Page 7 of Atlas
By the age of twenty-five, I would be married to my incredibly handsome and loving husband, and within a few years of the wedding, we would welcome our first child.
My best friend Bree and I would live on the same street and be laid-back adults with meaningful careers and lots of casual barbeques and pool parties on the weekends.
As the kids grew, my hubby and I would be cheering on the sideline when our kids played sports and high fiving the other parents when the team scored.
Fifteen years later, on the day I turned twenty-eight, I stood in a restroom, getting ready for my job interview. For some reason, the memory of planning my future popped up in my head with a clear realization that I would be an embarrassment to the fifteen-year-old version of me.
I wasn’t married. I didn’t have any kids, Bree and I hadn’t spoken for ten years, and my career was in ruins.
Stay positive!
Checking my make-up one last time, I applied a new layer of lip gloss and used my fingers to pump volume into my hair. The best part of my jaw-length cut was that it didn’t require much styling. For a moment, I studied what I saw in the mirror.
A big fiasco.
Stop it! Focus on what you like about yourself, my inner counselor preached.
I like my earrings.
Your earrings aren’t you. Try again.
Okay, then I guess that I like my eyes.
Leaning closer to the mirror, I looked into my blue eyes. They were my best feature with their bright color, and one of my former clients once told me they shone with kindness.
Or maybe my nose is my best feature.
My nose was straight and the right size, unlike my lips, which weren’t nearly as plump and big as I’d like them to be.
Voices from outside the restroom made me refocus. Stepping back, I turned a little to each side, making sure I was presentable in my black pants and white shirt.
I look like a waiter. Why did I pick this shirt?
My stomach was acting up from the thought of the pile of unpaid bills at home. I needed this job.
“Jolene Fisher.”
Hearing my name called, I hurried out to the small waiting room where a middle-aged woman stood with a piece of paper in her hand.
“Are any of you, Jolene Fisher?” she asked the five people waiting in chairs along the wall.
“I’m here.”
When the woman turned to face me, I had the thought that she could be a Whoopi Goldberg look-alike with her round glasses and the many thin braids that she had gathered in a high bun.
“Welcome to C.M. Research. I’m Diane. I’ll be interviewing you today.” She shook my hand and nodded for me to follow her. “It’s right this way. Mr. Robertson is waiting for us.”
We walked down a long hallway with signs next to each door but no art on the white walls. The color of the worn carpet on the floor made me think of cardboard boxes, and the peculiar smell here had me wrinkling my nose a little. “Do you have animals here?”
Diane turned her head and spoke over her shoulder. “Not anymore, but this used to be a testing facility for a medical company. The rooms were filled with cages. Mostly rats, guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, and that sort of thing.” She turned a corner, and there were another five doors on each side.
“This is like a maze,” I said in a light tone.
“Don’t worry. It’s not so bad once you get used to it.”
A bit further down the hallway, a door opened, and a man stuck his head out. He looked middle-eastern with one of those funny mustaches where the tips are pointing up. From his head’s being at the height of the door handle, I figured he was a dwarf.
“Diane, someone vomited, can you get the janitor?”
