For Sophia, the idea of family was a distant memory, a memory plagued with alcohol, gambling, cancer and suicide. And at age 24 she found herself living her life in a tatty, run-down neighbourhood in Brooklyn, New York City and working a waitressing job she didn't enjoy, which barely paid enough for her to afford half of her rent.
As she swung her bare legs out of her bed and slipped her dainty feet into her old, previously fluffy pink slippers, she still hadn't opened her eyes. She wished she could stay in the dream state forever, because in that state she could have anything she desired; more than enough money to live comfortably, a journalism career, a family. And she knew that as soon as her brown eyes settled on her best friend, Jasmine, who stood over her tapping her foot violently on the hardwood floor, the dream would end and the reality of a 9 to 5 job would begin once again.
Sophia dressed in the orange uniform that she'd slipped into every morning for the past year and tied her not so white tennis shoes tightly, before setting out onto the busy street for a two block walk to Joey's Diner. The rather large man they called their boss scolded the pair for being a couple of minutes late as soon as they stepped inside, out of the cold November weather. Soon after securing her white apron around her waist, Sophia fell into the rhythm of work; clearing tables, pouring coffee and taking orders. Her mind drifted to a re-run of a television show she and Jasmine had sat down to watch the night before, keeping her occupied while she served customers who regularly 'forgot' to tip more than 50 cents. It was an ever competing city and she knew that, which is why she was grateful for a job that paid little over minimum wage.
Life hadn't always been such a struggle for Sophia. There was a time where she lived in a 3 bedroom semi-detached house with her adoring parents and her younger brother Ethan. It was long ago but that time was there and it was a constant reminder every day that she should be grateful for a healthy body, healthy mind and a roof over her head - even if it was only temporary.
"Table six, order up," Vinny called from behind the counter with a thick Brooklyn accent, and hit the service bell. He was holding two plates, one in each hand, and slid them onto the counter with a loud clatter. The noisy diner was never quiet, and no one expected it to be. It's the way things were in the city: people rush in, order, scoff their food as quickly as possible and leave. A quick turn around is what Joey's is designed for, a fast food diner of sorts. New York had always been Sophia's home state and that's how she liked it. She never travelled and never went on vacation because it just wasn't in her cards. Sophia always looked at it that way, she looked at life as if everything happend for a reason.
At first, it was hard to come to terms with; her mother died when she was 15, just a short year after her brother was taken by cancer, and her life from that moment on was turned upside down. Her family of four quickly became two and then a couple of years later, it became one. She had relatives, an uncle to be precise, but he wasn't much help. Ralph had given her shelter for a year but it was no more than that. It was a place to stay until she was eighteen years old, an adult.
Across the diner, a petite woman entered and took a seat in a booth in the corner with a black earpiece hooked over her ear, the conversation more frustrating than entertaining. Sophia didn't fail to notice the annoyance on her face when she poured the customer a cup of coffee. "I'll do it myself!" The woman yelled, startling Sophia. Her cheeks flushed red as she looked down at the woman with fear that she would hound her about not doing her job properly. Her eyes fell to a single spot of coffee she'd spilled onto the table. When her gaze connected with the customers, she noticed it had not been her she was shouting at; it was the unfortunate soul on the end of the phone line who was getting an earful.
With violence, the feisty woman ended the call on her earpiece and breathed out harshly. "Can I get you anything?" Sophia took the notebook out of her apron pocket ready to take the order.
"A replacement would be nice," she muttered back, looking at the menu in front of her.
"Oh, um is there something wrong with the service?" Sophia asked in a quiet voice, almost a whisper. The woman's eyes quickly found Sophia's and she apologised repeatedly.
"I'm so sorry, that's not what I meant. The service is absolutely fine. I'm just having an off day." She smiled and gave her order. When Sophia returned with the order fifteen minutes later the woman was on the phone arguing once again.
She placed the order on the table and turned to walk away, but was halted by the customer's comment; "I don't suppose you're looking for a job by chance?"
Sophia turned back, "Um... I'm not just working here for fun," she joked with a shrug. The woman laughed.
"My boss expects me to find a replacement for myself. I leave the company in a couple of months time. He's holding interviews today for people I select whom I deem acceptable. A man of his status expects only the best, would you by chance be interested in coming in for an interview? It would help me greatly and I can see you're a capable young woman."
"I-I can't really afford the time off."
"Please take a seat..." Her eyes drifted to Sophia's name badge. "Sophia, Mr McKenzie is willing to pay double minimum wage for the best. He hasn't given me much time to find a replacement, and as I said, he only accepts the best work."
She felt torn; the double minimum wage isn't something that comes along all too often, but could she afford taking an afternoon off work for an interview she may not even get the job for? It was a risk, and Sophia had never been very good at taking risks. She always stuck to the straight and narrow, the path she knew. But she did need the money.
"I hope you don't mind me asking, but we've been speaking for two minutes and you already think I'm the one to replace you. How?"
"I've been in here before and I've heard your co-worker talking to you about money being tight. I can only guess she is your friend as well, and the fact that she trusts you is a bonus. I've seen you here, you're a good worker, and that's enough for me to know you'll work hard and are willing to learn. Am I correct?"
"Yes, of course."
"Then we understand each other?"
"When's the interview?" Sophia asked.
"Two o'clock."
After a couple of seconds, she made her decision and Sophia finally gave her answer; "I'll be there." The woman jumped to her feet and reached into her bag.
"Thank you so much." She removed a business card from her bag and pressed it into Sophia's palm. "I'm Linda Roberts, ask for me at the front desk. The address is on the back." Linda then placed a twenty dollar bill onto the table and gave Sophia one last grateful smile. She left the diner and scurried down the street in the bitter wind without eating a single item from the menu she'd ordered.
She quickly slipped the business card into the front pocket of her apron and busied herself around the diner as if she hadn't just been given the opportunity of a lifetime. She was nervous about asking Joey for the afternoon off, and that was understandable. Asking your boss, who also happens to be 6 and a half feet tall and around 270 pounds for the afternoon off to go to an interview for another job is nerve-wracking, to say the least. She'd be leaving a job where the other staff had become a family of sorts and starting fresh.
Throughout the rest of the morning rush, the business card of Linda Roberts burned a hole in her pocket, the brushing of her fingers on the cardboard, when she reached for her small notebook to take orders, was a constant reminder of the forty-year-old woman she met a mere three hours prior. The interview she had agreed to go to at two o'clock made her nervous, especially as it had slipped her mind to ask what the position would be. She expected nothing more than a receptionist but still, that was a step-up in the hierarchy of jobs in her book.
Sophia had never given up. When times got hard she always persisted, knowing things would get better eventually. She was now twenty-four years old and could finally say that she was living - well, maybe not living. She was alive, that she was sure of, but she was just about surviving adulthood.
Her lunch break had come around rather quickly and it was her only opportunity to speak to Joey without the other listening ears of Vinny, Marleen and Jasmine, her colleagues. Sophia tapped lightly on the thin plywood door to Joey's office and entered once he called her in. He was sitting behind a makeshift metal desk studying a 5-year-old laptop. It was evident from the permanent scowl etched on his face that business wasn't booming as it once had. The stack of bills left to pay to the right of his laptop far outweighed the pile of receipts, which indicated the income the diner had. He was stressed, and that only added to Sophia's nerves about asking for the evening off. Although it shouldn't come as a shock to him that she wanted more out of life, more than sauntering around waitressing and cleaning tables. She wanted a life for herself, and the business card that was laid at the bottom of her pocket was her ticket to just that.
While in the bathroom she had a chance to study the piece of cardboard. The name Linda Roberts was printed in small font underneath the three letters MKT. McKenzie Times, one of the largest newspaper outlets in the country. Of course, Sophia knew this; it was a place she had always dreamed of working, and that dream could come true within a matter of hours. But there was one difference; she'd dreamed of working there as a journalist, not a receptionist.
"What's up?" Joey said without breaking his concentration from the computer screen.
"I, uh... I was wondering if I could take the afternoon off. I know it's short notice but-"
"So long as you get someone to cover your shift I don't see it being a problem."
"Thank you, Joey. I'll make it up to you I swear." She thanked her boss profusely and backed out of the office to finish up her morning shift, before heading back to her shared apartment with Jasmine to get ready for the interview.
The outfit of choice for the interview was simple, a black pencil skirt a size too small and a long sleeve blouse one size too big that she found in the back of Jasmine's closet. In her own, there was only cheap leggings, sweaters and plain shirts- definitely not suitable for an interview at such a high-class establishment.
*
She had only one interview under her belt and it was from when she was a teenager, aged 16 to be exact. And just like her present which was once a distant future, she had to work to survive. After school she ventured on a 45-minute walk across town, her backpack secured tightly on her shoulders to the movie theatre. She'd not once watched a movie there but that didn't discourage her or the owner as she gave a perfectly rounded speech about why she deserved the job, and succeeded in her short trial run. From then on as the bell rang, signalling the end of school at two o'clock, Sophia rushed to the bike shelter, unlocked her second-hand pink bicycle her father bought for her 16th birthday from eBay, and set off in the direction of the movie theatre.
Scooping popcorn into buckets and printing tickets was how she spent most of her evenings until 11:30, and after that, she'd cycle home in the pitch black and start her homework, staying up late until three A.M. to get it done. This happened for two more years, all the while she had to deal with her father's alcoholism, gambling, paying the bills and ultimately his death. Those things were her father's job, not hers but she hadn't a choice; they would've been kicked out onto the street if she didn't grow up and accept the responsibilities that should never have been hers.
After only a short bus journey, Sophia arrived outside the high-rise with 20 floors. She gathered her courage and pressed forward into the building through the glass revolving doors. "Can I help you?" The receptionist, with an expression of boredom, said without taking her eyes from the computer screen. Sophia reached into her bag, removed the business card she had transferred in and slid it across the desk.
"I have an interview at two, Linda Roberts asked me to come in-"
It was the second time Sophia earned a warming smile that day as the receptionist glanced up at her. "Of course. Linda mentioned you. Your interview will be held on the top floor, the elevator is just around that corner." She pointed to the right and Sophia thanked her. She scurried to the elevator that was about to close, yelling 'hold the door'.
A man did as she asked and stopped the doors from closing, giving her a friendly smile once again. Everyone in the building seemed friendly and she was thankful that was the case. It put her in a better mood and eased her nerves. She had hopes that the man who was going to conduct her interview was just as laid back as every other member of staff she'd met. However, the mass of people rushing around with a panicked look on their faces once she reached the top floor indicated otherwise. She attempted to stop a young man with rounded glasses perched on his nose carrying a stack of paper, to ask for directions to Linda Robert's desk, but he muttered something about being insanely busy and pushed past her, running down the hall.
Time was closing in as she sped down the hallway. It's always said to be best to be fifteen minutes early to an interview, and Sophia only had a fifth of that time left. It wasn't that she hadn't been there early, because she had. It was the maze of hallways and doors she found herself having to navigate through in order to find Linda Robert's desk. As it turned out the desk she had been searching for was straight through the long corridor and the final right, as simple as that. Only it wasn't simple, as finding Linda's desk had been a challenge she wished somebody had warned her about before she exited the elevator. She could have tried to ask another employee for help as one would normally, but that wasn't her ways. She didn't like to ask for help. Sophia was one of those people who feared that asking for help meant that she was incapable of surviving on her own, and although she knew that was furthest from the truth, she still didn't ask. She had been alone for 7 years - since her father died - and during that time she'd sworn to never ask for help again. There was a time when she did but it had backfired; she'd asked her uncle for shelter and he'd taken her in, despite his second wife's annoyance, but then kicked her out less than a year later.
If he'd still have been in his first marriage she was sure things would've been different, his first wife Moira loved her and she'd often invite the whole family over for dinner when Sophia was little. Ralph and Moira hadn't any children, it couldn't happen for them but she still loved them. The times when Mary, Sophia's mother was stuck at work she'd called on her sister-in-law to collect the children from school and as always, Moira dropped everything to help out. But then they'd divorced and that was the end of her relationship with the Jenkins family. Moira wanted little to do with the family, her ex-husband was an evil man, he'd hit her regularly. The truth had only come out after Sophia sought refuge at her apartment after her father's death. Moira had turned her away, she'd claimed she didn't have the room and there was some truth in that, after all, she had a fiancée, a child and another on the way all living under one small roof. When Sophia broke down into tears Moira had comforted her and given her the couch for a couple of weeks until she could find her feet, find a place to stay for a short year- even though she didn't know it'd only be 365 days at the time.
"I'm so sorry I'm late, I had trouble finding your desk," Sophia said as she approached Linda who had a nervous look on her face.
"No trouble, just head in straight away. We can't keep Mr McKenzie waiting for much longer," Linda said. "He's a very impatient man."
Her hand came up and tapped lightly on the door, she waited for a response before walking inside and stood awkwardly beside a chair directly in front of the wide mahogany desk. A man sat behind, or so she assumed, the person wasn't visible from where she was standing. The chair was turned around facing out of the large window overlooking the city and swung from left to right a little. The back of his head was only just visible and she noticed the deep brown locks that sat on top. From just seeing the back of his head, she realised he was the man she'd seen on magazines everywhere, including that morning. She'd seen him front and centre on GQ, his expression stern and his body language cold, and she expected this interview to be no different. Emotionless, regimented and frankly a bore.
"Are you going to stand there all day?" His smooth voice sliced through the air, Sophia took an involuntary step backwards as the chair glided around and settled so that it was facing the desk, with a handsome man occupying it by the name of Noah McKenzie. "Take a seat," He said and she did. She perched herself into the chair she had been standing by the side of, her bag at her feet and her posture straight as could be. "You're resumé?"
She handed over a piece of paper with little on the topic of qualifications printed onto it. She didn't have any qualifications other than her journalism degree and that she was hoping that would help her. "It's rather unimpressive, don't you think?" He said although it was more of a rhetorical question. Sophia didn't answer. "Don't you think?" He repeated himself.
"The resumé is a couple of years old. I didn't have a chance to alter it on such short notice," Sophia confessed, yet it hadn't seemed to impress him. He gave her a sideways look.
"I see..." he trailed off as he scribbled something into his notebook. "It would've taken no more than two minutes to alter and print off."
"I, uh, don't have a computer," she told him.
"Why are you here Miss Jenkins? Why do you want this job?" His eyes met hers in the search for an answer in her silence as she thought about her response.
"I want this job because I've always dreamed of working at MKT. I studied journalism at college and it's always been a passion of mine. But not only that, this job is more of a necessity. I have bills to pay and my current job just doesn't cover it. I'm hoping that not only will this job benefit me financially, but it will also boost my opportunities in the world of journalism. I'm a hard worker and efficient. I know that I will be an asset to your tea-" She told him but was soon cut off by the intimidating man, who had his arms folded across his chest.
"Cut the 'I'm a hard worker' bullshit. If I can see that for myself, we won't have a problem."
"Sorry," she said.
"When can you start?" His question caught her off guard.
"Sorry?"
"I will not make it a habit to repeat myself, Miss Jenkins." He unfolded his arms, pinched the bridge of his nose, and then re-folded his arms. "When can you start?" He repeated slower this time.
She thought it was some kind of joke. It was barely an interview and he didn't get to know her at all. If this was how he hired all employees, she would bet her life that his business wasn't running as smoothly as he would like people to believe. "The sooner the better."
"Ten o'clock tomorrow. Do not be late, there is paperwork and a contract to sign." He marched over to the door and gripped the handle. Before there was a chance to open it, Sophia decided to ask the burning question. "Why?"
"Excuse me?"
"I don't mean to be disrespectful because I'm grateful for this opportunity, but why was this so easy? I've been to an interview before I know they don't go like this." Mr McKenzie slammed the door that was ajar and turned back to Sophia who was standing a mere two feet from him.
"I've taken a chance on you, that is all you need to know." He opened the door fully and shook Sophia's hand. She left the room without looking back, wondering what he meant and why he'd taken a chance on a woman he knew nothing about.
*
A few weeks had passed since Sophia had signed the contract with MKT. She already had twenty-five shifts under her belt and roughly knew her way around the top floor of the office. She'd yet to make any friends at work as she had at Joey's, and if she were to regret anything about taking that job, that would be it. She had Vinny and Marleen at the diner and she'd considered them her close friends since the day she started, but now that she'd left, she doubted they'd want to keep in touch.
She limited herself to only one regret because apart from that, she knew she was in a better position. Her pay was $22 an hour at McKenzie Times and for the short 6 hours that she worked per day, she was ecstatic with her wages. Not only could she afford to pay half of her rent with her monthly wage, but she was also able to save. She took a fifth of her earnings and put them into a small, round empty biscuit tin which she kept in a drawer in her bedside table. It was her emergency money, or so she looked at it that way. She didn't dare touch it, it was for a rainy day. If she or Jasmine couldn't afford their half of the rent they'd use that money, but most importantly, it was her security blanket. It only had around seven hundred dollars in it so far, but it was a start, and she felt grateful that the job paid just enough for her to finally see her life in a better light.