the rarest Monsters that the game has introduced. Nobody has even heard of it before today.”
“The I’m Sorry Alicia?” I asked. “What the hell is that?”
But the boy was gone, replaced with another person speaking the words and attempting to catch the creature.
Within seconds, the entire park was filled with people. They were all holding their phones, cramming up against my chess table. They all kept saying, “I'm Sorry Alicia,” into their phones and then grinning before walking away.
“I don’t know any of you!” I shouted.