A short story that highlights the power of the grandmother — granddaughter relationship…
by: Mike Rusetsky
The career fair bustled with manic energy. Reya gulped, clutching a manila folder to her chest. The folder was stuffed with resumes she’d printed out at the school library less than half an hour ago.
But what now?
As soon as she’d checked in and received her name sticker, Reya stepped into the Best Western ballroom — only for her senses to be overwhelmed by stimuli. Jobseekers were lining up at vendors’ tables, snapping up cheaply made swag off the table cloths, nodding vigorously at recruiters’ elevator pitches, and in some cases even playing games.
Reya watched as a kid about her age with a blonde mustache awkwardly teetered in the middle of the room, his arms outstretched for balance and his face swallowed up by a VR headset. The recruiter stood by, monitoring him for safety, and cooing something into the kid’s ear. Reya was curious about which company this was, until she moved closer and her interest sharply dropped.
Garner Construction.
She didn’t care for a job in skilled trades. Her wrists were too delicate to wield a jackhammer or a buzz saw. She would much rather reload fountain pens than concrete mixer vats. Besides, her father had worked as a foreman for years, and raised all his children to have a deep respect for the trades, yet he gently pushed them to pursue their own career directions. As the baby of the family, Reya was four weeks shy of graduating high school, and it was her turn to choose a path in life. Somehow, she didn’t think the construction industry was it.
“Whoa, I’m crazy high up!” shouted the blonde-mustached kid, prompting the company rep to flash a grin and Reya to roll her eyes.
“That’s right, bud! In this simulation, you’re manning a crane twenty-five stories above the city. Hold up, let me add a quick sunset to the skyline. You’ll be seeing a lot of those at the job site, since overtime is always available, and strongly encouraged!”
The young man’s jaw went slack with awe at whatever he was seeing, and Reya had to move on before she gave into the urge to confront the employer for using false advertising. She’d seen the injuries her dad came home with, the casual cuts and bruises that were staples of a hard day’s work. But the construction recruiter, she supposed he was only doing his job. While subtly manipulating young people with cool technology, but still.
Reya trod down a long row of tables set up on either side. Banners and prize wheels begged for engagement, and she felt the same out-of-body dissociation she always got at the circus, with stilt-walkers and carnival barkers vying for her attention. The question was, which employer should she go with? Her time was precious, and she didn’t want to waste any of it on dead ends like Garner Construction.
She eavesdropped on a few recruiters already mid-pitch to their captive audiences. However, the speeches all melded together, like a sticky-sweet ice cream sundae left untouched for an hour. All the ingredients gooped into a mucky, homogenous mess. But no matter the employer, and whether they were in the public or private sector, everyone seemed to boast about their “full-time positions with a robust benefit package to include healthcare, paid time off, and a work-from-home option.”
Silently wishing she had opted for that option today instead of venturing out, Reya marched on through the aisles of hype men bursting with big carnie energy.
To her mild surprise, the employers in attendance included several universities.
Reya thought she’d written off the academic option, but now that so many of her friends had gotten their acceptance letters (some with scholarships), she couldn’t help but feel a little left out. Smelling blood in the water, the nearest recruiter smiled and waved at her. The woman sported a Canton University polo and a look of forced friendliness.
“Hi there! Want a free hand sanitizer? They’re strawberry-scented!” she shouted to Reya, who felt obliged to approach her now.
“Thanks,” Reya smiled, taking a tiny bottle and clipping it to her purse.
“I’m Bree, what’s your name?”
“Reya.”
“Awesome! Nice to meet you, Reya. Are you thinking about college? I’m not sure if you’re a junior yet, but it’s never too soon to start applying…”
“I’m a senior,” Reya said, annoyed at the assumption. She knew she looked smaller and younger than her eighteen years, but this lady didn’t have to rub it in so hard.
“Great! Well, what are you into, Reya? We have a vast array of programs at CU. Pre-med, engineering, environmental studies. What’s your passion?”
That was an excellent question. What was her passion? Reya doodled her way through most classes, but her abstract scratchings could hardly be called art. She could get lost in a good book for hours, and loved a park stroll with a trusted friend. Sports weren’t really her thing, but she enjoyed serving as the student body vice president, and moonlighted as the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper and blog.
But were any of these passions, or merely hobbies of convenience? Faced with the simple question, she suddenly didn’t have an answer. Everyone at this event seemed so eager and focused, so assured of what they were pursuing. As if it was never really a choice at all, but a certainty that only required them to show up at the Best Western to be rewarded. The VR kid had probably secured a job offer by now.
“I’m keeping my options open at the moment,” Reya said, hoping this would nudge the conversation towards a conclusion point. Her skin was suddenly very hot under her purple turtleneck — the dressiest thing she could think of to put on — and felt foolish amongst all these serious adults, with their career ambitions and preferred courses of study.
“That’s totally cool!” Bree beamed. “Nothing wrong with a little browsing around, right? I just wouldn’t wait too long if I were you. Our class registration queues fill up quickly, in fact the fall semester is already pretty booked up. Here, take a pamphlet!”
Reya accepted a glossy fold-out flyer and thanked the woman. “Actually, I’m kind of considering taking a gap year.”
At the utterance of the phrase “gap year,” Bree’s face distorted into the mask of Greek tragedy, so disturbed she seemed by the very suggestion. “Oh, girl,” she said, her professional demeanor slipping. “I hope you think long and hard before making a choice like that.”
“Why, what’s the harm?” Reya asked, trying not to sound too defensive.
“For one, you’d lose momentum. Academically speaking.”
“Hmm.”
“Yeah. A gap year can benefit you, but it can also do untold damage to your brain.”
This was news to Reya, who always thought that her and her brain were part of a unified whole. Benefit her while damaging her brain?
“How do you mean, Bree?”
The recruiter exhaled a long sigh, channeling great patience towards this young woman. “I know what kind of shenanigans you kids get up to on your gap years.”
“Travel and part-time work?” Reya guessed.
“One hopes! But what’s more likely is your friends who didn’t get into college will lure you into experimental substances. Opioids, hallucinogens, heck, even alcohol will damage your brain. Your neuroplasticity can suffer irreparable harm!”
“Oh. I see. So that’s the brain damage you mentioned.”
“Of course, honey!” Bree said, grinning like a math teacher pleased to see her student solve an equation. “Besides, you wouldn’t want to be excluded from the amazing social life all your peers living on campus will have, would you?”
“I think you and I have different definitions of ‘brain damage’,” Reya said. She enjoyed the sudden flinch that flashed across Bree’s expression. “If you think all those dorm kids are sitting around tutoring each other and not ripping bong hits, I have some bad news for you.”
Bree gasped, actually clutching at her heart. Too bad she wasn’t wearing any pearls, Reya noted silently. “Thanks anyway, Bree. I think I’ve heard everything I need to know about CU. And I’ll ‘see you’ later.” With a sweet parting smile, Reya resumed her path along the aisle.
Behind her, Bree was scoffing and mumbling, too offended to put together a tangible sentence. “But…you…we didn’t even…”
Reya kept walking, even as she fumed about the recruiter’s audacity. How dare she suggest that Reya’s non-college-bound friends would automatically pull her towards a life of drug-steeped loserdom? Yet instead of feeling like she had “won” the interaction, Reya only sensed a gloomy depressive weight upon her shoulders. Why would she even dignify someone like Bree with a response? She should have just walked off. Clearly this was not the path for her.
For the next forty minutes, she smiled and nodded through similarly fruitless conversations. The more interactions she had at the career event, the more Reya found herself wishing she could fall through the floor and maybe find a gig as a dwarf-like underground dweller at the Best Western. Sadly, she suspected it would not be a “full-time position with a robust benefit package to include healthcare, paid time off, and a work-from-home option.” So she sighed and pushed onward, handing over resumes and thanking employers for their near-identical pitches.
As Reya circled around the room, the circus analogy persisted in her mind. This event was nothing but a carousel — a cyclical ride that, for all its centrifugal force, loud Wurlitzer music, and prancing wooden horses, wasn’t actually going anywhere. After her last round of collecting stress balls with various company logos on them, the cacophony was getting too loud for her to take. In dire need of a break, she stepped out into the hotel lobby.
The wall of noise died down at once, and she leaned against a wood panel, sighing a breath of relief. Closing her eyes, she prayed for the strength to make it through the event. Or to at least have the stamina to pass out the rest of her resumes, which seemed like the only measurable metric of success at this thing.
Something buzzed against her hip, and Reya’s eyes snapped open.
She retrieved her phone from her purse. A text from her grandmother was on the screen. Reya read it with a smile.
How is the career freakshow going, baby-girl?
Her Gran always seemed to know what was happening. Probably because Mom had the tendency to spill the tea about any borderline-relevant item in her children’s lives. Of course Gran had known about the career fair, and suspected her introvert granddaughter’s aversion to the whole thing. It felt refreshing to be known, even while standing outside this awful hotel ballroom. A freakshow, indeed.
She texted back: About as good as I thought it might. Kind of a bust. I don’t know if I can do this.
Immediately an incoming Face Time call appeared onscreen, and Reya gave a silent chuckle. As much as she wanted to roll her eyes at her grandmother’s knee-jerk reaction to her text, she couldn’t deny that she needed the support.
“Hi, Gran,” she said, trying to look cheerful on camera.
“Baby-girl!” the silver-haired woman said. There was more compassion and understanding in those three syllables than she’d heard collectively in that ballroom for the past hour.
“Yeah, it’s not going so great.”
“Are the employers being too pushy? Trying to coerce and recruit you?”
Reya smiled wanly. “Not exactly. It just all seems so…impersonal. And fake. Like the lighting in here. I don’t know how else to describe it.”
“Do you feel like a goat at a farm auction?”
It was such a weird question that it prompted a laugh from Reya. “What?”
“When they try to bid on you. Inquire about your skillset and GPA, all that stuff. Do you feel like a prize goat?”
Reya giggled despite herself. Her Gran was a hoot. While not always with it, she was occasionally more insightful than anyone gave her credit for. “I think so, actually. But I’m afraid I’m not a very good goat, Gran. I feel like that room is full of, like, really cool cattle. They’re all bleating and stomping their hoofs, but I don’t know the first thing about eating from the trough. Forget about the farm work they need me to do.”
“So screw the farmer, then.”
Reya’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me, girl! Screw ‘em! Who needs them?”
“I mean…I’d love to move out of my parents’ house someday. The sooner the better. I just don’t know what’s next, and there’s all these different directions!”
“What directions, baby-girl? What’s the dilemma?”
Reya took a deep breath, at a loss for how to communicate her option paralysis.
“It’s like this, Gran. The way I see it, I’ve got two ways I could go. Like two parallel realities, and once I choose one, I’ll be stuck there forever.”
“That’s a little melodramatic, Reya. But go on, lay it on me. What are these parallel realities of yours?”
“Right. Option one: Academia. I’d enroll in classes and try to earn a degree.”
“Sounds a bit boring, but okay.”
“Agreed! Especially since I have no idea what I want to study.”
“And what’s behind door number two?”
Reya sighed. “Option two sucks, too. I’d enter the Workforce.”
“Oogh!” Gran gave an exaggerated full-body shiver on camera, prompting a smile from her granddaughter.
“I know. And that’s the boiled-down version of where my life could go next. Either be a student or get a job. But what would I study? Or where should I work? What skills do I even have to offer anyone?”
Her grandmother must have sensed that Reya was spiraling, because her tone grew softer as she spoke. “How about this, Reya. Have you stopped to consider the third door?”
“The…third?”
“Uh-huh. I’m looking right at it, behind you there. That nice and shiny revolving door. You exit through it and go to the airport. Get on a plane and fly down here to Phoenix and stay with me and your grandpa for the summer. Maybe the year.”
Almost automatically, Reya made a face. “I still can’t call him Grandpa. He’s just Allen to me.”
“I forget you still don’t like that I’ve been dating since Grandpa’s passed on. But you know, that’s another illustration of the same lesson. Grandpas die. Jobs end. Curricula go kaput. That’s life, baby-girl. It can get bleak fast. But then, just when you least expect it, a crap-ton of options sprout up in front of you, where there were none before. Like dandelions after a rainstorm, or — like extra heads on the Hydra!”
The mythical monster name-drop cracked Reya up. She’d forgotten that the older woman was a classical literature professor before she retired. “Not the Hydra!” she laughed. “Gran, you’re sweet to offer this, but I don’t know…”
“You don’t know what? Come spend some time with me. You’ll have your own bedroom, and some space away from your parents to think stuff over. Allen can find you an internship or a volunteer opportunity. He sits on a board for a bunch of local non-profits. They work with underprivileged children, mostly, and obviously that wouldn’t have to be your thing, but…”
“It’s an option,” Reya finished for her.
“Exactly,” Gran said. Her features opened into a smile. “That pressure you’re feeling? It’s society trying to box you into a category, a statistic. I say, screw society! Do your own thing. And if you don’t want to come down to Phoenix, fine! Screw me too. But don’t ever feel like you don’t have a choice. Because as long as you’ve got your free will, you can use it or abuse it, however you want. And I’ll aways be here, just a phone call away.”
Reya didn’t realize she started crying until Gran’s face looked concerned. She wiped at her cheeks with the sleeve of her turtleneck. “Thank you, Gran. That’s a huge load off my mind. You’re like a fairy godmother, or something.” She emitted a half-giggle, half-sob.
“Yep, I’m freakin’ magic! You’re gonna get my waterworks going, child. Let’s not do that, my fairy wings don’t work so good when sopping wet.”
Reya smiled and nodded, feeling grateful and at peace. They chatted for another few minutes, and after ending the call with mutual I-love-you’s, she knew just what to do next.
“Sorry, school loans. You’ll have to wait,” she whispered, leafing through her accumulated stack of handouts. “So will you, entry-level career jobs. RIP to my robust benefit package.”
She glided across the lobby and dumped her resume folder, as well as all the pamphlets she was handed, into the nearest recycle bin. A glimmer of sun caught her eye then, reflecting off the front door as it revolved, silhouetted by daylight. With all this synthetic lighting, she’d almost forgotten it wasn’t even noon yet. The day was young.
Reya headed for the exit. Option number three, she thought. Here goes nothing! Unless it was something? Somehow the Hydra didn’t sound like such a threat anymore.
She moved through the revolving door and into her new parallel reality.
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