Wonderland

It was the first week in December before I would be back on campus. Alice had asked me to come down so we could spend a little more time together, show me around, meet a few people, and join her and the rest of the team for a pre-holiday lunch. Even though my actual start date wasn't going to be until January third, I would be there raring to go. "Do I need to bring anything?," I asked her, just to be sure. Again, the answer was no, so I showed up with nothing more than my usual sketchbook and pens. Kate, Alice's assistant, brought me up to her corner office, not too far from the Media Room where I left off. Alice was so happy to see me, it was such a pleasant welcome, I immediately felt at home, as I took a seat across from her. We chit-chatted a little, and got to know each other a little bit, discovering that we were both originally from Paterson - which explained her 'North Jersey' dialect, attitude, and sense of humor. Her little laugh was as contagious as her smile, and we seemed to have a deeper connection that can only be described as a form of kismet.

Alice reached behind to take something out of her cabinet, and then placed it on her desk in front of me as if it were an object of great admiration - it was the hand. THE hand. "Cathleen sent this to me, right after she received it. She told me 'if you don't hire him, I will, and, well, here you are," Alice told me. The box and scroll seemed to be missing, but Alice said she did see them, and then asked if I had any questions, before we took a walk around. "Do you want to see my portfolio and resume?," was first and foremost, to which Alice told me point blank, "No! I saw everything I need to see in that room. Thank you very much. Now, there's someone I'd like you to meet."

I'd spent my entire career, hours upon hours, building, editing, and constantly creating for my book, only to get my job-of-all-jobs without ever needing any of it. Same goes for my resume, which I never did send to that P.O. Box, or deliver to HR. In the end, it all came down to what I could do - not what I had done.