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Thank you for taking the time to interview with our team. While we were extremely impressed by your academic background and experience⁠—

I stop.

Of course, they were impressed.

Everyone is always impressed.

They’re impressed by my degree, my certifications, by the internship I completed in graduate school, my language skills.

Apparently, the only thing more impressive than me is whoever they ultimately decide to employ instead.

I lock my phone.

“Excellent,” I mutter.

“Why?” a small voice asks.

I turn.

A little girl stands near the edge of the pavement. She can’t be older than eight, maybe nine.

Her blonde hair is braided neatly over one shoulder, and she wears the academy uniform: navy blazer, white blouse, pleated skirt, black tights, polished shoes.

Her backpack is navy too.

Naturally.

Someone in this place has committed very seriously to branding.

The blonde girl looks at me with large blue eyes.

“Why what?” I ask.

“You said excellent,” she says. “But you look angry.”

I glance down at my phone. “Those things can coexist,” I say.

She considers that. “My papa says fantastic when he’s angry.”

I smile despite myself. “Your papa and I may have attended the same school of emotional communication.”

She frowns slightly. “I don’t think so,” she says. “He went to school in Russia.”

That makes me laugh.“No,” I say. “Probably not, then.”

She moves a little closer. “What happened?”

I should tell her nothing.

She’s eight.

She doesn’t need to know about employment markets or applicant tracking software or the extraordinary number of ways a corporation can tell a person to go fuck herself while maintaining excellent grammar.

“I didn’t get a job,” I say.

She looks at my jacket. “Aren’t you working?”

I glance at the delivery logo on my chest.