“Of course. My first job was as a dishwasher while I was in high school, but I became a waitress when I graduated.” She paused. Here was where she wished she could say she went to school or had done something with her life, but she hadn't. She'd just worked instead of going to college so that bills were paid and food was on the table. “I still work there, in addition to my retail position.”
“You currently work two positions?” Valetta asked, her pen poised above the paper.
“Yes,” Sabrina said with a nod. “I'm a hard worker and these positions have given me a fair amount of experience dealing with people and have taught me a lot about what it takes to make a customer happy.”
“Quite the handy skill set,” Valetta said, looking up from her notes. “And that’s actually a great segue into my next topic. I’m going to ask you a few questions about hypothetical situations that might arise while on the job. Take a moment to think about it and then tell me how you’d respond.”
Sabrina nodded.
“Picture this scenario,” Valetta said. “Say you are out with my client, a local businessman, in a public place and a stranger approaches the two of you. The stranger claims to know my client, but clearly that is not the case. Also, this man happens to strike you as being slightly suspicious. What would be your response in a situation like this?”
“Regardless of whether or not the stranger seemed suspicious, I’d attempt to consult your client and follow his lead. If he's uncomfortable with the stranger, then that person is not to be trusted,” Sabrina replied. “You said that I'm not a bodyguard, so in this instance, I would try to alert his security or find a way for us to get to a safe place.”
“Good answer,” Valetta said, her lips curling up into a pleased smile. “Let me give you another situation. While sightseeing, my client, a well-known public figure, sees a nice bar and decides he’d like to grab a drink and spend an evening downtown. You join him, but also notice that while enjoying himself he’s become involved with a female who’s had a bit too much to drink and is now drawing unnecessary attention to my client. How would you respond?”
Sabrina paused. This question was a potential minefield, but she felt confident she could answer it. She'd dealt with plenty of women like that as a waitress.
“It depends on what the client wants,” Sabrina replied. “I'd hate to ruin an evening for him, so if he wants the woman to continue with him, I'd find a way to get them to a more private location. If he does not want the woman with him, I'd find a way to separate them. However, it is up to the client.”
Valetta smiled slightly and her eyes flicked toward the mirror. “How would you separate them, if that is what the client wished?”
“First, I would pay the woman's bar tab and then tell the woman that she had something in her teeth and that she should go check the mirror,” Sabrina answered. “While she was away, the client would leave the bar. I would have the bartender tell the woman an emergency came up and he had to leave.”
“That would solve the problem.” Valetta frowned slightly. “But why pay her bar tab?”
“If the goal is to avoid unnecessary attention, a happy customer is always better than one who feels that she has been jilted. In a drunken state, the woman could easily believe that he'd left her with the bill and would come looking for him,” Sabrina explained. “You said he was a public figure, so this way, there would be no public backlash.”
“Excellent answer,” Valetta said with an approving nod. She smiled and turned to face the two-way mirror, obviously anticipating someone to receive her comment from the other side. “I have a few more questions for you-”
Her phone buzzed on the table with an incoming message, cutting her off. Valetta glanced at it and smiled.
“Actually, if you don’t mind, I’m going to leave the room for a moment,” Valetta said, pocketing her phone. “I’ll be back shortly.”
“Of course,” Sabrina said, noticing that her palms were clammy enough that it was uncomfortable. She wiped them on her skirt under the table, but she wasn't sure it did much good.
I blew it, she thought and tried to tame her disappointment before it turned to tears. While she felt she'd answered the questions well, she knew she'd bombed the photo section. Plus, the fact that the interviewer was leaving in the middle of the interview was never a good sign.
What the hell kind of interview is this anyway? Am I interviewing for a job, or a spot on a game show? She tried not to think about it, since she knew it would make her cry.
Part of her wanted to stand up and leave before Valetta returned to say that she didn’t get the job because of her poor pop culture identification, or whatever it was that she had been trying to learn about Sabrina during the barrage of strange photos.
The floor was crumbling beneath her, or so it felt, and the prospect of finally getting a college education was actively shattering along with it. This job was her first real ticket to a better life, but she could feel it slipping through her fingers.
Valetta reentered the room and gave her a warm smile.
Sabrina clenched her hands in preparation for bad news.
Valetta took her time sitting down. She no longer carried the manila folder and instead had a large stack of papers. Sabrina hoped they weren't more photos for her to identify.
“Before we continue, do you have any questions for me?” Valetta asked as if she had never left.
“Um... no?” Sabrina's mind went blank. Way to impress your potential employer, she thought.
“Before we go any further, I need you to sign this nondisclosure agreement.” Valetta slid the packet of paper across the table. “It's fairly standard, but it basically says that you won't tell anyone who you met here today.”
“Okay,” Sabrina replied. She read through the paperwork, trying her best to understand the dense legalese wording. It matched with what Valetta said, so after a moment, Sabrina signed the paperwork and sent it back across the table.
“Excellent.” Valetta turned in her seat and gently tapped her knuckle on the glass behind her. Then she stood and went to stand by the door.
The door creaked open, and a man stepped into the room. Sabrina recognized him instantly from one of the photos.
It's the guy from the second picture. The one with the shoulder-length black hair and beautiful dark eyes.
The man was tall and wore an expensive-looking white dress shirt tucked into a crisp pair of dark grey slacks. It was a similar outfit to the one he had been wearing in the photo. Immediately, it felt as if the room got smaller, his large persona crowding the space.
He nodded toward Sabrina with a smile that grew from the hard edge of his chin and curled into his lips.
“I’d like to introduce you to Marco... Smith,” Valetta said. The way she said it made it obvious that 'Smith' was not the man's real name.
The man’s smile grew even more as he neared the table and extended a hand while Sabrina stood to shake it. His grip was firm, but his skin gentle and smooth.
“Hello,” he said with another nod. His voice was tuned with a deep accent that was as melodic as it was foreign.
“Hello,” Sabrina said, a smile spreading across her face. “I’m Sabrina.”