This Is My Brain in Love - I. W. Gregorio Page 0,87

a water balloon fight, and what I really needed was a poncho.

There’s an awkward pause where I probably look like a complete Looney Tune as I rack my brains for a new game plan. The exact moment Professor Wisneski opens his mouth to say something, I blurt out, “I always try to remember that business is really all about relations.”

It takes about two seconds of dead silence for me to realize that that didn’t come out right.

The twitch of Professor Wisneski’s lips clues me in, too.

My face is on fire as I stutter out a correction. “Relationships, I mean. I meant relationships, not nepotism, or that type of relations—like Bill Clinton.” I manage, barely, to stop myself from saying “the sexual kind” during the most important interview of my life, but the damage is done. I’m such a disaster I couldn’t draw a tic-tac-toe board, let alone a game plan.

Fuck my life.

Professor Wisneski puts his hands over his mouth to cover a cough that I’m 99 percent sure is just a disguised chuckle. I’m so flustered that I can’t even look at him, so I open my folio with numb hands to furiously study my page of notes in a desperate attempt to avoid death by mortification.

Must. Get. Shit. Together.

Except, before I can think of some line of conversation to save the interview, Professor Wisneski pretends to leaf through my file and goes on as if nothing happened.

“Ms. Wu, you say in your personal statement that your family restaurant recently made moves to expand. Would you care to talk about that?”

It’s the interviewing equivalent of an underhand slow-pitch, and his kindness feels like a failure. “Sure,” I say, in a voice that sounds defeated even to myself. I shift around in my seat in an attempt to redistribute blood that’s decided to spend an extended vacation in my hands, feet, and rear end (basically every organ in my body besides my brain).

It’s a good thing I practiced. The gears in my head creak a bit, but eventually they get turning. “Well, to give you a bit of background, the restaurant my family owns was originally built in the eighties, and we inherited an infrastructure that was a bit dated.…”

I limp through the rest of the interview. The professor must take pity on me—he asks me two more questions, one about my “management style” and one about what I hope to get from the program. I dutifully rattle off my talking points.

There’s a point where it seems like the professor is looking at the grandfather clock on his wall every fifteen seconds. Finally, he closes his right hand into a fist and knocks twice on his desk. “Well, it looks like our time is up. It was truly a pleasure speaking with you today, Ms. Wu.”

“Thanks, Professor.” I reach out to shake his outstretched hand and try to approximate a smile. It’s only polite, since it’s probably the last time I’ll see him.

When I walk out of the interview room, clipboard lady shepherds me back to the boardroom, where she trades me for Laura, telling me that Dr. Harris should be ready for me in half an hour. I excuse myself to the bathroom, lock myself in a stall, and proceed to sit on a toilet seat, head in my hands. I breathe and let myself be hollow.

There’s something strangely comforting about losing hope. Or maybe comfort isn’t the right word—it’s more like relief. Because the hope that I’ve been holding on to for the past two weeks was just plain stressful. Hope comes with aspirations and the need to expend energy. Hope comes with expectations that weigh down your every thought and action. Hope comes with the never-ending fear of disappointment.

Well.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here when the door opens and someone comes in. I peer under the stall and see sensible shoes and ankles like dumpling dough. Not Laura, then. I check my cell phone and am surprised to find that it’s only been twenty minutes.

For a brief moment I run through possible excuses to bail on the second interview: Cramps? A migraine? Could I pull off a convincing faint? There’s nothing sharp enough in the bathroom for me to produce enough blood to require an ambulance.

I realize after a minute that I don’t have the energy or presence of mind to come up with an escape plan. So, I do what I’ve been doing my entire life. I pull on my big girl panties and soldier