Chapter 5: The Second Interview
She almost didn't come back.
On the morning of the second interview, Courtney sat in her car in the parking garage for eleven minutes.
She had the engine running.
She had her handbag in her lap.
She had rewritten what she was going to say four times in the past week and had thrown out every version by Thursday.
She went in.
The lobby looked the same.
The same bright light, the same row of chairs, the same interview-room door at the end.
The receptionist gave her a visitor badge and told her to take a seat.
She sat down.
She did not place her handbag on the chair beside her.
Walter Ellison arrived eight minutes later.
He was wearing the same brown work jacket.
He still carried the weathered folder.
His graying beard was neatly trimmed.
He walked to the row of chairs, glanced along it, and chose the seat two down from hers with one empty chair between them.
He didn't say anything to her.
She looked straight ahead at the interview-room door.
After twenty seconds she said, "Mr.
Ellison.
I owe you an apology."
He didn't look at her.
"You don't owe me anything."
"I do." She turned toward him.
"What I said to you last week — what I assumed — that was wrong.
I'm not going to explain it or excuse it.
I just wanted you to hear that I know it was wrong."
He was quiet for a moment.
He looked at the folder in his hands.
Then he said, "How old do you think I was when I first walked into a room and someone assumed I was there to carry boxes?"
She didn't answer.
"Twenty-three," he said.
"First day at my first engineering firm.
Man at the front desk handed me a dolly and pointed at a stack of equipment cases." He turned the folder over in his hands.
"I set the dolly down.
I told him my name.
I told him who had hired me.
He didn't believe me until my supervisor came out." He looked up at the interview-room door.
"I've been setting dollies down for forty years."
Courtney was quiet.
"I'm not telling you that to make you feel worse," he said.
"I'm telling you because it didn't stop me then, and it won't stop me now.
And I don't imagine it surprised you to hear it."
"No," she said quietly.
"It didn't."
The interview-room door opened.
Dr.
Okafor stood in the frame.
She looked at the two of them — the older man with the worn folder, the younger woman with her handbag on her own knees — and something behind her expression settled.
"We're ready," she said.
Walter Ellison stood.
He buttoned his jacket.
He looked at Courtney.
"Good luck today."
She looked up at him.
The same words.
The same voice.
No edge in them, no irony, nothing withheld.
He meant them as plainly as anyone had ever meant anything.
Her throat tightened.
"Thank you," she said.
"Same to you."
He nodded once and walked through the door.
Dr.
Okafor held it open.
She looked at Courtney with an expression that asked a question without words.
Courtney stood, straightened her jacket, and followed.
Inside the interview room there was a long table, four chairs, a window with winter light coming through it, and a second interviewer — a man in his fifties with reading glasses on the table in front of him who introduced himself as the division head.
Walter Ellison was already seated.
His folder was open.
His hands were steady.
The division head looked at Courtney's file, then at her.
"Before we begin," he said, "I want to make something clear.
You are both here because you are both qualified.
This is not a formality.
The best candidate gets the role."
Courtney looked across the table at Walter Ellison.
He was looking at the first page of his folder.
He didn't look up.
"Understood," she said.
The division head picked up his pen.
"Mr.
Ellison.
Tell us about the load-bearing design challenge you solved on the Meridian Tower project."
May you like
Walter Ellison looked up from his folder.
And he began to speak.
