Page 6 of Little Miss Fortune

I’m exhausted and achy. I can’t even imagine how hard it’s going to be on the way down. But I did it. I climbed the mountain that I’d never had a chance to before.

‘Wait, wait! Everyone, quiet!’ One of them points at a rock by the edge of the mountain.

A small bird is perched on it, looking out to the breathtaking view of the mountain range.

‘It’s a raicho, a thunderbird, they only show after a storm. It’s very rare to see them.’

A smile appears on my face.

Maybe my luck is changing.

‘Hi, I’m here for my interview,’ I say at the reception on a busy Monday London morning.

The lady at the desk stands up and points to the lift. ‘Third floor on the left.’

I thank her but notice a little raicho plushy on her desk. Odd. Maybe there is a new Pokémon out that looks like the official bird of Toyama?

‘Hi, I’m Toby. Ms. Brewer, isn’t it?’ A hand reaches to my face.

‘Hi, yes, Fuko, nice to meet you.’ I jolt up from my seat to shake the hand firmly.

I squeeze a bit too hard—I have seen this man before. Too much of this man. I have seen this man naked in a Japanese onsen.

Good luck was only a fluke. This is a nightmare.

CHAPTER 2

Smooth. Fuko definitely knows how to make a good first impression on the interview panel

The west-facing room is still dark at 13:30 p.m.; fluorescent lights buzz above the SIMPO interviewing panel of three. A quick stalk of Steven Jones’s LinkedIn revealed the top client for his marketing team is a well-known optometrist/eyewear company (rhymes with flake favours) and that he’s really into making sure ‘every second counts’—he will be my line manager if I get this job at SIMPO.

Adzo Opoku introduces herself as assistant director of SIMPO, which I already knew, because I obviously stalked her too. Adzo had her own Ghanaian kente-cloth clothing brand that sold to some department stores in the States (a big seven-figure deal) before becoming the AD here. Her clothes are the only source of colour in this grey room. She also smells incredible, but that is not an appropriate thing to say to someone when they are interviewing you.

The third man, Toby Lewis, wearing glasses and a brown suit, is now a marketing officer and was not meant to be on the interviewing panel initially, but three years ago, after his graduation, he was ‘where I am now’. Which I do not think is the correct phrase for what is happening. Toby Lewis saw me naked less than a week ago, but Toby Lewis doesn’t seem to remember seeing me naked less than a week ago. If it wasn’t for that fact, I would let myself be a bit annoyed about someone only a year older than me being my supervisor.

There is a slight smile on his face as he studies the answers to the task I had to complete earlier. I cannot casually bring the onsen up; that would be even weirder than me saying that Adzo smells as if she has run through a field of daisies and swum in a rose-water river. So instead, I sit in the chair provided with a stiff smile and teeth clenched too hard, reminding myself to follow the STAR structure to answer the questions and stop acting weird when Toby lifts his head to look at me.

‘Why marketing with SIMPO?’ asks Steven.

Right, shuuchuu, Fuko. You got this.

‘I graduated from university with a degree in media studies. We did a module on TV serials advertising.’ S—Situation. Tick. ‘And part of that assessment was to create a campaign for one show that was on TV at the time. The way our lecturers measured that was by the traffic to the website.’ T—Task. Tick. ‘I was chosen to be the leader of the group. At the time, SIMPO had just released its Transparency and Strategy report on the most successful digital marketing campaigns in the country, which I used as a framework for ours. Things like search engine optimisation—it was a medical drama, so we have included things like conditions mentioned in episode three and famous people with disorders that doctor so-and-so has on our website. After three weeks, the traffic was lower than we predicted, but I included a test to see what disease from the show you would be. That change caused our website to crash but gave us an 87 percent pass grade.’ A—Action and R—Result. Tick. Tick. I am so fucking sweaty.

‘Miss Brewer.’ Toby rubs his light eyebrow, breaking away from my task results. ‘Sorry, colleagues, I am interjecting.’

‘No, go ahead, Toby.’ Adzo smiles, taking a break from taking notes. ‘We don’t have to go in order.’

My chest twinges from fear, my neck turning to him in a jolting motion like a wind-up toy.

‘I know we will talk about the task later, but I am just bringing it up because you mentioned our report. One of the biggest suggestions was uploading posts at a specific time, but nowhere in your written task have you mentioned that.’ He clasps his hands together, staring at me through his glasses.

What a dick. I know I am the fifth interview of the day, but come on, interrupting the flow to catch me out feels cruel and unusual. Maybe he remembers me and is trying to tank my chances. He will not have the satisfaction. I know what I am doing.

My mouth opens to vaporise the little smirk off his face when I feel something drop on mine.

‘Oh, God,’ Steven whispers.

‘Right, ugh.’ Adzo jumps up.