Clara

“You’ll need to work independently. We expect employees in this role to own their projects from conception to completion of the deliverable assets.”

The man is addressing me with this word salad. His hands fold neatly together before coming to rest on his abdomen as he leans away from his desk. The shiny leather of his chair squeaks as his back presses into it. The lean is a move only those who are leisurely comfortable in their male power can perfect. He nearly nails it, but the chair tips backward slightly too far and he catches himself.

I stay rigidly upright in my own chair, which is simple, with the implication of a cushion that doesn’t quite deliver, and sharp wooden arms that slice into my elbows when I try to rest them there. I pull my hands into my lap, so as not to fiddle nervously with the collar of my one good interview blouse. Tension draws tight across my shoulders as I try to keep my upper body posture open and inviting, though my clenched hands in my lap scream don’t— do not— simply don’t address me.

“I am comfortable with responsibility,” I reply.

It is maybe true, or at least it could have been at one time. Clara isn’t comfortable with it. In fact, she hates responsibility. I know because she has begun to ooze more green goo and her crackling breathing quickens.

Sometimes, for brief windows of time, seconds maybe or sometimes minutes, I forget she is there. I imagine a camera panning from a close-up shot of just me, out, out until it catches her in the wide. She is a dark stain in an otherwise nondescript, greige office—a sudden, stark reminder that, of course, yes, she is still there, her dark image a harsh contrast within the frame, her deep, rattling breaths metronomic and unnerving.

Clara’s black hair hangs down to her waist in wet tangles. Her simple shift frock is muddy and of an almost indeterminable drab color. Her dour face is full of shadows. When she sits still like this, I can see her entire body pulse with her heart beat, which is something I have never understood. Yes, she is frail enough that even the jump of her heart can rattle her, but I don’t know how she manages to have a heartbeat at all. I always assumed she wouldn’t, but what do I know?

Why are we here? she rasps, ooze dripping from her dangling hands with a fat glorp.

I want to tell her to please stop with the oozing and glorping. Though no one can see her, the big wet spot she leaves on the floor will be visible to everyone, and they will assume I knocked my water cup over and didn’t tell anyone. I don’t bother telling her why we’re here, because I have already told her, and while my interviewer, Kevin—or possibly Keith— can’t hear her whisper, he will be able to hear me hiss, “I already told you, Clara, money buys things that allow me to live and so, I need a job.”

She doesn’t care about any of it. I try to push her out of my mind as I echo corporate jargon back at Kevin/Keith. She hovers in my peripheral vision, like a floater or a stray eyelash. As I push my smiler further back into my cheeks, Clara’s slow, rasping inhalation makes the hairs of my forearms stand on end. She is so loud this time I think surely he will notice her. He doesn’t.

Kevin/Keith’s warm hand swallows mine as we shake to mark the end of our interview. He says I’ll know within the week.

On the drive home, I pull over at a rest stop. I turn the key in the ignition, and the ambient roar of the air-conditioning disappears all at once. The oppressive swelter from outside seeps into the car almost immediately, weighing heavily on my limbs. Through the windshield I can see sheer wiggles of heat emanating from the pavement. It never made sense to me that heat could become visible like that.

I glance out the driver’s side window. Clara is already there, on the other side of the door. Blocking me.

“Please move.”

It’s hot out here, she says, her tone flat.

“How would you know?”

She doesn’t respond, nor does she budge. She just hovers there, inches from the window, her blank eyes staring through me from between the tangled curtains of her hair.

“Why are you here?” I demand, not for the first time.

Clara’s head turns slowly to look at the rest stop. Then, just as slowly, she looks back at me.

You drove me here, she replies.

I drove her here. Of course. I brought her here, just like I bring her everywhere. She is the reason my life is like this, and I am the reason she exists at all.

I heave another sigh and hike my pencil skirt up so that I can climb over the center console and exit through the passenger door instead.

Inside the rest stop, the heels of my sensible work shoes click and clack across a grimy floor made of square, ceramic tiles so numerous and so tiny there’s no realistic way to keep the grout clean.

I wonder if I had done enough in the interview to impress anyone. It would be a great job, I think. If it wasn’t for…

A sick, hollow slurping noise interrupts my thoughts. Clara’s goo is dripping down the drain in the center of the bathroom floor as she waits for me outside the stall.

My cell phone rings, and it’s Ben.

“Hello.” I pin the phone between my shoulder and ear as I zip my pants and kick the flusher on the toilet.

“Hi, baby!” His voice is so bright, it doesn’t belong in this dingy bathroom. Clara makes eye contact with me as I exit the stall. A voice that bright would kill her, if she was killable. “How was the interview?”

“Fine. I think. I don’t know.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I just wish I didn’t feel so…” I turn on the speakerphone and set the phone on the metal shelf above the sink. Clara hovers over my shoulder as I pump soap into my hands and begin to fold them methodically over and over. Clara would never wash her hands. We’ve had this argument before and no, God forbid.

Ben’s voice rings out into the empty cavern of the rest stop bathroom.

“You’re just a little depressed, Jean,” he tells me. “It will pass.”

But when I raise my eyes to the mirror, Clara is still there.