Page 120 of Crossing the Brooklyn Briggs
Me: All systems are go.
Queens: I’m already freaking out about this interview, Torres. Don’t make me interpret NASA references.
Me: Houston is fine. We’re fine. Everything is fine. And you’re going to do great in your interview. I’ll be rooting for you, Queens.
Chapter Forty-Three
Brooklyn
I genuinely don’t know howto feel right now. After several hours of building anticipation and nerves, all of this feels…anticlimactic? It’s like putting baking soda and vinegar in a fake volcano to make it erupt but not realizing you actually grabbed flour instead of soda until it forms nothing but a goopy paste. Or maybe dropping Mentos in your soda can, only to realize you have lemonade, not Coke, so the big chemical-like reaction you were expecting just looks like a waste of food.
That’s not accurate either. There’s no waste, just…confusion.
That’s probably the reason I’m sitting on a bench just outside Hepburn Labs instead of…literally anything else I could be doing right now.
He said you would say that.That sentence is stuck in my brain on repeat, and at the moment it’s the only takeaway I’ve got from the interview. Well, that and a job offer because apparently Hepburn has been desperate for a biochemist for over a year.
I pull up the video chat app that I didn’t know was on my phone until I was trying to waste time in the parking lot because I got here over an hour early. Playing around on my phone was a dangerous pastime, but it did lead me to finding this app.
I have a feeling Jordan installed it for me at some point.
As I call Jordan, I stare at my face on the screen. I look shell shocked, which feels pretty accurate.
The call connects, and Jordan’s face fills the screen. “Hey, Queens! How did it go?” His smile is wide but not as bright as usual, and his eyebrows are pulled low. It’s getting easier to read him, and I love that he’s nervous for me.
“They offered me the job.”
His jaw drops. “That’s amazing! But…why don’t you look excited? Do you not want it?”
“I accepted the offer. I’ll work every other Saturday and during school holidays until June, and then I’ll be full-time. It’s my dream job.”
He grimaces, shifting his hold on the phone. I can’t tell where he is, just that he’s leaning against a tree with the sun making his brown eyes glow amber. “I know I’m more outgoing than you, Queens, but you really don’t look like you just got your dream job.”
“Did you lie to me?”
“When?”
“When you told me you didn’t talk to someone at Hepburn about giving me an interview.”
Though his eyebrows shoot up, he looks more hurt than guilty. “You think I would lie to you like that?”
I deflate, my confusion only growing. I know he’s right and I should be more excited, but I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something he’s not telling me. “No, you’re right. Always right. You would never lie to me.”
“I’ve only ever lied to you once, Brooklyn, and I don’t plan on doing it again. But Imightknow someone who works for the Department of Health and Human Resources,” he says slowly. “Before you go overthinking everything, even he doesn’t have the kind of power to force anyone into emailing you.” He winces as he looks at me. “Do you hate me? I just asked him to get someone to look past your termination and really look at your resume for what it is. That’s it.”
My stomach starts to fizz, bubbles in my chest making me sit up straighter. “That’s it? They asked me about my job at the lab where James worked. They wanted to know why I was let go, and I told them things didn’t work out with the research. Then one of them said, ‘He said you would say that,’ but I don’t think I was supposed to hear that.”
Jordan wrinkles his nose. “I guess Jeff must have passed on something I said to him. I told him you were too good a person to want to get revenge on James or anything like that.”
There’s definitely something happening inside me. Maybe my volcano isn’t as dormant as I thought. My flour might have some baking soda after all. “So, I didn’t get the job because you feel bad for me?”
His smile shifts, like he can see the change happening inside me. “I’ve never felt bad for you, Queens. You’ve always been leagues ahead of me in every way.”
“And whoever this Jeff guy is, he didn’t use intimidation to scare Doctor Anderson into hiring me?”
He snorts a laugh. “Jeff’s my ex-father-in-law, and he’s about as intimidating as Houston’s old man slippers. But he’s smart enough to recognize a fellow genius when he sees her resume. He said he wanted to hire you himself, but it wouldn’t be in a lab, so…”
Yep, my vinegar has definitely reached baking soda, which means I’m ready to blow. Unfortunately for me, that apparently means bursting into tears and sending Jordan into a panic.
