Apprehension made me clutch my satchel like I was walking through Brixton at two in the morning.
The young receptionist looked up from her screen and put her tea mug down. She had a chic black pageboy and immaculate makeup, reminding me of Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. I looked at the shiny gold name tag on her black lapel. What a letdown.
“Good morning,” she said brightly. Her accent was Aussie. “Take a seat, Elizabeth, and I’ll let them know you’re here.”
“Thank you, Velma.”
I showed her all my teeth and amped up the chirpiness. At my last interview the panel had watched each candidate arrive, talk to the receptionist and sit down. The verdict on Elizabeth Benítez? I’m sullen and shifty-eyed. My ability to read people has intensified in the last few years so glances from me really are the shifty-eyed sort, but I protest the sullenness.
I pasted a smile on my face and pretended to read a magazine. A few minutes later I was ushered into a meeting room. There were three people sitting at a glossy mahogany table with a pitcher of water in the middle. I shook hands with each one, steeling myself to look them in the eye and show how pleased I was to be there.
The younger man, Gregory Brentford, was one of the lawyers I’d be working with and the older man, Mr Lemane, was one of the senior partners. I sat down and kept my attention on the woman—Kate Saunders, personnel manager. She returned my look.
Whoa!
I don’t swing that way, but if I did I might have taken her up on it. She was hot for a woman in her fifties—and adventurous. I coughed to hide my embarrassment. That would teach me not to look into anybody’s eyes long enough to read them if I got this job.
“I’m very glad to be here,” I began, and Ms Saunders snapped back to business mode. She, Lemane and Brentford took it in turns to tell me about the firm and question me.
“What we’re looking for is linguistic ability more than anything else,” Brentford said. “You can learn the ropes gradually.”
I was relieved. “Fluency in Spanish and legal secretarial experience I have in spades, as you can see from my CV.”
Ms Saunders looked up from the copy she’d been perusing. “Five years working at Grupo Ardinal in Valencia. Conveyance department then Probate. Out of curiosity, what made a—” she paused to look at my date of birth and do the maths, “—a young woman of nineteen move to Spain?”
Pain and regret, my mind supplied promptly.#p#分页标题#e#
“When I finished my secretarial studies I wanted to prove that I could be independent. Commit to a course of action that would challenge me every day.”
Like staying clean and sober.
She gave me piercing look. “And did you succeed?”
“Yes,” I said brightly. “It was hard to live abroad on my own at first but it got easier once I found coping strategies.”
Mr Lemane leaned forward. “You have excellent references. Why did you leave Grupo Ardinal?”
Because it’s time to rectify my mistakes and—
I told my mind to shut up and concentrate on the interview. “My firm was fantastic but my home is in England, close to my loved ones.”
He gave me a searching look. “Yes, especially if you have children.”
Shit, that was my cue to confirm or deny a productive womb. I schooled my face to neutral. “I have a six-year-old son who lives with his father.”
They digested that with barely a change of expression but I saw the nosy disapproval in their eyes. Brentford leaned his elbows on the table and it was all I could do not to heave a big, frustrated sigh. I’d seen similar expressions on other interviewers’ faces before and it didn’t bode well for getting the job. Brentford would now make an oblique reference to my YouTube performance and thank me for coming in.
It was more than infuriating but what did I expect? Drunk and vulgar addicts who sleep with their sister’s fiancé and happily announce it to the world do not fit the image of a prestigious law firm. Brentford leaned forward as if he was about to pounce and I waited for the inevitable, blinking a few times to stem the tell-tale burn in my eyes.
“The position requires travel to Spain with Mr Scott-Thomas and myself. Will that be a problem?”
Huh? He wasn’t going to mention the video and thank me for coming in? Relief made me feel giddy and I blamed paranoia for my negative interpretation of his body language. But wait... Hold on a bloody second. My stomach clenched and relief was replaced by horror. Did he just say he worked with James? James Xavier Scott-Thomas?
The advert for a bilingual secretary said nothing about working in Tax Law. It mentioned the Spanish requirement and experience within a law firm and nothing else. I’d been angry as hell when I answered it, but I wasn’t insane. Flintfire was a large firm, spread out over five floors. I figured any coincidental bumping into James would be in the lift or over the water cooler.