of lip-gloss that had somehow landed on my chin, and hiked up my drawstring trousers so they no longer puddled around my ankles. The red powder that I wore in my hair parting to signify my status as a newlywed wife was still bright and intact. It always drew stares, and many times gasps of concern from strangers who thought that perhaps my scalp was bleeding. In the concentrated light of the elevator, it looked almost sinister. The pendant of the Hindu goddess Durga around my neck shone under the spotlights. The small heels of my slightly scuffed beige shoes added a bit of height to my frame, and I noticed that I still hadn’t regained the weight I’d lost since my wedding, which explained why my trousers – drawstring notwithstanding – couldn’t stay up.
When I got out, I saw the words Hollywood Insider scrawled in brilliant blue across a set of double glass doors leading to an office. Inside, two girls were sitting on a dark orange sofa in the reception area and on a corner table was a stack of job-application forms. I picked one up and started to fill it out. I had the contents of these almost memorized by now.
The girls, obviously friends, were fashionably dressed and lively, chatting to one another with confidence.
‘I’m sure one of us will slam-dunk this,’ said the first girl. ‘I have to admit, things are really looking up for me since I started on the Zoloft.’
‘Yeah,’ said the other one, chewing gum. ‘Can you imagine who we could meet? You know, Colin Farrell could come in through those doors any second.’ At that, they both giggled and pretended to swoon, while my only thought was: Colin who?
Sitting behind the reception desk was a woman who looked at least fifteen months pregnant, trying to get comfortable in her chair. I glanced around at the smooth, shiny marble floors, the glass-enclosed offices on either side of me, the huge framed magazine covers featuring famous people that lined the walls. The receptionist, who introduced herself as Dara, asked to speak to each of the other girls first, individually. They conversed quietly while I scribbled my details down on the form. Name: Priya Sohni. Age: 24. Languages: English, Hindi, Conversational French. I left blank the space next to ‘Experience’.
Before I knew it, it was my turn.
‘Hi,’ Dara said, barely able to move. ‘So, as you’ve probably guessed this is for my position, as I’ve got more pressing things to do,’ she said, pointing to her large, bulbous stomach. ‘I’ll chat with you first, and then send you off to human resources for a second interview. OK? Right, let’s have a look,’ she continued, scanning down my form.
‘You have all your papers? Legal?’ she asked, when she read that my place of birth was India.
‘Yes, miss, absolutely,’ I replied, nervously winding a handkerchief in and out of my fingers.
‘I love your accent,’ she said smiling. ‘Sounds real nice. So, are you familiar with computers?’ she asked, casting a curious glance towards the slim red streak down my hair parting.
‘I’m proficient with word processing,’ I said.
‘Good English, huh?’
‘Bachelor’s in literature.’
‘When do you think you can you start?’
‘Um, right away, if you would like,’ I replied hopefully.
‘That’s good to hear,’ she said, grimacing and looking down. ‘I think my water just broke.’
Five minutes later, as Dara called her husband to come to fetch her, yelling out to me, ‘Good luck with the rest of the interview!’, I was carted along to the head of human resources, an efficient-looking woman named Hilda. She had short black hair, was dressed in a business suit that seemed a bit heavy for this climate, and asked me to take a seat in her office. I tried not to get my hopes up, but this was the furthest I had ever been.
‘You know what the job is, yes?’ she asked. ‘We’re a celebrity magazine. There’s lots of answering of phones, taking deliveries, greeting visitors.’ As I nodded, she looked at my application from again.
‘It says here you’re from India. What brought you to America?’
‘Marriage. My husband emigrated from India many years ago with his family,’ I replied.
She looked up, and put down her pen.
‘Was it, an, um, what-do-you-call-them, arranged marriage?’ she asked, suddenly interested. ‘And a joint family? Like on the Discovery channel? Do you all live together?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact we do,’ I said, my accent suddenly sounding thick and clumsy in this light-filled room with the modern art on its walls. ‘It’s quite traditional, how it all happened.’ I was conscious of my English, remembering Mrs Pereira from school, who would thwack my palm with a chipped wooden ruler if I slurred words together or dropped letters from their place. Even if I was living in America now, there would never be any ‘gonna’ or ‘wanna’ or ‘gotta’.
‘Yeah, I read something in Marie-Claire about brides moving in with their in-laws,’ Hilda continued. ‘Hafta say, don’t know how you folks do it. It’s hard enough living with just my husband, forget his parents.
‘I think you’ve forgotten to fill this in,’ she then said, suddenly changing the subject and pointing to the ‘Experience’ section. My heart sank. This was the part where I was always shown the door.
‘I didn’t forget,’ I said quietly. ‘I have not had a job before. This would be my first.’
Hilda looked stunned.
‘Not even while you were in college? Not even part time or summers? Well, that’s disappointing because the ad did say we needed someone with experience. I’m sorry, I know you came all the way in, but –’
‘Please, Miss Hilda,’ I stammered, trying not to cry, I couldn’t take another rejection, another day of going home empty-handed, and then having to start the search all over again. Already, my in-laws were complaining about how much petrol I was wasting on what they called ‘coming up and down’, as if it were my fault that nobody wanted to hire me.
‘I know I can do the job,’ I pleaded to Hilda. ‘I learn very quickly and am willing to work hard. Please, just give me a chance.’
Hilda leaned back in her chair. ‘You don’t want to become an actress, do you?’ she asked, narrowing her eyes.
‘Oh my, no!’ I replied, surprised at the question.
‘Then that’s about the only thing you have going for you. Everybody else who comes in here thinks that this will be their first step into the industry, as if they’ll be discovered by some super-agent as they’re sitting behind reception. Like the two girls who were in here before you. I knew they weren’t serious. It’s infuriating. We fill the position so often that it’s become a joke. Dara is the only one we’ve had that had a legitimate reason for leaving,’ Hilda said, shaking her head.
She looked me up and down, clearly not enamoured of my outfit and puzzled by what to her must have looked like a razor slit above my cranium. And I knew when I left the house that the waist pouch was a bad idea.
‘You’re very nice-looking, but you might want to invest in a few new clothes,’ she said. ‘You’re the first person anyone sees when they walk through
