A Girl Called Kaila

I t wasn’t my dream job but I was young and optimistic and I still believed that anything could happen.

(The fact that I’d taken this entry-level dead-end job was perhaps the greatest proof.) Maybe anything could happen but day bled into day as I sat bored stiff in my swivel chair and all that happened were papers and faxes and please-hold-for-my-boss. Not the most glamorous start to life as an independent adult in the real world.

But one day “something” did happen and bored as I was by the monotony and the tedium I almost missed it. There was the usual low hum of dull voices as people passed in and out of the office the strident ring of the phone the slow pace of the day when you look at the clock and think wow it’s only ten o’clock? Seven whole hours left… There were all those things and there was also the couple waiting to speak to the manager.

This couple was unremarkable — a typical middle-class African-American husband and wife. They looked like every other couple who floated through this office every day and to them I probably looked like every other robotic receptionist. They certainly spared no special interest for the bored summer intern as they waited for their appointment.