Job Interview Smut
Happy (VERY BELATED) b-day, @trylonandperisphere. Sending you some good job-search.. vibes. ;)
Also available on AO3
The thing with anxiety, Cosima thought as she surreptitiously tried to wipe her clammy palms against her dress, is that, when it struck, it made things she could do in her sleep, things she excelled at, incredibly difficult.
Take this instance, for example - all she had to do is talk to another person about something she was passionate about, a veritable no-brainer. She's chatted people up on a daily basis, making the connection seem effortless regardless of the person - mothers with cranky toddlers, hipster dudebros, teens congregating at the neighborhood basketball court. She was in turn friendly, genuinely curious and empathetic, a combination that generally cracked even the most stubborn social nut.
And yet, there were two things, job interviews and talking to beautiful women, that would make Cosima tongue-tied and stuttery, even if given a chance to expound on one of her passions.
She expelled a shallow, shaky breath, and looked around the shiny, modern reception area of the publishing company. Chairs were angular and uncomfortable, the coffee table seemed hewed out of a single piece of sharp glass, and the couch she currently perched on smelled of fresh hide. Even if her semi-vegetarian leanings weren’t offended by the astounding amount of animal that went into the making of the sofa, she felt mocked by the shiny, moist imprints her palms left against it every time she touched its surface.
She again reached for one of the magazines stacked on the table in front of her -- The Nature Conservancy, yet another in the line of previously well-respected journals saved from almost certain bankruptcy by becoming a pet interest - and a cash purchase - of a hedge-fund billionaire with philanthropic aspirations. Back when she used to have a 9-5 office job -- at some point after her M.A. in Conservation Biology landed her a cushy job in the Corporate Social Responsibility department at Procter & Gamble, but before her nervous breakdown got her to quit and instead turn to serving overpriced coffee and beer to hipsters, she dreamed of doing real conservancy work. She dreamed of working for this very magazine, with its hokey covers, earnest stories of nature’s wonders, and real, palpable work of conserving the nature.
And here she was, four years into her self-imposed sabbatical from the stresses and rigors of her profession, interviewing for an entry-level position with the Nature Conservancy. She had felt ready to rejoin that world, had missed the sense of purpose and the intellectual reward of the work, and yet -- the interviewing process, as she discovered, did not miraculously become any easier.
The fact she landed an interview at all was a minor miracle given the nearly half a decade long gaping hole in her resume. Instead of making her feel relieved, this only served to ratchet up the stakes and, by extension, her anxiety. She had shown up 15 minutes early and managed to use the extra time to work herself up into a state of acute nervousness. Vomiting was not out of the question.
“Ms. Niehaus?” The young receptionist, an overly combed white boy with an Abercrombie and Fitch outfit, looked down on her kindly. “We are ready for you - if you'll follow me?”
Cosima stood up, hands smoothing down her dress, straightening the lapels of her blazer, and nodded, following him. The short walk ended in front of a glass-walled conference room, and then she was seated at the end of a long, gleaming table, a glass of water in front of her.
“Ms. Cormier, the Associate Director of Marketing, will be with you shortly.”
The receptionist left with a smile, and Cosima primly placed her portfolio in front of her, opening it to a blank pad of paper. She took a deep breath, held it for a beat, then slowly exhaled. Her eyes flitted around the room, noting the view of the city, the bustle of the office beyond the walls of the conference room. She inhaled again, willing her shoulders to relax, the knot in the pit of her stomach to unfurl.
The conference door opened with a soft clang, and she looked up, startled, then felt her jaw unhinge.
“D-delphine?”
And, indeed, there she was, a blonde vision vividly familiar from her bartending job - a semi-regular patron at her bar, and the woman single-handedly capable of turning Cosima, a professional flirt, into a mutely efficient drink-pourer. Cosima stood up, heart pounding. If there was one thing she was worse at than interviewing, it was talking to women she had a crush on. And Delphine, the smolderingly beautiful French woman with a penchant for leaning across the bar and ordering her drinks with a flirty wink, had Cosima crushing. Hard.
“Cosima.” Delphine smiled, leaning slightly against the conference room door, and despite her shock, a part, a rather large part, of Cosima’s brain noted the sleek fit of the blonde’s business suit. “So it is you -- when I saw the name on the CV I thought, even in New York, how many different Cosimas can there be?”
“I--” Cosima faltered, arms half raised in surprise, “I-- I had no idea that it-- I thought you were--,” a French movie star, or a sexy doctor - maybe a spy. She pressed her lips together, at a loss. “I am.. surprised.”
This elicited a short, crystalline laugh, and Delphine strode into the room, holding her hand out. “Well, let’s do this properly, then. Delphine Cormier. Enchantee.”
Cosima accepted her hand without thought, noting the warm, firm grip and the smile wrinkles in the corners of Delphine’s eyes. She had noted those before, whenever the blonde would accept her drink with a smile, had made a mental note that they made Delphine look somehow more beautiful.
“I’m Cosima. Eum, Niehaus, duh. Cosima Niehaus.” She fluttered her newly freed hand awkwardly. “Sorry about that, I get clammy hands when I’m nervous.”
Delphine smiled, then bit her lower lip, another thing Cosima had noticed during her surreptitious observations at the bar, canting her head a bit. “It’s okay, I, um,” she leaned in conspiratorially, “I do, too, and was wondering if you’d notice.”
Cosima blinked, nonplussed, but before she could react to this admission Delphine gestured toward the chairs. “Why don’t we sit down?”
“Ah, yes, of course, I’m sorry.” She sat down, immediately distracted by the flex of the blonde’s calves under the glass top of the conference table. Sweet Jesus help me. She rearranged her portfolio, mercifully blocking the view. “I, uh, have an extra copy of my resume, and I just wanted again to thank you - er, your company, for giving me an opportunity to interview for the position of a marketing associate. I know I'm not very marketable these days given the lack of recent professional experience, so i am, ”she paused, winding down awkwardly, “grateful.”
Delphine placed the copy of her resume in front of her, glancing at it briefly, then leaned forward on her hands.
“I had a chance to look at your CV and was impressed by your educational background and previous work experience.” Cosima relaxed slightly, taking in the positive words. “You are certainly a very attractive, um, candidate for this position, given the whole,” she gestured toward the resume in front of her, “package.”
There was something about Delphine's body language, despite the positive tone, that revealed a certain hesitation, even nervousness; whitened knuckles of her steepled fingers, the lack of eye contact. During the last six months or so that Delphine had been patronizing the bar (and Cosima had been silently observing her) she had never seen the blonde act like that.
Cosima pursed her lips, fighting against the sinking feeling in her stomach. Not getting this job was one thing, seeing how it was a long shot anyway, but having to be rejected by the woman she'd been working up a nerve to ask out for half a year… It was gearing up to be the most humiliating experience of her life.
“Why do I think I hear a 'but’ in there?” Only brevity could salvage a potential disaster in the brewing, so why not cut to the chase.
Delphine looked up in surprise, finally making eye contact, before quickly dropping her eyes back to her hands. Cosima could actually see a slight sheen of perspiration breaking out on the blonde’s forehead.
“No, no-- no but, it's just-- I wanted--,” Delphine stammered, then exhaled, looking at Cosima's almost beseechingly. “I think what I need to say is that there are two things I should say first.”
Cosima sat mutely, at a loss. When the blonde just continued looking at her, she quirked her eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Right. First, I believe there is a mid-level position in our development department that would fit your level of experience and your,” she smiled with real warmth at Cosima, “engaging personality much better than the entry-level position with Marketing.”
Cosima swallowed, feeling the lead ball of disappointment in her belly, but kept her tone even. “So, I’m ‘overqualified,’ is that it?”
“No!” Delphine looked alarmed, empathetically shaking her head. “I mean, yes, you are overqualified, but-- “ Her head hung down for a moment, cascades of blonde hair obscuring her face. “Putain de merde, Scott va me tuer, c’est sûr.”
“Excuse me?”
Delphine looked up, waving her off. Her mouth was set in a straight line and, Cosima thought, if at all possible she looked more pained than Cosima felt.
“Cosima.” Delphine’s mouth opened, then closed. Then it opened again, only for Delphine to clamp her teeth, rather painfully, against her lower lip. She tried again. “Oh-kay. My colleague, Scott Smith, has an opening for a mid-level development associate, and I believe that position would both be more challenging and provide you with a better growth opportunity.”
“But--,” Delphine held up a hand, cutting her off, and Cosima shut her mouth. What was even happening here?
“Beyond that, I must say that I have a.. personal interest in you not seeking a position within my department.”
“Oh.” Cosima sank into her chair, feeling the bloom of hurt and embarrassment. Was she called in here only to be humiliated by a woman she was attracted to? Did Delphine not want a lowly bartender on her team? “Why?”
Delphine hung her head again, hands raking through her hair. “Oh my god, this was a terrible idea.” When she looked up again, she seemed to teeter for a moment on the edge of speechlessness, but then she opened up in a torrent of words, “I am so sorry, Cosima. I saw your CV in my inbox, and I thought, this must be a joke, and it can’t actually be you, but then it was you, and you were qualified for the position -- well, overqualified -- and I know you would be such an asset to the organization - you are smart and funny, and excel at communication, not to mention that you have the right kind of background, but…”
Cosima shook her head in bewilderment, trying to follow the current of words. “But?”
“But,” Delphine’s eyes fluttered toward her clasped hands, but then she resolutely trained them on Cosima’s face. “After six months of trying to work up the courage to ask you out on a date, I could not face the possibility of becoming your boss.”
Cosima felt her jaw fall open unglamorously for a second time in less than 30 minutes. “Excuse me?”
Delphine’s chuckle came out a bit strangled. “Your application for this job tipped my hand in a rather spectacular fashion. My initial plan was just to order tequila shots from you until either you started talking to me, or I got drunk enough to pull you over the bar and kiss you, but--” she spread out her arms helplessly, “here we are.”
“You,” Cosima narrowed her eyes in an effort to understand, making a circling motion with her finger between the two of them, “called me into this interview.. to ask me out?”
Delphine answered with a vigorous nod, then canted her head in thought. “Well, really to give you an opportunity to interview for a better position. I think you’d do great work for the organization, and you and Scott would get along really well. His email should be in your inbox already.”
“I--,” Cosima slumped back in her chair, vaguely registering various symptoms of shock; confusion, clammyness, rapid heartbeat, anxiety. There was an out of body kind of feeling to it all - she knew she should be responding in some way, but her brain seemed unable to process the information before her, let alone react to it. “I-- I don’t understand.”
Delphine reached out a tentative hand and laid it down briefly over Cosima’s forearm, her warmth permeating even through the layers of Cosima’s blazer. “I am sorry, I-- I don’t know why I thought meeting you like this with no forewarning and just.. blah!,” she mimicked expelling a spew of words out of her mouth, “would be a good idea. Scott tried to talk me out of it.” She smiled crookedly, warm hazel eyes trained on Cosima. “I hope that, maybe, we can laugh about my idiotic approach over drinks sometime soon?”
Cosima pursed her lips, unwilling to give anything to the hidden camera crew that must have been taping her reaction this whole time. What other explanation could there be?
Delphine nodded her head dejectedly in response, standing up. “Bon. Cosima, I hope I didn’t completely ruin my chance of getting to know you better. If you are interested in the development position, please give Scott a call.” She placed a business card on the glass tabletop and slowly slid it toward Cosima. “In case you are interested in having a drink together, my number is here. Either way, this should not influence your decision on the job -- that position would have no interactions with my department.”
Cosima reached out for the card, sliding it over closer with the tip of her finger. She quirked up an eyebrow at Delphine who stood up straighter in response, then focused back on the card. “So…,” she paused, then looked at the blonde thoughtfully, “six months?”
“Hah,” Delphine chuckled with relief, then nodded, smiling sheepishly. “One could say I resorted to extreme measures.”
“I see,” Cosima nodded gravely, standing up as well. She gave Delphine a probing look, then stepped up, extending her hand. “It was good to meet you, and thank you for your time. I’ll be in touch.”
She could see Delphine’s eyes widen with surprise, but then she grasped Cosima’s hand warmly, her grip firm. “The pleasure was all mine. I look forward to it.”
... TBC?