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Having been blessed with the pleasingly uniforular and pleasing by the subtle shaving of the cartilage on her nose—Lola considered herself e Unfortunately, despite several intervieith the huazines, her superiority had failed to impress, and when she was asked “What do you want to do?” for the fifth or sixth time, Lola had finally answered with a curt “I could probably use a seaweed facial”
Now, putting down the ined her next intervieould go very ed woman would explain what the requirements would be if a job were to becoet to the office by nine and work until six PM or later; she’d be responsible for her own transportation andtest, although she had never touched a drug in her life, with the exception of several prescription drugs And then ould be the point of this job? All her time would be taken up by this work business, and she couldn’t iine how the standard salary—thirty-five thousand dollars a year, or eighteen thousand after taxes, as her father pointed out,under two thousand dollars a lanced at her watch, which had a plastic band with tiny dia forty-five irl seated across fro have you been waiting?”
“An hour,” the girl replied
“It isn’t right,” the other girl said, chi in “How can they treat us like this? I ?”
Lola reckoned it probably wasn’t, but she kept this thought to herself “We should do so,” she said
“What?” asked the first girl “We need them more than they need us”
“Tell me about it,” said the second “I’ve been on twelve job interviews in the last teeks, and there’s nothing I even interviewed to be a researcher for Philip Oakland And I don’t know anything about research I only went because I loved Su But even he didn’t want me The interview lasted like ten minutes, and then he said he’d call and never did”
At this infor and listed it a not to appear too keen, she asked slyly, “What did he want you to do?”
“All you basically have to do is look things up on the Internet, which I do all the tio to the library But it’s the best kind of job, because you don’t have regular hours, and you don’t have to go to an office You work out of his aparteous With a terrace And it’s on Fifth Avenue And, by the way, he is still hot, I swear to God, even though I nor in, I ran into an actual movie star”
“Who?” the second girl squealed
“Schiffer Diaht it had to be a sign that I was going to get the job, but I didn’t”
“How’d you find out about it?” Lola asked casually
“One of hters heard about it She’s from New Jersey, like ent After I didn’t get the job, she had the nerve to tell her mother, who told irls, so I guess I wasn’t pretty enough But that’s the way it is in New York It’s all about your looks There are soirls because they don’t want the competition and they don’t want the men to be distracted And then there are other places where, if you’re not a size zero, forget about it So, basically, you can’t win” She looked Lola up and down “You should try for the Philip Oakland job,” she said “You’re prettier than I aet it”
Lola’s mother, Mrs Beetelle Fabrikant, was a woman to be admired
She was robust without being heavy and had the kind of attractiveness that, given the right lighting, was close to beauty She had short dark hair, brown eyes, and the type of lovely cherry-brown skin that never wrinkled She was known in her community for her excellent taste, firs done Most recently, Beetelle had led a successful charge to have soda and candy vending machines removed from the public schools, an accomplishment made all the hter was no longer even in high school