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1
Oakley
I’m tempted to stick my head out the window and slam it as hard as I can, just so that I don’t have to answer any more questions. Twenty-one years, a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and I’m still stuck in the one place I never wanted to be, answering questions I’ve answered a million times before.
“Oakley, you’re still down here? I thought you’d at least come up for breakfast,” my mom says, coming down the stairs and swinging into my bedroom without knocking.
I finish typing my job history into an application to be a school counselor before I look up at her. “I’m applying for jobs. You have to keep sending applications until you get something. It’s not as easy as it used to be.”
She gives me a doubtful look, her hands clasped behind her back. “You know, if you got out of your room occasionally and went down to some of the places you’re applying to, I’m sure they’d take you into consideration.”
I struggle not to roll my eyes. “Mom, that’s not the way it works now. Some of these places are private offices. You can’t just walk in there and hand in your resume. You have to apply online.”
She sighs. “You could try. There’s no harm in that.”
I purse my lips, attempting a smile that probably looks more like I bit into a lemon. “I’ll come up for a coffee or something in a minute. I’m just wrapping up this last application. It’s easier to get through them in the morning.”
She gives me a pitying look. “You could always go back to school. I hear computer science pays well.”
Now I know she’s just trying to annoy me. I’m not going back to school for another four years to get a degree in something that doesn’t even interest me. I’m not going to sell my soul for money. Besides, I have enough student debt to pay already.
“I’ll be upstairs in a minute,” I grumble, opening another tab on my browser and turning away from her.
“Oh, I was going to give you this,” she says, holding out a thick white envelope. “It came in the mail this morning, and it has your name on it. Maybe it’s a job offer,” she says, her eyes lighting up.
I frown, getting up from my chair to take it. “Could be,” I mutter, turning over the envelope.
It’s from the state of Nevada, and it’s addressed to me. I don’t remember applying for a job in Nevada, much less a government job, but any work is better than nothing. It might just keep me from slamming my head in the window.
“Let me know what it says. I have eggs on the stove,” my mom says, dipping out of my room.
Finally. I wasn’t going to open it in here with her staring at me like that, and if it was a job offer, I wouldn’t want to hear her opinion on it. I already know that she thinks psychology isn’t a real science, and there’s no job a person could get as a psychologist except for an underpaid position as a social worker.
I hope that’s not what this letter is about, but I’d take a job as one of those people that flips signs on the side of the road in a chicken suit at this point. Anything to get me out of the house and put some money in my pocket would satisfy me.
I shut my bedroom door and walk over to my bed, holding the white envelope in my hand so hard that it bends. My sweat has already soaked through the paper, and my fingers stick when I try to let go of it.
“Come on, Oakley, don’t make this into some big drama,” I say to myself.
I take a deep breath and tear down the side of the envelope, going slowly so that I don’t damage any of the papers inside. It feels like there are quite a few crammed in there. It can’t just be junk mail.
I pull out the folded papers and place the envelope down beside me, smoothing it out on the bed as though I’ll need it later. I’m almost too nervous to look at the letter. I’m afraid that I’ll be disappointed, and I’ll need to go upstairs and tell my mom that it was just an advertisement for a theme park or resort in Nevada.
But I can be brave. I have to be, so I unfold the stack of papers, reading the first few lines and immediately realizing that this isn’t some silly ad.
It isn’t a job offer, either.
It’s even more interesting, something I would’ve never expected to receive.
I reread the first page to make sure I’m not going crazy before I move to the next few, combing through them as my heartrate increases and pumps so much blood into my ears that when my mom calls me up for food, I can barely hear her.
“Oakley, your eggs are going to get cold,” she whines.
I scramble to fold the papers up, shoving them back into their envelope and hiding the letter under a stack of books on my dresser. I slam my laptop shut and take the stairs up to the kitchen by threes.
My mom is sitting down with a cup of coffee, eying me with a suspicious frown as I slide into the kitchen in my socks. “You’re awfully excited about something,” she notes as I jump into my chair and bury my face into my plate to hide my expression from her.
“Um, yeah, I got an offer for an interview,” I lie, shoveling lukewarm scrambled eggs into my mouth.
