Time & Time Again

I ran my hands over my skirt, smoothing it down for probably the tenth time in the last five minutes. I sighed and crossed my legs, glancing up at the clock. The interviewer was ten minutes late. I was just about to smooth my skirt again when the white wooden door finally opened and a beautiful blond came bustling in, shuffling papers in her hands, trying not to drop them. A few escaped her grasp and fluttered to the floor, a curse escaping her lips. I got up from my seat and bent down to help her pick them up.

“Shit, thank you,” she said, laughing a little as I handed her the papers, both of us standing up. “I’m so sorry, this probably isn’t what you were expecting at all.”

I was about to say something when she suddenly stuck her hand out, shuffling the papers once again. “I’m Sophia Caller, you can came me Sophie though.” She flashed me a dazzling smile.

“Scotland McQueen, but you can call me Scottie,” I mimicked her, causing her to laugh a little as our hands shook.

“Scotland?” she asked, amused. “That’s a beautiful name.” she made her way around the large desk in the office and set the papers down.

“Thank you, it was my parents idea,” I joked as I sat back down in the chair across from her.
Sophie plopped down in an exhausted way and laughed, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. “Wow, that’s clever, I like you already Scottie.” I laughed and then smoothed my skirt again. “By the way, I’m so sorry I was late, we were having a modeling meltdown and I had to take care of it, like usual,” she sighed. “But, anyways, I guess that brings us to why you’re here.” She flashed me another dazzling smile and I watched as her eyes scanned my appearance.
“Why, you’re a lot more prettier in person, seriously your portfolio does you no justice,” she said, looking down at her papers.

“Um, thank you,” I said, trying to sound indifferent. I was never good at taking compliments, especially when it came to my looks but I didn’t want her to think of me as insecure, or worse, conceited.

“You’re welcome.” She said, still reading her papers. “So Scottie, I’m not going to lie, we are in desperate need of models, and you were definitely a favorite of mine since the beginning when we started going through the portfolios so your chances are looking pretty good so far,” she looked up and gave me a wink and laughed. “Wow, I’m so professional.” She whispered and I couldn’t help but laugh. “But, anyways, serious mode here. My interview process is probably different from anything you are used to; all I really want to do is know who you are. I’m not going to ask you ridiculous overused questions that hardly ever apply to your job. Nope, not me. So just, tell me about yourself Scottie.” She said and smiled up at me, leaning back in her chair, obviously waiting for me to begin.

I was surprised to say the least. I was not expecting this at all. I was actually hoping for the ridiculously overused questions because answering those were a piece of cake. I shifted in my chair and looked around the room.

“Um, I’m sorry, I-, I don’t know how to begin.” I apologized, meeting her gaze.
She offered me a small smile and took a deep breath. “Just tell me who you are. Who is Scotland…” she looked down at her papers. “Marie McQueen? What is her family like, friends, lovers? What are your favorite things to do? Who is your celebrity crush?” she laughed and swirled her hands around in front of her. “Who are you? Tell me about you, um, oh, tell me why your parents named you Scotland.” She offered and squinted her eyes at me. “I hope there’s a story behind that.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that and then I decided, what the hell? I needed this job and if all I had to do was tell her my life story I guess I could do that. Even if it means going over things that I would rather not talk about, but I had a feeling that that was exactly what she wanted. She wanted to know me. And boy, would she be in for a surprise.

“Well, my parents traveled a lot and they loved to bring back dozens of souvenirs.” I explained, smiling at the memories. “I was one of them. I was uh, conceived, in Scotland.”

Sophie laughed. “Oh, wow, well that makes sense now.”

“Yeah, they did the same thing with my older brother. His name is Finland. We mostly call him Fin though.”

Sophie laughed again. “Damn, that is genius.” She covered her mouth with her hand, still giggling. “Tell me about Fin.” She suggested and I grinned.

“Fin is…great. He’s amazing. He’s my older brother, by two years. We were extremely close growing up. Like I said, my parents loved to travel and they didn’t always take us with them. So it was mostly just Fin and I, we bounced around from Grandma’s house to my aunt’s house when my parents would leave. He was always so protective of me. I remember this one time, when we were in grade school, there was this boy making fun of me, and Fin, he, punched the kid in the face. I mean, we were in grade school and Fin got in a fight, just to protect me and I don’t know, I just remember feeling so safe when I was with him. It didn’t bother me that my parents were never really around, as long as I was with Fin.” I smiled, looking over to Sophie.

“Are you still close with him?” she asked, looking thoughtful.

“Well, kind of, I mean he travels a lot, for work. So I don’t see him as much as I’d like but when were together, I still feel that bond. And he calls me as often as he can, I know he feels bad, leaving me, he probably thinks that it reminds me of our parents, always leaving, but it doesn’t. With Fin, it’s different.”

“What does he do, that causes him to travel so much?”

I grinned. “He’s in a band, a rock band, he plays the guitar. He’s amazing at it, sometimes I still get surprised when I see him play. He just puts so much passion, and soul into his playing. He’s actually one of the reasons his band got so big, people were amazed by his guitar skills. It makes sense though, as much as we were bounced around when we were little, Fin always made sure he had his guitar. My dad had gotten it for him when they were in France when he was seven and Fin locked himself in his room that very night, he didn’t even eat dinner. He taught himself how to play, we were never a very musical family but Fin was in love with that guitar.”

“What’s the name of his band?” Sophie suddenly asked and I noticed she was deep in thought.

“Searching Souls,” I responded.

“Oh! Oh my God!” Sophie said, clapping her hands together, causing me to jump. “Your brother is Fin McQueen! Wow, damn, I’m slow. My little sister, she is like, in love with him, it’s quite hilarious actually. She is constantly talking about him and how attractive he is.” She laughed. “She’s in love with the band too though, don’t worry, that music is always playing when I go home to visit.”

I laughed. “Yeah, don’t worry, I get that a lot.”

Sophie looked at me again. “Okay, sorry, go ahead and continue. We talked about Fin now tell me more about your parents.”

I shifted uncomfortably. “Well, there’s nothing much to talk about. I mean, they were great, they were my parents, but they just weren’t normal I guess you could say. I mean they spent more time in foreign countries than with their children. I didn’t understand it when I was little but now that I’m older, I guess I understand. My parents never wanted to grow up. I could tell that much by seeing all the photos and journal entries from their travels and also the stories my grandmother and aunt would tell us. They were always kids at heart. They never planned to have Fin and I. We were just a product of their love that they shared. They loved to travel and that’s the very thing that became the end of them. They, uh, they died in a plane crash when I was twelve.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Sophie said quietly.

“It’s okay, it was a long time ago, and like I said, I didn’t see them very much. I think Fin took their death the hardest. You see before my parents had me, they actually took a break from travelling, and stayed in California for a couple years, they actually tried being parents to Fin so he was a bit closer to them than I was. But when they died, he was fourteen. He really got serious about his music around that time. He started the band with our neighbor, Jake, and I don’t know, he just used it as a distraction I guess but it paid off. They are still in the band, traveling the world, just like my parents.” I smiled.

“Does it bother you the way your parents were never around much?”

I sighed. “I mean not really, I just, I guess the one thing that really bothers me was the fact that they could just leave Fin and I at home, while they were out traveling. They never even called to check in on us. I mean, they would send gifts and we would talk for maybe a couple minutes the first day they landed at their destination but after that we never heard from them, until they would call and say they were coming back home. I could never imagine leaving my children like that. I mean even just dropping my son off at daycare gives me nerves like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Oh, you have a son?” Sophie asked confused, shuffling through her papers again.

Shit. “Oh, yeah, I’m sorry. I usually don’t tell anyone right away.” I bit my lip; I wasn’t planning on telling the modeling company about him at all actually.

“Oh, no, no it’s fine, I just wanted to make sure because if I hire you, we don’t want to inconvenience you too much, by making you travel too far or for long periods of time, but luckily we really need a model stationed here, in Chicago, you actually wouldn’t be doing a lot of travelling at all.”

“Oh, okay, thank you,” I said, now feeling embarrassed. It’s not like I was ashamed of the fact that I had a son. I loved Jace, with all of my heart. I would do anything for that little boy, but I don’t know, I just didn’t like sharing him with people, telling them about him. He was mine. I couldn’t imagine what my life would be like without him.

“So tell me about him. What’s his name?” Sophie asked with a smile and I stiffened. “Scottie, it’s okay if you don’t want to talk about him, but it would really help me get to know you better.” She urged.

I sighed. “Okay, well, his name is Jace and he is one year old. He’s my everything, I can’t imagine my life without him, and every moment that we’re apart, I get this feeling of, I don’t even know how to describe it, it’s almost like I feel incomplete. He came into my life just when I thought I had lost everything. He saved me.” I smiled sadly.

“And Jace’s father? What’s your relationship like with him?” Sophie asked and I looked down, closing my eyes.

I took a deep breath. “He never even met Jace. He died before I even knew I was pregnant.”

“Oh, Scottie, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean-“

“No, it’s okay.” I said quickly, not wanting her to finish. “It’s alright, it’s been a little over a year now and I’m slowly starting to be okay with talking about it. I was finally able to tell Fin the full story a couple weeks ago when he was visiting, I’m getting better with dealing with everything that happened.” I looked back up, though I instantly regretted it. Sophie was giving me a look, that look. I despised that look, the one that everyone gave me.

Sophie cleared her throat and gave me a small smile. “Uh, well let’s talk about something else, yeah?” she glanced down at her papers.

We talked for about an hour more, it was definitely one of the weirdest job interviews I had ever had. Sophie decided though that she wanted to give me a chance, she liked me. So I left after making an appointment to come in and take some practice photos and she said that we would figure out things from there. I was walking down the stairs, choosing them over the elevator because I wanted time to think. I had talked way too much about my life today and I knew this would happen. Just when I thought everything was going to change for the better I was sucked back into my past. I thought about my parents, about how pissed I was that I barely even knew who they were.

I thought about Fin, and how much I missed him. He had a few more weeks left of his tour and then he promised that he would come and visit Jace and I and I couldn’t help but wish it would be sooner. I missed him so much. I needed him, I needed someone. Jace was the only other person I really communicated with and it’s quite hard to hold a conversation with a one year old. Talking with Sophie today was the first real conversation I’ve had with someone close to my own age in almost a week. Fin was currently in Europe, making it difficult to schedule a time when we could talk.

I realized just how lonely I’ve been. I felt the hot tears forming behind my eyes as I nodded and tried to smile to the receptionist as I made my way out the building, the sounds of Chicago quickly filling my ears as I made a sharp turn and headed towards my apartment building. I tried desperately to fight the tears, I didn’t cry, not because of things like this. I was the one who moved to Chicago, I was the one who left everyone, yet I still couldn’t help but feel like people were glad that I had.

I started digging through my purse, searching for my phone. I wanted to call Janet and tell her I would be early picking up Jace, I needed to see my little man, I needed to feel him in my arms, to remind myself that I was not as alone as I felt. I finally found it and was trying to dig it out of my bag when I suddenly came to stop, crashing into someone. It caught me off guard and I would have falling back on my ass if the person hadn’t caught me, gripping my arms.

“I’m so sorry, “ I started to say as I steadied myself, but stopped when I looked up and saw the face of the person I had run in to.

“Scottie?” he asked, the shock in his voice almost comical.

“Tony?” I said, equally as shocked.

Notes