『The Kid Who Missed the Bus』のカバーアート

The Kid Who Missed the Bus

The Kid Who Missed the Bus

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Welcome back to Infinite Threads. I’m your host Bob.Yesterday, we met Maya.She was behind the counter at the coffee shop, trying to hold herself together while worrying about her mother in the hospital.Then Eli came through the door.Young guy.Backpack.Out of breath.He had missed the bus that was supposed to get him to his first serious job interview.Maya helped him make the phone call.Mr. Lewis gave him a ride.And that is where we left him.Today, we go with Eli.By the time he got out of Mr. Lewis’s car, he had fourteen minutes before the rescheduled interview.Plenty of time.Unless you are nineteen years old and convinced your entire future is waiting behind one particular office door.Then fourteen minutes feels like fourteen seconds.Eli stood outside the building and checked his reflection in the glass.His hair had not improved during the ride.His shirt was wrinkled.He had a coffee stain near the bottom that he hoped nobody would notice.Mr. Lewis rolled down the window.“Stop staring at yourself and go inside.”Eli looked back.“I look terrible.”“You look nervous. There’s a difference.”Then Mr. Lewis repeated what he had told him in the car.“Look them in the eye. Tell them what you can do.”Eli nodded.Mr. Lewis drove away.Neither of them knew whether they would ever see one another again.Inside, Eli checked in at the front desk.The woman there asked him to sit.So he sat.Then he waited.And waited.Now, this is one of the strange things about job interviews.You spend hours preparing for someone to ask why you would be a good employee.Then you spend fifteen minutes sitting in a chair trying not to look like someone who desperately needs employment.Eli picked up a magazine.He did not read it.He put it back down.A man came out of an office and called his name.The interview itself was not dramatic.There were no movie speeches.Nobody said, “Kid, you’ve got something.”Mostly there were normal questions.Why do you want to work here?What experience do you have?How do you handle problems?Eli answered as honestly as he could.Then the interviewer looked at his application.“You were supposed to be here earlier.”Eli felt his stomach drop.He explained the bus.The wrong stop.The coffee shop.The phone call.He expected the man to look annoyed.Instead, he said, “But you called.”“Yes.”“And you still came.”“Yes.”The man nodded.“That matters.”Eli remembered Mr. Lewis.Look them in the eye.So he did.“I really want the job.”The man smiled slightly.“I gathered that.”Twenty minutes later, Eli walked back outside.He had no idea how it had gone.Interviews are cruel that way.Somebody asks you twenty questions, shakes your hand, and then sends you back into the world to analyze every word you said.Eli sat on a low wall outside the building.He pulled out his phone.There was a message from his sister, Lena.How did it go?He typed:No clue. Might have completely blown it.Three dots appeared.Then disappeared.Then appeared again.Finally:You showed up. That’s not blowing it.Eli smiled.That sounded suspiciously like Mr. Lewis.Maybe everybody over thirty was working from the same manual.He started to type something back.Then he stopped.Something else had caught his attention.A woman was standing near the entrance to the building, arguing quietly on her phone.Not angry exactly.Worried.He tried not to listen.Then he heard:“I know. I’m trying.”She ended the call and stood there for a moment staring at the screen.Eli knew that look.The look of somebody who had just been given a problem and no obvious way to solve it.Normally, he would have walked past.He had his own problems.He still needed to figure out how to get home.But the whole morning had been people not walking past him.Maya had stopped.Mr. Lewis had stopped.So Eli asked,“Are you okay?”The woman looked up.For a second, she seemed surprised that someone had spoken to her.Then she gave the automatic answer.“I’m fine.”Eli nodded.He knew that answer too.He started to leave.Then she said, “Actually, do you know if there’s a pharmacy around here?”He pulled out his phone.“There’s one about half a mile away.”She looked toward the street.“My car’s in the shop.”Eli laughed.“So apparently transportation is going great for everybody today.”That made her smile.Her name was Denise.Her father had been discharged from the hospital that morning.She needed to pick up one of his prescriptions before taking him home, but the person who was supposed to meet her had been delayed.Half a mile was not far.Unless you were carrying two bags and trying to manage everything else.Eli looked at the map again.“I’m heading that direction anyway.”That was not entirely true.He had no idea what direction he was heading.But it sounded helpful.They started walking.Most of the conversation was ordinary.Denise asked about the backpack.Eli told her about the interview.She asked how it went.“No clue.”“That usually means it ...
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