It was suddenly difficult to swallow, much less speak. There was so much to digest in what he’d just said, so much to process and make sense of that—
“I want to thank you for your time, Miss McKenzie. Please give your brother my regards, and if we have a need for your services in the future, I’ll have Glo give you a call.”
He rolled his chair back and made to stand, but my legs refused to obey the signal my mind transmitted. He’d denied my application? I’d failed the interview process?
“Wait . . . does that mean you’re not approving my application? You’re rejecting me as a volunteer?” The very idea was ludicrous. Who rejected a volunteer?
“I don’t think you’re the right fit for our program.”
“Not the right fit?” Stunned, I shook my head. “I’m not a shoe, Mr. Whittaker. I’m a human being, one who filled out your entire fourteen-page application and answered every lengthy question to the best of my abilities. I’m willing to forgo paid work hours to volunteer at your establishment every week for an entire summer—for free. Am I missing something? Have you already filled the summer mentor slots? Because my brother seemed pretty convinced that you were in need of help.”
We were both standing now, nothing but a three-foot-wide desk between our egos. “As I’ve mentioned previously, we have a standard of professionalism to uphold—”
“Professionalism or perfectionism?” I didn’t know exactly where the words had come from, but there they were, like a slap across his face.
He reared back.
“Listen,” I continued, “regardless of how you might feel about my use of the term grit, I’ve proven that I know how to think—and thrive—outside the box I grew up in. Isn’t that what you want for all the residents in your program?”
“I won’t allow our young women to become brainwashed by some social media Cinderella fantasy they can’t possibly attain.”
“I’m not offering them a fantasy, I’m offering them relatability.”
“Relatability?” A huff of a laugh escaped him as he scanned the length of me. “Perhaps in all the confusion today with the Nerf darts, you didn’t get the best view of the young women in our program in need of a mentor. None of them own impressive clothing or shoes, and most of the possessions they do own have been passed down, bartered, stolen, or are worth less than the coins in your wallet.” He clamped his mouth closed and then restarted. “So, in short, no. I have a hard time believing that any of them will find you or your beauty brand the least bit relatable.”
“Every young woman wants to be beautiful. To feel beautiful. It’s one of our most basic core needs.”
He paused, as if unsure how to address such a statement. “Seventy percent and three percent.”
“Excuse me?”
“Those are just two statistics out of many that we fight against every day—the first being that seven out of ten aged-out foster girls become pregnant before their twenty-first birthdays, and the second that, despite government funding, only three percent of the twenty-three thousand teens who age out of the system each year will earn a college degree. Those are just two of the facts that determine how we focus our efforts within the program.” He flicked out the fingers on his right hand one by one. “How to budget, how to prioritize a weekly schedule, how to study for an exam, how to fill out a job application and interview for a position, how to cook a meal with more than three ingredients, how to trust another human being and be trusted in return. That’s just a sampling of the critical life skills we teach.”
“Being confident in your own skin is also a critical life skill,” I said passionately, recalling my Mimi’s favorite quote and arranging it to fit the context of this heated discussion. “‘When a person feels good in their own skin, they’re far more likely to want to help someone else feel good in theirs.’”
“I disagree.”
“I doubt Wren would disagree,” I snapped back.
His sharp eyes locked on mine. “You know nothing of her story.”
“You’re right, I don’t. But I do know what it’s like to feel trapped in my own life circumstances. And I certainly know how it feels to be judged for my appearance and not for my worth.” I let that last sentence hang a few extra seconds before continuing on. “Wren wants something . . . and she likely doesn’t even know how to discover what that something is yet. I don’t have an MBA, but I do have experience with being an insecure woman who found confidence by making something out of her life despite opposition and disapproval. Both are life skills I’ve learned the hard way. I hope better for Wren, and for all the kids who live here.” I lifted my purse off the floor and pulled the strap over my shoulder. “I’ll see myself out.”
If only my pride had held in that final statement. Because the truth was, I would be lucky to find my way out of this labyrinth before next Thursday if I went at it alone. But that’s exactly what I did as I pushed through Silas’s door and into a hallway that looked no different than all the others I’d walked down today.
5
Silas
She turned the wrong way.
Miss McKenzie—Molly—should have taken a right, but in her hurried departure, she shot out my office door and swung a left. I didn’t stop her.
Eventually, the woman would dead-end at the locked doors of the theater room, having no choice but to turn back and walk past my office in search of the main staircase. For as much as Fir Crest Manor had been a godsend to our organization, there was a garish lack of efficiency to its floor plan.
Even still, I doubted her dramatic exit had accounted for a U-turn.
Listening to the tap of those impractically tall shoes against the parquet floors, I swiped her file off the desk and dropped it into the wastebasket. Though she’d hardly been the first applicant I’d turned away over the last five years, she’d certainly been the most vocal. And quite possibly the most disappointing. I’d trusted Miles’s recommendation of her, trusted his judgment as a friend and as a fellow servant to our community. But family ties could blind the best of us, a flaw I knew a thing or two about.
I pressed my palms to the cool glass overlay of my desk, seeing her fake charm of a smile in my mind once again as she shot a live video in the lobby of our private establishment for her own personal gain. And without a second thought. I’d been leery of her self-proclaimed career title as an Influencer on her application, and I was even more so now. Nothing real or authentic ever came from the personal kingdoms we built online, especially kingdoms that paid as well as hers appeared to.
If not for my respect for her brother and the ministry partners he’d sent our way over the years, I would have canceled our interview right then and escorted her out of the house.
My vetting system might be rigorous and maybe even extreme at times, but I’d never apologize for protecting my residents or their privacy.
A crescendo of footsteps peppered their way toward my office, and I rounded my desk to prop my hip against the inside of the doorjamb, preparing myself for Molly McKenzie round two. In my experience, when it came to people who enjoyed the sound of their own voice, more time to think often equaled more fuel to speak it. And Miss McKenzie, with all her impressive accolades and shiny accomplishments, was not short on words or on show.