I had been working with Check Temp agency for almost a year, and at first, they only sent me the best of the best. Lately, however, they’ve only been sending me inadequate applicants. Granted, I only used them a few times during the year, but I noticed the drastic change.
Checking my watch again, I rolled my eyes and walked in the back towards the breakroom. I had closed my store for the day to conduct interviews, and I was already regretting it. A part of me wanted to say screw all the interviews today, but I couldn’t. The Spring Festival was weeks away, and I needed help. Grabbing a water bottle from the fridge, I leaned against the refrigerator and took a long drink.
“Okay, Natalie. That was only one interview. There’s no way the other four will be no-shows. Calm down and think positively,” I said to myself.
After another thirty minutes, my second interviewee came. She was a tall, white woman with long blonde hair and emerald eyes. Her wide smile showed all thirty-two of her white teeth, and I had to admit it was infectious.
“Amber?” I asked, reaching out my hand.
“Yeah, that’s me. You’re Ms. Natalie, right?”
I nodded. “The one and only. Come on in. Can I get you some water or coffee?”
Amber shook her head. “No, thank you.”
Right as I was closing the door behind her, a hand slapped against the window, pushing it back open.
“What the?” I quizzed when a shorter white woman bumped past me.
“I’m so sorry I am late, hun. I have never been to this side of town before.” The woman said, taking her sunglasses off and looking around the room. “I thought the address was closer to the Northside instead of the South.”
She exhaled a high-pitched giggle that made my skin crawl. Tilting my head to the side, I realized she was Renee, my 9 a.m. interview. Her ass was over an hour late and she didn’t bother to call. I mean, I get it. Traffic in Briarton can get hectic, but she could have let me know. Sighing, I planted a smile on my face and walked towards the pair. Despite my irritation with Renee’stardiness, I still needed her help. I figured I could make this into a group interview.
“Well, since you are both here–” I began before Renee started dismissively waving her hand at me.
“You have a lot of authors on these shelves that I've never heard of. How do you make sales?” she asked, looking at Amber.
Amber stared in confusion before looking back at me. “Uh, I’m sorry, you must be mistaken–”
“Oh, is there another section where the good books are? I get it. You have to put the less attractive books in the front to appease those people. Can’t have a bookstore without them throwing a fit because they don’t see their demographic. Am I right?”
The fuck!
Amber’s eyes grew before she glared at Renee. “No, I don’t know what that means. How about you explain it to me?”
I opened my mouth to interject, but the rage emanating from Amber had me pausing.
“Well, I only meant that some people,” Renee began, subtly tilting her head towards me. “Think that everything always has to be about them. Is it too much to ask for us type of women to run a bookstore without having to put some type of minority on the shelves, too?”
My jaw dropped open. This bitch has lost her mind. Not only was she extremely late to a job interview and automatically assumed that Amber was the owner because she was another white woman, but she had the nerve to be racist, too?
Amber exhaled a long breath before running her tongue across her top teeth. “Look here, you entitled, pasty, lipstick teeth-stained, racist, bigfoot, little titty head ass bitch. How dare you!”
Renee gasped. “Excuse me?”
“You’re excused for being a shitty person! This is Ms. Natalie’s bookstore,” Amber spat, pointing her thumb towards me. “She’s worked her ass off to get this business going, and she’s doing an amazing job. Do you know the percentage of white authors that get published and into bookstores compared to minority authors? It’s a huge ass difference. So, Ms. Natalie has decided to start a business celebrating minority authors and allowing them a chance and space to display their work without being shoved in the back of the bookstore.”
“T-this isn’t your store?”
“No, you uneven forehead hoe. And if you don’t like it, you can get the fuck out,” Amber interjected, folding her arms across her chest.
Renee’s face turned beet red as she looked over at me. I couldn’t help it and threw my head back with laughter. There was nothing more entertaining than watching a racist white woman be put in her place by another white woman. Granted, I could have done it myself, but it was nice to know that there were some decent humans still out there who didn’t tolerate injustice, racism, and pure entitled idiocy.
“I-I apologize. I shouldn’t have assumed,” Renee stuttered, still looking at Amber. “I am a church-going woman and accept all of God’s people.”
Amber snatched Renee’s shirt and began dragging her towards the front door. I quickly opened it to assist.
“First of all, simply going to church means nothing. If you don’t love all of God’s people as he loves you, then you ain’t nothing but a fraud. Go pray for forgiveness and come back with a better apology.”
