Elise closed the door and her heels click clacked back to her desk, where she sat in her maroon-colored fidgety chair. She smiled at Robin for a long time, her left leg over the right.
"How's your first day here?"
Robin's hand gripped onto the arm of her couch, and she fidgeted a little,
"It's uh... going good."
Elise just kept smiling as if she didn't notice Robin's discomfort,
"That's great. So, you're good at stacking books."
"I bet you didn't think I'd be," Robin mumbled under her breath.
Elise just laughed,
"That's alright, Robin. You know why I chose you for this job?"
Robin rolled her eyes mentally and placed her hands on her lap, raising a critical brow,
"Why's that?"
"Because out of all the kids I interviewed, you actually stood up for yourself. Funny, that."
Robin made a face and shook her head,
"Wait, what?"
"Well, I sort of have a... different technique for my job interviews. Lotta the kids that come to me for job interviews are well, first timers. They're young and clueless, don't have any idea what the real world is like. So I... rough 'em up. Or I act a little shady. It's nothing, really. But surprisingly, they always take it from me like they're some dog or something. In my opinion, if you stand a chance in the real world, you're someone who can defend yourself. Not to say that you should blatantly disrespect your potential employer somewhat like you did, but you should be a little more defensive."
"So... what you're saying is..."
"You were the only kid I interviewed that did that. And I gotta say, I was quite impressed."
"Well then why didn't you give me the job right away?" Robin asked, furrowing her brows.
Elise shrugged,
"All part of the process. I wanted to let you off on a sour note so that you could feel all disappointed. Hey, you wanna survive in the real world, you gotta know the feeling of being put down, declined. I was hoping you'd feel that."
Robin scoffed,
"I sure did."
"Well, good. You did good, Robin. I thought you should know that before you leave today."
"Oh," was all Robin said.
Upon exiting work that day, Robin was in a mixed mood. She didn't want to do this kind of work for the next few months. In fact she'd rather have a job where she got to check out the books and give people library cards. Sadly, she was stuck with this job. But, the bright side was that she had a chance to get some of her writing published. Though she didn't let people in about the fact that she wanted to be a writer and not just a singer, she thought maybe just having the opportunity would be good enough.
She came home about an hour or two later and welcomed her parents and her dogs at the door. Her father was cooking dinner and her mother was setting the table with dishes, tablecloths and glasses. The savory aroma of chicken stir fry filled the entire house and Robin's mouth watered. Besides breakfast that morning and lunch at school, she hadn't had much of anything to eat.
After greeting each other, Robin helped set up the table and they sat down to eat not too long after. As she'd been long trained to do, Robin ignored Senna and Stag who were begging her for some food, and the family had a conversation about their days as per usual.
"So, Robin, how was your first day of work?" her dad asked excitedly, lurching forward and ruffling Robin's slightly curly hair, still retaining some of its straight sheen texture from the last time she'd straightened her hair.
"Get off her, Hugh," Robin's mother complained, wiping her mouth with a white napkin.
Robin's dad chuckled and sat back in his place. Robin opened her scrunched up eyes and pushed random strands of hair off of her forehead.
"Well, it was alright. Kinda weird."
"Weird? Why?" Robin's mom asked, cocking her head to the left.
Robin widened her eyes, not wanting to speak about her horrific interview experience that her boss cleared up for her, which had made her first day pretty odd,
"No reason. Just, a lot of books. Never seen that many before. Well, I have, but when you work at the library, seeing them all at once, it's really a lot."
She was basically lying out of her ass.
Regardless, her parents laughed and smiled, and her dad praised her,
"We're just glad you got a job, and proud."
Robin swallowed and looked down at her plate,
"Thanks, pops. I really... appreciate it."
Her mother suddenly perked up and asked,
"So, how's school been going! You haven't talked much about it, how are your friends?"
"They're-" Robin started, but was interrupted.
"You made friends?" her dad intervened.
Robin tried again,
"Yeah, they're rea-"
Robin's mother nodded enthusiastically,
"Yeah! Good, nice friends! Oh (Robin's mother chuckled), she made friends with a gay little white boy. Isn't that funny?"
Her dad's head cocked towards Robin,
"White?"
Her mother clicked her tongue,
"Oh, cool it, Hugh. He's gay."
"I thought we agreed to stay away from these white boys."
"Oh, Hugh. Aren't gay white boys an exception? He won't try anything, and he won't try to hurt my Birdy. Besides, Robin's smart. She wouldn't fall for a white boy again anyway, Right, baby?" her mother shook her head at her dad's skepticism (which he was rightful to have, seeing as Robin was lying out of her ass.)
"Yeah!" Robin nodded frantically, then shoving in her mouth a spoonful of stir fry.
Her father shook his head and smiled,
"You're right. What's the kid gonna do, I mean, he's gay right?"
"Yeah, right," Robin laughed hesitantly, and they broke off the conversation and started talking about their own jobs.
Meanwhile, Robin filtered them out, too focused on her own thoughts. Great. Now both her parents knew about River. Not only that, but Robin would have to deal with Dennis the next day, and for the rest of the week until he took her on that stupid date, whenever the next Italian test was. A deal was a deal, and if it weren't for the leverage Dennis had over her, Robin would surely cross that off the list of her Weekly Worries. Instead, she was sandwiched between two white guys, and her parents were the mustard and cheese.
hehe robin's in deep shit and she lyin out ha ass. she doesn't lie very much sooo we gon see about ALLAT. next chapter will be focused on robin's loverboy ;) i won't spoil it but some shit is gonna really go down and you're all gonna hate me lmao.
- zuzu xxx
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white boys (river phoenix)
Fanfictioncover by @pacifyherafi / nicole "Sure, maybe the urban Boston wouldn't be completely socially aware, but they'd at least have some idea of how to treat us like we were all the same. So, we were packing up our bags, and I was going to a new school, a...
