Anita Harris eased her car along the circular drive of the old Whitworth mansion stopping just past the front door. She stepped out and looked around. The brick structure was impressive but it had an abandoned look with an overgrown garden and piles of dead leaves, an odd sight on such a pretty spring day. The windows were grimy. Weeds sprouted from every crack in the asphalt. If not for the half a dozen green vans with “FJF Construction” written in orange, she’d think she’d stepped onto a horror movie set.
Anita spent half the morning deciding what to wear. It had been twenty years since she had a job interview and she was in scrubs for the better part of that time. She tugged at her dress here and there trying in vain to make it comfortable, then balanced carefully to the door on heels she was unused to wearing.
Despite it’s infamy she was not at all sure she was in the right place. It was so empty and quiet. She approached the door, steeled herself with a deep breath, then walked in without knocking.
“May I help you? This is private property,” a quiet voice said startling her. She turned to see a custodian clearing out the lobby.
“Oh, hello. My name is Anita Harris. I have an appointment with Mr. Clark. Is he here?”
The lights were off but the large floor to ceiling windows illuminated the foyer. Construction work could be heard in a distant part of the building.
“Mr. Clark is in his office. It’s just down the hall there,” he replied pointing with his nose as his hands were full carrying a large portrait of Marie Whitworth, the late matriarch of the Whitworth family.
“Is that Mrs. Whitworth?” Anita asked? “I met her once.”
“Yes, it is. I’d be curious to hear what you thought of her. The family’s such a fascination around here,” he replied.
“Well, I only knew her in the end. I was one of her nurses taking care of her in her final days. She seemed…sad.”
“Sad? I’d like to think that at the end of a long life one could at least feel some peace, but I guess that’s idealistic. It’s not the case for everyone, is it?”
“No, unfortunately, not everyone. Um, Mr. Clark is where did you say?”
“Just down the hall there. You’ll see the light on in his office. Good luck.”
“Thanks, uh…”
“Mr. Miller. Pleased to meet you.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Miller. Thanks.”
Her heels echoed in the vast empty space. She followed the hall to the only office with a light on and saw a twenty-something kid in an ill-fitting suit standing behind the desk. He looked everywhere but directly at her and didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands.
“Hello, I’m Anita Harris. I have an appointment with a Mr. Clark,” she said. “For an interview?”
He nodded. “Call me Garrett.”
“Hello Garrett. It’s nice to meet you,” she said giving his clammy hand a firm shake. “Is Mr. Clark in?”
He shrugged as if apologizing, “I’m Mr. Clark, but it’s Garrett. Come on in. Uh, have a seat.” He kept putting his hands in his pockets and then pulling them out quickly as though he had been chastised about it.
“You’re Mr. Clark? Does your father work here too?” There was no way this kid, who was scared of his own shadow, was going to interview her for a job as a nursing administrator at a brand new, upscale nursing home.
“Um, no,” he replied. “I represent the Barrett Foundation. They own this building and are renovating it into a care home. They’ve sent me to conduct the initial interviews. We have a construction crew in place and a team of custodians and landscapers starting to clean up. Of course once the basic staff are onboard any further interviews will be your job to do.” He looked like a student who had not completed his homework and was silently pleading with the teacher not to call on him.
Garrett stammered through the entire interview. Yet he asked all the right questions, even things she was sure he didn’t understand. They covered her background and the nature of the facility. She couldn’t stop herself from searching for a camera or something that would reveal this was all an elaborate practical joke.
“Just to clarify, Garrett. You are aware of my husband’s circumstances? He is wheelchair bound and in need of some care during the day. It is my understanding that he could come to work with me where he can be tended to while I work. I just want to be sure that is still the case as obviously it is an important issue for me.”
“Oh, yes, sorry,” he said slapping himself on the forehead then sitting up straight, putting his hands flat on the desk, and taking a deep breath. “Yes, your husband is welcome to be here during the day and you will have what help you need for his care while you are at work. I mean that was the whole point, right?”
“The whole point?” she asked.
“For you, I mean. Just, that was important for you so, yes. It’s all good.”
She stared at him, incredulous. “Great. Well, thank you for your time, Garrett.” He told her he would call with their decision by the end of the week.
She walked herself out to the lobby feeling as though she’d just been discussing her job at a high school career day and ran into the custodian now mopping the floor.
“How did it go?” he asked and pointed to the wet floor. “Careful, there. Are you our new administrator?”
“Uh, not yet. Are they serious with this kid? I mean. I don’t mean to be disrespectful or anything. He’s not your son or something is he?”
“No, that’s Garrett Clark. He is the Barrett Foundation’s representative for this place. It’s part of their charity or something to run this place for people who can’t afford care.” He continued mopping as he spoke.
“Right, but, why this kid? Nursing administrator is a pretty important position for this type of facility, wouldn’t you say? And one for which I have little experience. I’ve been a nurse for twenty years but I don’t have much experience as an administrator. Why would they have a kid in his twenties with no apparent experience in much of anything interviewing a nurse with very little administration experience to run a brand new facility?” She spoke as much to herself as to the man mopping the floor.
He stopped and faced her. “Everyone deserves a chance to move on, don’t you think? To improve their circumstances? Put the past behind them if that’s what they need to do? If they are providing that chance I wouldn’t question it too harshly. I for one have never been a custodian before, but I have things to take care of and if cleaning up this mess will allow me to do that, then here I am until I can do better for myself.” He smiled and nodded to punctuate the point then went back to his mop.
“If you don’t mind a little career advice since your new to this, you might want to wring that mop out a little more,” she suggested.
“Yep, got it,” he said without stopping. “Hope I’ll be seeing you soon.”
She glanced around the lobby and open first floor and made a decision. “Me too.” She smiled, glanced around again. “I think. They open in a month, huh?”
“We’ll be ready,” he said and when she left he rinsed the mop, wrung it practically dry and started over.
Anita got back into her car and willed it to start. It did, thankfully, and she headed home to do something she should have done before coming.
Anita pulled in to her own driveway fifteen minutes later and let herself in the backdoor. She hung her keys on a hook and kicked her shoes into the laundry room.
“Hey, How’d it go?” her husband, Daniel, asked wheeling himself toward the back of the house.
“I’m not sure. Well I think, but it was weird.” Anita leaned down and kissed him then headed off to change.
“What was weird about it?” he called after her.
“I’ll tell you all about it over dinner. I’ve got to look up a couple of things first, then I’ll start cooking,” she said. She got into more comfortable clothes and retrieved her laptop from the den. Why didn’t she think to research the Barrett Foundation before the interview? For that matter, she might have looked up the Whitworth mansion and family as well.
She found a website for the Barrett Foundation but it was pretty basic. It consisted of stock photos of the home in its better days and of nursing care that obviously wasn’t going on there yet. There was a brief paragraph about the Barrett Foundation, a charity funded by private donations for the welfare of the elderly and disabled. There was a link to apply for residency and another to apply for a job there. A banner scrolled across the top announcing the grand opening in just one month.
“I hope the rest of that place is further along in renovations than what little I saw if they think they are going to open in a month,” Anita said to herself. There was no history of the Barrett Foundation or mention of any other buildings, events or sponsorships of any kind attributed to them. No pleas for contributions or “Donate here!” button.
“Weird,” she said tapping the name into Google to see if she could find anything else. “Nothing.”
In stark contrast there was an endless supply of information about the Whitworth family, dozens of pictures of the mansion inside and out, and countless pictures of the family. The only thing missing was where they were now. She started with Wikipedia to get a general sense of the family and branched out from there reading newspaper articles, blogs, and Marie Whitworth’s obituary. There was an article about Jack Whitworth being hospitalized and in dire condition after a stroke and a number of stories about people who had lost everything when they entrusted their financial futures to his son, Sebastian. Apparently he was quite the investment maverick taking big risks with his and his rich friends’ money. He was good. Big risks brought big payoffs. “But you could afford it when it didn’t work out so well, couldn’t you?” she said.
Anita clicked a picture of Sebastian coming out of a courthouse flanked by lawyers. His investment acumen for the wealthy simply did not translate for the working class, about whom, by all accounts, he knew nothing.
“My client made a bold call,” one lawyer was quoted as saying in the article. “That’s what people pay him to do. He acted in good faith for his clients. In the past his bold financial moves have made many of those same clients a handsome return. That this last decision did not pan out as expected is not indicative of wrong doing, as the court has recognized in its just decision. As you know, he recently lost both of his parents. Please respect his privacy for a reasonable time to grieve.” That was the last time anyone saw Sebastian Whitworth.
“Dinner’s ready.”
Anita jumped. “What? I didn’t start dinner yet.”
“Yeah, it was getting late and you were caught up in whatever you’re doing so I ordered in. The kids are at the table. Want to join us?” Daniel said holding his hand out for hers.
Anita looked at the top right hand corner of her screen and saw that it was nearly 6:30 p.m. She had been reading for hours. “I’m so sorry, Daniel. I didn’t realize. I’m coming. Thanks for doing that.”
“I was getting worried. You were in a bit of a frenzy there for a while,” he said heading for the dining room.
“Yeah, I guess I kind of got lost in it. My interview was at the old Whitworth mansion. Do you remember it? Oh, my god. Sorry, guys.” They entered the dining room and found their two teenagers opening cartons of Chinese food. “Wow, I really zoned out there, didn’t I?”
“It’s alright. We’re used to it,” her son said. That stung and she caught the look Daniel gave her out of the corner of her eye. Don’t you dare judge me, she thought. You haven’t been here, have you?
“So, tell us about your interview,” Daniel said heaping rice onto a plate. Anita grabbed an egg roll and sat down.
“It was the weirdest thing,” she said and told them about the state of the property, the manchild who interviewed her and the lack of any substantial information about the foundation or the care home it was supposed to house in a month’s time.
“Are you sure this place is legit, Neet?” Daniel asked.
“Honestly, I’m not sure of anything right now,” she said. “But what have I got to lose?”
Beth Fisher 