Bearing the Orange Sphinx

The interview room smelled of stale coffee and desperation. Elena smoothed her skirt, her palms sweating like they always did when she was running from something — or toward it.

"Tell me about the hardest decision you've ever made," the interviewer said. He reminded her of a sphinx, inscrutable behind wire-rimmed glasses, his questions riddles she had to solve or be devoured.

Elena thought of Richard. The night she'd found the orange peel on his pillow — a stupid thing, a meaningless thing, but it had unraveled everything. He'd been eating oranges at his ex-girlfriend's apartment. Not sleeping with her, just sitting in her kitchen, eating oranges, talking about the marriage he couldn't bear anymore.

She'd asked him to choose. That was her impossible riddle.

"I once had to choose between comfort and truth," Elena said now. Her voice was steadier than she felt. "I chose comfort. I regretted it."

The sphinx nodded. He didn't write anything down.

Outside the window, autumn leaves burned orange against gray sky. Three years since she'd chosen to stay, since she'd pretended not to notice Richard drifting away like smoke. Two years since he'd finally left anyway. Eighteen months since she'd stopped running from the empty rooms of her life and started running toward something — this job, this city, this version of herself she was still becoming.

"Why do you want this position?"

"Because I'm tired of bearing things I was never meant to carry."

The words hung in the air between them. Outside, a bear of a storm was brewing, the kind that breaks droughts or breaks windows. Elena straightened her spine.

The sphinx smiled. It was the first genuine expression she'd seen from him.

"When can you start?"