✯ Los Angeles ✯
Interviews.
The ten letter word that Gianna had absolutely hated.
Even though Kobe, Gianna & Natalia were half an hour late to the interview, they were let off the hook because of who Kobe was, as well as Gianna being his daughter and all that.
They were now in the waiting room for the interview, and hopefully, they wouldn't have missed their slot.
The place there were in right now was very sophisticated, and even though it wasn't actually where the basketball camp was going to be exactly?
It was a place where interviews had usually taken place.
What the place had looked like?
Here:
And they were in one of the rooms on the left hand side, with Gianna walking around in circles continuously, kind of helplessly fretting and stressing over the interview.
"What if I fail, dad?" She worried. "What if I screw up? What if everything goes wrong?"
She couldn't stop thinking like this, with Natalia telling her that maybe if she had actually revised instead of obsessing over Jhacari's Instagram?
Then she wouldn't really have been in this situation right now.
Gianna had just stuck her tongue out at her, with Natalia doing the same thing to her. Kobe in the meantime had just told her to calm down, with Gianna doing the exact opposite.
As they were running late, Kobe had therefore asked for their slot to be moved by half an hour, and they had been waiting for that slot for twenty minutes now.
It was with Gianna worrying over the interview that a surprise visitor had showed up, absolutely shocked that Kobe was here.
"Kobe?"
Kobe had looked around the waiting room to see who had been calling him, and when Gianna had realised who it was, she had screamed with happiness, running over to hug the person.
"LeBron James!"
She had hugged him really tightly, with LeBron doing the same thing to her, before fist bumping Kobe, eventually turning into a hug.
"What you doin' out here, man? I didn't know you were in Los Angeles."
"I was thinking the exact same thing about you, too," Kobe had replied. "And Gianna here has got an interview in a few minutes. We're just waiting for her. What are you doing here?"
Apparently, his spouse was one of the interviewers, and he had wanted to go and visit her.
Unfortunately for Gianna though, her interview had started five minutes early, so twenty five minutes after they had waited (instead of thirty), a lady with the name tag of Genevieve had called her name.
She had shoulder length ginger hair, emerald eyes and she was wearing a very formal business suit with a pencil skirt as well as sophisticated shoes.
Freckles were everywhere on her face, and she was also holding a clipboard.
When Gianna had told her that she was there, she had done some sort of tick on the clipboard that she was holding, before telling Gianna to follow her.
Everybody had wished her good luck as she had gone, with Gianna being really scared as to be honest?
She had barely studied or prepared for this interview.
After what had felt like centuries going through presumably the same corridor a hundred times, Gianna and Genevieve had eventually arrived at the interviewing room...
And there were honestly way too many people there.
Yeah, no.
This ain't happening.
Gianna wanted to go back but she couldn't have done so, she was stuck here whether she had liked it or not, and she didn't.
It was even a lot worse because a lot of people had known that she was Kobe Bryant's daughter, so she had honestly felt as though everybody was judging her, even if they weren't.
Majority of the people here had seemed to be paying no attention to Gianna whatsoever because they were too busy focused on their own interview to even realise that the girl was there.
Just ignore them.
And if they stare at you?
Pretend they're not there.
A few minutes later, and Genevieve had eventually told Gianna to take a seat right opposite her.
They were now face to face with very uncomfortable chairs, with a round table located right in the middle of both of them.
"Alright, Gianna. It's time for your interview. Are you ready?"
"I'd like to think so, yeah."
Genevieve had just stared at her blankly when she had said that, with Gianna doing the same thing to her, before realising what she had said.
"Oh! I mean, yes. Yes, I am ready. Sorry. I'm just a little bit nervous right now. Don't mind me."
According to Genevieve anyway, there was apparently absolutely nothing for Gianna to worry about.
Uh, screw that!
There were many things for Gianna to worry about right now!
Including but not limited to:
- Failure
- Messing up her speech
- Knowing what to say but not saying it
- Lying about everything to impress Genevieve, even if what Gianna was lying about was far off from the truth
And many others.
"Right," Genevieve had continued, typing something on the computer right opposite her, which had revealed the questions that she had needed to ask Gianna for the interview.
The first question was what had made Gianna like basketball so much, as well as why she had felt as though she was suitable to come to this basketball camp that she wanted to go to.
In order words:
Why she should have been chosen to come here.
Why she had felt as though she had deserved to come here.
Despite the fact that Gianna knew the answer very well, she was too petrified to say it.
Worst of all, Genevieve had kept on looking at her like crazy, like that was going to solve anything— it really didn't.
"Gianna? I'm waiting for an answer."
She sighed.
Then prayed.
Then did the 'in the name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit' thing with her forehead and shoulders.
Then she had fake smiled at Genevieve again.
"Basketball has always been a passion of mine," she had continued. "I have fallen in love with it since the day I was born."
OK, so that bit wasn't exactly true but if Gianna had to lie to get what she wanted in this interview, then so be it.
It had seemed to be working though, much to her surprise.
Gianna was finally doing this!
And there was no going back now.
"My dad influenced me and he had inspired me a lot. I guess he's my superstar. So him liking basketball had kind of made me want to like basketball as well, if that makes sense. And I believe that I should come here because I'm a very hard working girl, and I would do whatever it takes to get to the top."
Yes, Gianna!
You got it, girl. You got it.
Genevieve was very impressed with her answer, writing a lot of positive comments on the clipboard that Gianna couldn't have seen.
Halfway through the interview though, a black male staff member had come in, asking Genevieve if Gianna was Kobe Bryant's daughter.
"You should automatically let her come here," the staff member had told Genevieve. "Kobe Bryant's a legend."
"Yes, I know that, Ezekiel," Genevieve had hissed through gritted teeth. "But celebrity or not, she still has to do the interview. We don't let anyone come here without acing the interview and the test first."
The next question for Gianna was how good she was at basketball, because, inevitably, there was absolutely no way she could have gotten accepted into the basketball camp without being good at basketball.
"I'm pretty good, if I do say so myself," Gianna had smiled, but not in a boastful way.
Genevieve had then given her a basketball, in which Gianna had dribbled with it, then scored with the basketball hoop from far away.
No wonder this interview is in a sports hall, she realised. It all makes perfect sense now.
As Genevieve was very impressed with Gianna's progress and skill, she didn't feel as though it was necessary to ask her the remaining eight questions of the interview— there were ten questions in total.
Because of that, it was now time for Gianna's test, where she would have been tested on how good her memory was.