Rubaline H. Bender's Interview

In the swamp, there lived a youngish salamander woman. She lived alone in her stoney burrow with her candied flies, a bottle of algae wine that her mother bought her, and a pile of debt that she couldn’t pay because she was unemployed.

One day, while rearranging her collection of empty pots—it was too expensive to own plants—Rubaline heard her phone ring from the kitchen. The acorn-shell bell knocked about as if filled with a hundred, angry click beetles.

“Hello?” she said as she picked it up, twirling the landline's fibrous cord around her webbed fingers.

“Hello,” chimed a sweet voice. “Is this Rubaline Bender?”

“This is she.” To calm her nerves, Rubaline wrang out the tip of her tail with her free hand.

“Excellent. I'm calling about your job application that we received in the snail.”

Rubaline blinked hard over her large, wet, and entirely black eyes. This was the moment she'd been waiting for ever since she started putting in applications all over the swamp. However, there was one problem; the person on the phone hadn't said which job this was for. “Oh—um,” she stammered, believing it to be offensive to inquire what the job was. Afterall, she didn't want them to know she'd applied to more than one. That would show desperation.

“Yes?” said the sweet voice, breaking up an awkward silence.

“Wh-What about my application?”

“Well, we're very interested in getting to know you a bit more. Would you have time for an interview?”

“Um—sure! Wh-What day?”

“Well, today, if that works for you. And you don't have to go anywhere. We're very eager to fill the position.”

“TODAY?!” she shouted and jumped back into a stack of empty Minnow's Pizza baskets. The baskets were made of thin, woven reeds and produced an awful scratching noise as they fell.

“Miss, are you okay? Is today a problem?”

“Fine-fine! I just…um. I was just closing up some…business briefcases.”

“Oh?” the voice sounded intrigued. “What kind of business?”

“Uh—professional…business…stuff. From my last job.”

There was a sound of paper being handled from the phone. “From your job as a…Minnow's Pizza delivery girl?”

Rubaline slapped the top of one of the baskets. “Yep!”

“Interesting. Well, are you sure that today works for your interview?”

“Today? Here?” She started shoving the baskets into a partially hollowed out stump serving as a trash receptacle. “Um…today…” She then noticed the pile of bills on the bark-top counter near the trash stump. Stretching the phone cord to its limit, she walked to them and picked up a few. Written on water-logged parchment, the majority of them were due weeks ago. Sewage, gas, even a cancellation notice for her creek food delivery service, Hello Fish: she'd run out of money to pay them all.

“Hello? Miss Rubaline?”

“Today will be fine!” She took a deep, whistling breath through her tiny nostrils, telling herself she'd have time to clean up her burrow before anyone got here. And it would give her time to figure out what this particular interview was even for. “Um… What time will someone be over?”

“Oh!” They giggled. “You and I are just having this interview over the phone right now. I guess you could say it's already started.”

Rubaline chucked the last pizza basket across the room.

“Was that your briefcase again?”

“Yep,” she grunted, lowering her snout to her chest. “My. Professional. Business. Briefcase.”

“Well, if you're ready, I can go ahead with some questions.”

Rubaline composed herself as if they were in the kitchen to see her. “Go ahead.”

“Well, I have your application here, but there are a few things I'd like more clarification on. First, you say you went to Miremass University?”

Rubaline nodded.

“Miss?”

“Oh! Yes. Sorry, I—yes, I did.”

“What year did you graduate?”

“I think it was—” She started leaving the kitchen to go find her diploma. She remembered leaving it on a table somewhere, and it would surely have the date on it. But when she stepped one webbed foot out of the room, the cord went taught. “Scuds!” she cursed.

“Come again?” the phone said, a little indignant.

“Um. I said, Pickerel 25.”

“You graduated in the 25th year of the Pickerel Age?”

“Y-Yes?”

“Your resume says that's when you started the…Little Skippers for Big Change youth program.”

Rubaline smacked her face. “Yes. It's good to have extracurriculars in college, right?”

“Oh, yes. And um… What was your major?”

“Entomology.”

“Oh. Looking to be a chef, were you?”

“Y-Yes? Is that…surprising?” she asked, trying to gauge if that was relevant to this job.

“Just trying to get all the details I can. And, so, for my final question, what skills do you have that you believe would be most helpful in this position?”

She licked her eyeball nervously. “Ah, um…” Her mind charged faster than an angry buck to think of a way to figure out what job this was without tipping the interviewer off.

“Miss Bender? Are you still there?”

That’s when it came to her. She remembered that she'd left a pile of papers with the snailing addresses of all the jobs on her bed. It was just in the other room but too far to reach with the phone still in her ear.

“Yes! Yes! I'm still here! I wouldn't leave the phone in the middle of an interview.” She chuckled nervously.

“Of course. Anyway, did you hear my question?”

“Skills! Yes. Um, well, first, I have a question for you.” She pulled up the entire acorn housing the phone's inner workings until its cord to the wall was pulled taught. Then she stretched the receiver until it too could go no further. She turned her back to the bedroom and stuck out her tail. “Would I be working at the…uh…the main facility?”

“Yes, the position would be out of our Dogwood complex.”

“Dogwood! Uh huh. Great!” Curling her tail around the bedroom wall like a snake looking for a mouse, she nuzzled the tip of it against her driftwood nightstand, then her clamshell headboard, until eventually feeling the soft texture of her moss-lined bed. “And…so…I wouldn't be working from anywhere else?” She felt the papers crunch under her tail, but then a sudden thud and crash startled her into dropping the phone. “SCUDS!” she shouted.

“Miss Bender?! Rubaline? Are you alright?” the receiver fizzled into the stone floor.

Without responding, Rubaline rushed into the bedroom and saw the source of the clamor. Her tail had apparently knocked against the wall hard enough that the bottle of algae wine her mother had given her tipped off a high shelf and spilled over the bed, drenching the address sheets in dark green stains.

“Ooooooh,” she squealed in frustration. “You've got to be kidding me!” She picked up the wet stack and quickly thumbed through them until she found a blurred word somewhat resembling Dogwood.

“Yes? I-Im fine!” she said, picking up the receiver.

“Miss Bender, is everything going okay there? We can reschedule for another day if this is a bad time.”

“No, no. Today is”—she held the sheet closer to her face and squinted—“fine. And I am ready to answer your last question.”

“Oh, okay. Yes, your relevant skills.”

The words that she could make out under Dogwood were, Pebble Housing Architect. “Certainly,” she started. “Uh, I have an excellent eye for balance. I'm very analytical when it comes to project timetables. And, might I say, I have a deep passion and appreciation for what your company does. There's a need, a crisis in the swamp that you're working to undo. I've even benefited from it myself.” She gestured to the walls of her burrow even though there was nobody to see it.

A long silence followed. 

Nervous, Rubaline licked her eye again then asked, “Are you still there?”

“Yes, Miss Bender. Just writing down some notes.”

“Oh… Are they…good no—”

“Thank you for your time, Miss Bender. We'll give you a call when we've made a decision about the position.”

“Um. Okay.”

“You have a muggy day.”

“You…too.”

She sat the receiver back on the floor. Then she held the paper to her snout and rubbed her finger over the address. After removing a layer of algae wine, she saw it actually said, Bogpool—a very different place. She let out a deep sigh, and, shambling up to her feet, she said aloud, “Guess I'm not getting whatever that job was.” She glanced at the bed. “Aaaand the wine is empty. Scuds.”

***

The next day, Rubaline awoke on the floor of her bedroom. The wine had made her bed uncomfortably sticky and smelling of pond, so she had opted to sleep somewhere cleaner. Something was scratching her collar. She pawed at it. It was another basket of Minnow's Pizza—still with one slice left.

“Where'd you come from?” she asked the basket

It said, Garlic and Grub on a crumpled parchment note under the woven store logo.

Rubaline groaned and made a silent vow not to get more of that particular flavor, that was, if she could ever again afford to buy food again. Then she stood up and carried the basket to her trash stump. She heard it scratch its way to the rest of them, then she heard her phone ring.

She rushed to it and answered. “H-Hello?! This is Rubaline.”

“Yes!” said a familiar, sweet voice. “Miss Bender, we spoke yesterday.”

“O-Of course!” She was dumbfounded. “Is this about the job? Because I can give another interview!”

“Oh that won't be necessary, Miss Bender.”

“Oh.” She felt her heart sinking into mud.

“Because we'd like to offer you the position!”

“Oh!?”

“Would you be able to accept?”

“Yes, YES! Absolutely!”

“Excellent. I must say, the way you talked about our company and your passion for our work really moved me.”

“It did?”

“Certainly. Not many applicants are so dedicated to a delivery service.”

“Delivery?”

“Isn't this exciting! Like you said, you'll be an integral part in undoing the food availability crisis in the swamp.”

“Food?”

“And your previous experience with food delivery was a huge factor in our decision.”

She smacked her lips as the taste of Minnow’s garlic and grub soured.

“Welcome to Hello Fish, Rubaline Bender! Would you be able to start tomorrow?”

She looked between the stack of bills, the mountain of pizza baskets, and 

the empty bottle of wine. She asked, “Do I get an employee discount?”