Acing the Interview

[tiny_dancer81]

If there was a mirror in the back office, she was screwed.

Theresa had bought new clothes for the occasion, shelling out a decent amount of money because she wanted to look like any average twenty-something looking for a job. She'd seen the ad in the trades - Help Wanted - Local club is seeking someone to promote musical groups and schedule appearances. Her fake ID was in her wallet, which was in her back pocket. Just in case the manager asked.

The Dive technically wasn't open yet. There were only a few cars in the tiny lot. The vampire parked Clarence close to the street, then locked the doors. She pushed the door to the club open and stepped inside. She didn't have any experience working at a bar, but hooking was all about self-promotion. She only felt a little apprehensive.

The guy from the concert the other night, the one with the braid of hair down to his butt, was behind the bar. He was filling the beer tap. Theresa stepped closer, attracted his attention. "Uh, yeah, I was looking for..." A short pause while she looked at the piece of paper she'd scrawled the manager's name on. "...Mike?"

"Mike's in the office," Braided Hair said, pointing to the right of the small stage. Theresa squared her small shoulders. She could do this.

Comments

[blackirish]

Sometimes Mike wondered why he even bothered trying to run his own club. The paperwork monster only seemed to grow as the business did, and it was a royal pain in the ass. He'd never had to worry about it back when he'd helped out at dad's back in Boston before his ass had been shipped off to Vietnam a lifetime ago, and those days seemed a happy memory in comparison to what he was dealing with right then. Of course, dad had never worried about live music, his bar had been a neighborhood joint that hadn't needed to have music to draw the locals in.

The club owner scowled at the mound of paperwork on his desk, sorely tempted to just say the hell with it and go back on the road. He'd done just fine, thank you, travelling about the world with just a motorcycle and the possessions he could fit on it.

[tiny_dancer81]

There was a short hallway leading to the back office, and Theresa's shoes made noise on the uncarpeted floor as she made her way down it. The door was ajar, and she tentatively knocked on it before pushing it the rest of the way open and stepping into the smaller confines. There was an impressive amount of paperwork on the cluttered desk.

"Uh, hi," the diminutive brunette said, wondering if she should wait and be asked before she sat. Mike didn't look like he was in a very good mood. The vampire took two more steps into the office, hovered close to the chair on the other side of the desk. "The guy out there said you had a few minutes. I know the place isn't open for the night yet, so I won't bother you for long. I'm here about the job."

[blackirish]

"Yeah?" Mike looked up at the girl who'd at least had the courage to come into the office when asking for a job. The other four hadn't made it past the doorframe and had been chased off.

"You got any experience at the promotion business kid?"

[tiny_dancer81]

Find your guts, girl. You've got 'em in there somewhere.

"That's why I decided to come in," Theresa said, pulling herself out of the slouch she'd assumed. He hadn't asked her to sit, so it seemed politic to remain standing. "I work in retail, helping with sales pitches and stuff. I've never worked at a club before, but I've been wanting to try something different."

He'd probably ask her for ID. She knew she didn't look twenty-four. If she could bullshit her way through this, she stood a chance of landing the job.

[blackirish]

"Uh huh," Mike grunted, and looked her over.  She didn't look old enough to have had that sort of experience and he doubted she was even twenty one.  Still, he didn't particularly care about that.  It took a lot of guts for a little thing like her to come in her and just cold call about the job.

"So if you don't have any direct experience in this why should I hire you?  What qualities do you bring to the job?"

[tiny_dancer81]

It seemed ridiculous not to sit down once Mike proved willing to hear her out, so Theresa lowered her slight weight into the unoccupied chair. One ankle crossed over the other. How to explain her skill set politely?

"I deal with people a lot," she told the mortal, trying to ignore the fact that the vein in his neck was distracting her. She'd eaten, but the pulse was like a beacon. "When you're in sales, it's important to find out what they're looking for so you can help them find it. I work on commission, so if I don't close the deal I don't get paid."

The vampire paused while she chose her next words, then said, "I've actually been to a show here, and you've got a cool place. You need a people person to deal with the bands and the folks from the trade papers. That's me."

[blackirish]

Mike considered the girl's words and studied her for a moment.  Then he shrugged.  "What the hell, why not?  You're working on commission so if you screw up it won't cost me anything and I can repair the damage easy enough.  You've got six weeks to drum up more and bigger business, after that we'll see how things go and if we want this to be a long term arrangement."

[tiny_dancer81]

"Seriously?"

Theresa's posture straightened again, and her hands came to rest on the metal arms of the chair. Six weeks wasn't a long time in the grand scheme of things, but when she thought of it as a test run it looked like forever. She was going to have to come up with a way to make this work.

"Do you need to see some kind of ID?" she asked, reaching for her wallet. "I know I don't look like it, but I turned twenty-four on my last birthday. I don't know if the liquor laws are different here than they are in California, but if it'd be good for your peace of mind to know I'm not a minor, you can see my license."

[blackirish]

"You're going to be a promoter, not a waitress." Mike responded, but he looked over her ID anyway.  He glanced from the ID back to her face, then back to the ID.  There was no way she was twenty four, but she could be a young looking twenty one.  It didn't matter as long as she wasn't serving booze and he had an understanding with the local precinct anyway.   "If you say you're twenty four, then you're twenty four.  Don't let me catch you serving drinks: your job is to books bands to draw people into the place, not tending bar."

[tiny_dancer81]

"Gotcha. No serving drinks. I just wanted to cover all the bases."

Theresa put her wallet away, relieved that she'd managed to avoid brushing Mike's hand with hers so he wouldn't notice how cool her fingers were. If Slayers could only be girls, she was probably physically safe from him, but it would be a faux pas for him to find out she was a vampire now that she had her foot in the door.

"So when do I start? I've kind of taken a leave from my other job, so I'm available whenever."

[blackirish]

"Taken a leave huh?" Mike eyed her, wondering what she really meant by that. After a moment he shrugged, what difference did it make to him as long as she did for him what she said she would. "As long as it doesn't conflict with promoting the club I don't care what you do as long as you aren't breaking any laws." Or at least not getting caught, he amended silently to himself. It wasn't as if he were a paragon of lawfulness with his work for the Cause.

"Come by tomorrow, 2pm. We'll go over everything then."

[tiny_dancer81]

2pm? Shit. She hadn't considered the possibility that he'd expect her to show up while the sun was still up. "Uh..."

Think of something. Use your gift for bullshit. Who's a better liar than you?

"I'm not really much of a day person," the vampire said. "One of the reasons I want this job is because I don't function so great during what'd be considered normal hours. That's why I like fall, because the days are so much shorter."

Theresa lined up her shoes on the scuffed tile floor. A watch check said the club was due to open in less than an hour. "I can be here by six," she told Mike hopefully. "If that works for you?"

[blackirish]

"Not a day person?" He repeated incredulously. "What the hell kid, are you a vampire or something? Bands may not be up at the crack of dawn, but business and promotion have daytime components too. Two O'Clock or don't bother coming. Six O'Clock I'll be busy getting the place ready for the evening rush."

[tiny_dancer81]

Vampire. Theresa looked down at her hands, which she'd folded into her lap. She was beginning to feel a little cornered, and when she felt cornered she got uncomfortable. She could feel the potential slipping through her fingers. She made a coughing sound down in her chest.

"Yeah. Yeah, I am."

She said it without apology, almost without inflection. She might have only been a few years on this side of the grave, but she'd come to terms with her status because she'd had to. Whether she had a soul or not was a mystery to her, but maybe she hadn't had much of one when her heart was still beating. But she wanted this, wanted to make something new of herself.

"Before you jump to conclusions, I haven't killed anybody in a long time," she said after a silence. "If you consider nearly five years a long time. There are ways to...um...eat...without doing something permanent. It's less messy that way, and a lot less suspicious."