Something I Don't Know

1: money can't buy happiness, but I'm way less sad when I have it

The last time I interviewed for a job, there were multiple things wrong with the situation. First of all, it was at a fast food place, which is sad as it is, and second, I smelled terribly like smoke and rotten food thanks to a basically inedible casserole Sybil had made the hour before ("You should always go into an interview well-fed, Grey"), and third, the interviewer would not stop staring at my fangs.

Actually, a lot of people I meet for the first time seem to have a fascination with my teeth. It is not because they are impressively clean.

This time, it's at a teahouse around the corner from the loft the vampire chick, Safiya, bought for Jamie and me. I drank a smoothie before so my breath is fruity. And considering the guy who owns it is a vampire, the whole fangs thing isn't an issue.

Doing better already.

Still, for what feels like eternity but is probably closer to three minutes, I'm just sitting here and squirming. For the interview, the owner—some guy named Robert who was probably turned last year but still just gives off the air of I am older and wiser and know way more about tea than you—took me to his office in the back of the teahouse, which is almost more teahouse-y than the teahouse itself.

Perched on ornately designed red and gold floor cushions, we sit across from each other, only a coffee table in between us. The lights are a dreary, burnt gold, and in every corner there's a bamboo plant. I feel like I've traveled to the other side of the world, even if all I truly did was walk a block or two.

So I sit there, adjusting my posture and trying to look like a natural teahouse guy (Tea-man? Tea-ologist? Waiter? Probably waiter), while Robert ponders my resume.

He looks down at the paper. He looks up at me. "Mr. Grey Meesang," he says, finally.

"Yes, sir."

"Is that a nickname? 'Grey?'"

Distantly, I recall Midge's mom, Mrs. Osborne, asking me the same question after her daughter stabbed me and then kidnapped me. Distantly, I recall giving the same answer I am giving now, and will give for the jillion other times I will likely be asked this question for as long as I live (which, considering the whole demon thing, will be a very, very long time): "No, sir; no, just Grey."

Robert makes a strange noise in his throat. I think it's supposed to be a hmm sort of noise, but it sounds more like he's coughing up phlegm, so I'm not one hundred percent sure. "I like it," he says, more to himself than to me, it seems. "Alright, Mr. Meesang. Tell me about yourself."

I start to rattle off my usual, admittedly rehearsed answer to that request. When I was still in high school, and just learning how interviewing and jobs and life, really, worked, Sybil would have a weekly interview with me. Thursday nights after dinner she'd glue me to my seat—yes, there's a spell for that, and she used it—and grill me with a bunch of questions, always beginning with "Tell me about yourself." Whenever I started to veer too much on the sentimental side, she'd smack me upside the head. "No one cares where you were born or what your favorite color is! I want to know how many different code languages you know!"

It's zero. It was zero then, and it's zero now.

No matter how positively awful those Thursday nights were, Sybil kinda knew what she was doing. And my answer to that question usually works.

But a quarter way through, Robert stops me. "Man, I really don't care. Like, what do you care about? You've got a family? What are they like? Tell me that."

"What do I care about?" I repeat.

Robert gestures me on.

I clear my throat. If I answered honestly, it would be sort of long. I would talk about Sybil and my dad and my mom. I would talk about Jamie, the werewolf kid who currently lives with me, and whom I made Sybil watch while I came to this interview. Even Safiya would make the list. And of course, Midge, who has technically been my girlfriend for around five months now, but still takes my breath away every time I look at her. I would talk about wanting to belong somewhere. I'd talk about the DVD shelf in my bedroom that no one is allowed to touch, because my movies are sacred. I don't think about it much, but there's a lot to care about. There's a lot to lose.