Dream Job

It was just the two of them. Ben, sitting on a barstool under a dim light fixture. Shalene Mond, the leggy brunette actress from that horror movie The Terror of Tomorrow to his right enjoying a nightcap.

Dinner had been perfect. A few laughs. A few truths the tabloids didn’t even know. A few times their eyes met during sips or bites that caused beads of sweat to form on his neck. It felt like a dream.

Across the bar, Ben could hear a guitar strumming but didn’t think the place had live music. He searched for the source of the music, finding no one. But the acoustic melody got louder. It surrounded him. A cacophony that felt all too familiar.

He opened his eyes to see a small light emitting from his nightstand, knowing his phone was flashing its usual 6:03 a.m. at him. Without looking, he instinctively leaned over and tapped around. He pressed the button so that the light was off and the guitar was silenced for what he hoped were nine more fantastic minutes.

When his eyes closed, he returned to the ambient bar he created. Knowing he had a finite amount of time, he looked at Shalene and tossed her a wry, confident smile as he leaned into her left ear. “You want to get out of here?”

She smiled, tossed back the remnants of her gin and tonic, and reached out her hand. He grabbed it, led her out of the bar, and they began the walk to his car.

The actress told Ben of her hometown, which was close to his. She talked of a time in Vancouver – where she filmed that one movie people thought got snubbed during awards season – when she laughed so hard at a joke from Jax Mason that berry-flavored sparkling water shot out of her nose. He imagined it was close to the laugh she was making telling the story while they walked hand-in-hand.

They continued walking for what felt like both forever and less than a moment. Ben swore his car was closer than the miles they seemed to be wandering. Even though it was a dream, he couldn’t conjure his car any closer but savored their time together. When they reached his jet-black Porsche, the sunrise blasted onto the street, blinding them both. Shalene put her hand above her eyes as a visor. Ben took the light in its entirety, unable to shield himself. The white glow blazed through his surroundings enveloping everything in its wake.

He opened his eyes again to see the same radiant sun shining through his blinds for real. It was a little odd to see, as it was still quite dark when he hit snooze on his alarm. Stretching his arms above his head, he contorted his stiff body out of the bed and grabbed his phone.

7:47 a.m.

“Oh no,” Ben said aloud. “No. No. No…Dammit, no!”

The stop button was only a millimeter away from the snooze, but that could create a mile-wide gap between him and the job he had always wanted. His interview with Channel 9 news was at 8:30 a.m. Screw the date night in his made-up fantasy land, his goal of being a cameraman for the news was a reality within reach. Being at the helm of filming history all started with not messing things up with a bad first impression, and he only had 43 minutes to make that happen. His Maps app said the station was 23 minutes away before traffic, so he did not have time to waste.

Ben leaped from the bed and threw his phone onto the comforter in one motion. He moved with rapid intent to the shower, his head outstretched in front of the rest of his body like a sprinter pining for Olympic gold. The faucet nozzle was nearly ripped off the tiled wall, not waiting for the water to get hot.

One pump of a shampoo/conditioner combo, rub, rinse, done. Two pumps of body wash straight into his hands – the washcloth not worth the precious seconds – led to an efficient, full-body pat down not even the best TSA agent could achieve. With the faucet back at rest, Ben swiped the day-old, dry-ish towel from the hook near the shower door. He counted Mississippis in his head as the water flecked off his body. He made his way back to the bed and grabbed his phone. 7:51 a.m. Four minutes — a militaristic record.

Ben turned to the closet and grabbed his lone suit. It wasn’t even technically a suit. It was a suit jacket that he purchased on sale for his grandmother’s funeral. The accompanying black pants aligned closer to jeans than suit pants. He grabbed the white button-down shirt that hung next to the jacket and went nearly two at a time, joining the buttons from his neck to his waist. When he got to the bottom of the shirt, the left side flapped around longer than the right by roughly one button length. Ben sighed, clenching his jaw as he tore the buttons apart and started from scratch. He tucked the finished shirt into the mostly-black pants and tightened it together with a slightly darker belt. Throwing on the jacket to complete the ensemble, he stole a quick glance at himself in the mirror and found a gradient of black shades from head to toe. Not like he was applying to be in front of the camera, after all.

Pulling his car keys off the kitchen counter and his phone from the bed, Ben found 7:56 a.m. staring back at him before he holstered his phone in his pocket. He ran down the three flights of stairs from his apartment to the building’s adjacent parking lot. Mashing the unlock button on the key fob for his worn-out Hyundai Elantra, he could see the taillights strobe back and forth as he approached the car. Ben rested his hand on the top of the sedan as he caught a singular breath and whipped the jacket off, opened the door, and dropped the already sweaty garment in the passenger seat.

Turning the keys in the ignition after he typed the news station into his Maps app, Ben plugged his phone into the charger. The voice of the navigation rang through the Elantra’s speakers. He looked down to see the estimated time at 8:36 a.m. Rush hour traffic, he thought. Jerking the gearshift from park to reverse and back to drive, he was off to cut down some time.

There were roughly two miles of slow suburban streets between Ben’s apartment and the northbound highway. He oscillated between going 11-15 miles per hour over the posted speed limit of 25. He knew the traffic pattern on autopilot: stop sign, right turn, stop sign, left turn, light, light, light, right turn, highway.

Ben treated the first two stop signs like guidelines. He drifted around each turn once he tapped his brakes and snapped his head in both directions. He approached the first light as it turned green, so that was easy to speed through. The second light already had someone in a large white SUV waiting at a red light; it was the only lane going in that direction. The light turned green, but the SUV remained motionless. Ben leaned forward and said, “Come on, go,” into his windshield. Another second passed, so he honked the horn, rolled down his window, and shouted, “Hey! Move it!” His left hand conducted an orchestra out the window to get the driver’s attention. A silent pause was suspended in the air. After a manicured middle finger was thrust out the SUV’s window, they continued through the third light and he turned onto the highway.

Ben pushed the limits of his small, well-traveled sedan as he accelerated from the on-ramp into the busy convoy of cars. The Elantra was never promoted as one of those cars that could go from 0-60 at a rapid pace but that was not stopping Ben today. He shoved the gas pedal parallel to the street. He shot gaps. He sped up. He braked. He pulled his car in and out of open areas. He navigated the lanes like a game of chess where the pieces were on fire. He kept up this pace for a few miles, reaching 76 miles per hour at one point when the cars ahead of him began to slow down to a crawl.

He and the parade of vehicles flanking the Elantra were now trickling along the highway. Stretching his head out of the window, he saw emergency lights on the horizon. While he hoped everyone was ok, the prevailing thought was that he wished they had wrecked a few miles farther along. Just as he crept forward and merged from three lanes of traffic to two, he could see the city’s skyline come into view.

“In two miles, turn right onto Orchid Avenue,” the navigation voice said, clearly having a sense of humor. Its dulcet tones were the opposite of whatever ASMR was trying to achieve. As Ben and his commuting colleagues tiptoed along, they passed the scene with the only person who might be having a worse morning than him.

The traffic began to flow and Ben got back up to the speed limit just as he was reminded to get off onto the Orchid Avenue exit. He stopped at the red light on the cusp of downtown and checked on his time. The clock read 8:24 a.m. and he was exactly five minutes from the station. That left him enough time to park and race into the station without looking like he ran a marathon to get there.

He got lucky with the lights and congestion of the side streets and felt like he was back on track. Passing a few of his favorite spots when he came into the city for a concert or baseball game, he no longer needed the navigation save for a surprise detour.

A few turns later, Ben entered the parking garage next to Channel 9 and pulled up to take a ticket. He reached for the button but could not quite get to it from his seat. He put the car in park, unbuckled his seatbelt, and opened his door to lean further from the car to the kiosk. He finally reached the button and the machine told him it was processing. It continued to process like it was trying to find a pub trivia answer. Cars began to form a line behind him as the ticket kiosk finally spit out his currency to raise the gate and enter. Just as he got two steps forward in the timing, he immediately came one step back.

Ben parked in the closest spot to the stairs as he grabbed his phone and jacket. Slamming the driver’s side door with whirling fury, he ran down the concrete steps in his unforgiving dress shoes. He reached the ground level and saw the Channel 9 building to his left. He breathed and pushed his hair around to give the appearance of composure while checking his phone as he walked.

8:31 a.m.

Could have been worse, he thought.

He pushed open the tall glass doors of the Channel 9 lobby and was greeted by a perky receptionist. She smiled a wide, bouncy grin. It gave the impression she was not the type of person who needed caffeine to start the day.

“Hi there! Welcome to Channel 9 News, the place for facts,” she said from a tightly memorized script. “My name is Marcy, what can I do for you today?”

“Uh, yeah, hi, Marcy. My name is Ben Jerris and I’m supposed to meet…” he trailed off, forgetting the name of the person with whom he’d been talking about the job. “I’m – I’m here for the cameraman job,” he said, straightening his shoulders to seem like he knew what he was talking about.

“Of course!” Marcy bellowed with excitement. “Just let me check Grace’s calendar.”

She typed and clicked around. Ben tried his best not to stare out of awkward anticipation. He scoped the room, eyes wandering around to foreign spaces he hoped would soon become familiar.

“Huh, well that’s strange,” Marcy tilted her head like a confused Pomeranian reacting to an unexpected noise. “It says here that your interview is actually tomorrow, Mr. Jerris.”

Ben was dumbfounded. It was inconceivable, there was no way. “That can’t be right,” he told her. “I’m sorry, I thought I was scheduled for Wednesday at 8:30 a.m.?”

Marcy laughed so hard that she leaned back with one hand on her chest and another under her nose to prevent what Ben imagined was frequent snorting.

“Well, there’s your problem! Today’s Tuesday, Mr. Jerris.” She caught her breath and sat upright with an exhale. The receptionist looked up at him, shaking her head with impressed curiosity. “Aren’t you Johnny-on-the-spot, though! We’d be lucky to have someone with your punctuality here at Channel 9.”

Ben could not believe it. He doubled over and exhaled a deep breath as he placed his hands on his thighs. As he let out a stifled laugh of his own, he pulled his phone out and looked above the time for the first time all morning. His panic blinded him from seeing something right in front of his face all morning.

“Thanks, Marcy. I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow,” he said, as he waved a quick goodbye before walking out the door. He walked a few feet toward the garage and sat down on a nearby bench in disbelief. He opened his phone and set three new alarms for Wednesday morning.

Ben stood up, still laughing both at and to himself when a tall brunette caught his eye along the sidewalk. The glare from the can of her berry-flavored sparkling water glistened off her sunglasses, which did their best to hide her from onlookers. She stopped walking when she saw him, pulling the wide shades off her face.

She curiously smiled at Ben and said, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”