Page 65 of Brave
“I’ve got this,” she repeated, more for his benefit because she didn’t believe it for a second. She even forced herself to smile as she got out of the car. “Please don’t leave me here, okay?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, and she would love him forever for never once making fun of her insecurities.
Shutting the passenger door, she whispered, “I’ve got this,” as she trudged up the library steps and through the sliding doors. What should have been polite quiet felt more like eeriness as she walked inside. The temptation to find a secluded hiding spot to lurk for a while nibbled at her. Who was going to know or care if she walked right back out of here without talking to anyone?
The one person she would have to lie to before he drove her home, and already she knew she wouldn’t do that. Not because that thin switch-like Delran would be waiting for her by the time they got home, but because she’d promised never again and it was a promise she meant to keep.
Walking up to the front desk felt dream-like, a weird mix of déjà vu and determination. Her legs remembered shaking and as she approached the college-aged brunette at the checkout counter, they shook just as badly now.
“Are you here for the interview?” the young woman asked, looking up from her computer with a friendly smile.
She nodded. She’d practiced for this. She could do this. In the back of her head, Carlson’s encouragement echoed alongside the scary pulse of her quickening heartbeat.
“Over there.”
Cynthia followed her pointing finger to a tiny reading alcove across the main room.
“You’ve got one waiting ahead of you,” the librarian said. “Miss Halstead will be with you as soon as she can.”
Cynthia walked as steadily as she could, past a bank of public computers and a section devoted to tax forms, and joined the other woman already waiting on one of four blue padded chairs in the reading nook. The other woman was younger. Prettier too, and she looked every bit as professional as Cynthia didn’t feel. It was a whole lot easier to picture her working up at the checkout counter, then it was to see herself there. Feeling like a fraud, she eased into the farthest seat and stubbornly repeated Carlson’s favorite mantra in her head: You can do this… you can do this…
Somewhere between sitting down and senior librarian briefly emerging to call the other woman into the interview room, that mantra changed to there’s no way you can do this.
She pressed her sweaty palms flat against her thighs. My name is Cynthia Reynolds. My qualifications are…
Old, her subconscious interjected, out of date and completely irrelevant.
She was stupid. She was slow. She was scared.
A young man in a grey suit and red tie came to sit beside her. He lay his briefcase on the floor next to him, gave her a nodding smile, and settled in to wait.
She was completely inadequate next to him. She was probably completely inadequate compared to the other woman too, and anyone else lined up to interview for this job.
Stop it. She could do this.
There was no way in hell she could do this. What was she thinking?
If she got up right now, and ran for the door she could avoid the complete embarrassment that would surely happen when she got pulled into that office and exposed herself as completely messed up.
“Puppy?” a woman called, startling Cynthia and making her stomach drop straight through the chair to the floor. She hadn’t even noticed the senior librarian standing once more in the mouth of the nook or the other young woman walking confidently toward the door.
She could do this. She could do—
She couldn’t do this!
Hand pressed to her stomach, she got up and followed the older woman into the interview room. It was a small office with a single conference table and six padded chairs set up around it.
Tucking her skirt, Miss Halstead sat. She gestured for Cynthia to take the chair beside her, but too late. She had already found a chair that put as much table as possible between them. Face burning, she immediately tried to correct her mistake, but she could feel herself spiraling into a tailspin of pure anxiety.
She could do this.
But she couldn’t, she couldn’t, she couldn’t… It throbbed at her temple, steady as a heartbeat, and her palms felt horribly damp.
“Sorry,” she whispered, when the librarian tried to shake hands. She quickly wiped them on her thighs first.
“You have a very interesting application,” Miss Halstead began, looking at what seemed to be Cynthia’s application. “There’s no last name. Is Puppy a nickname?”
“My name is Cynthia Reynolds,” she managed, wiping her hands again.
