"Wahida, tell me please, in your own words, why should I hire you?" said Lucinda Lopes, who emphasizes quite often that her last name ends with an S and not the Z that everyone assumed. The six-foot-tall, curvaceous, bronze-skinned and dark-haired Colombian-Canadian woman looked at the young Somali Muslim woman who sat opposite her, and frowned. This one is a fancy pants, Lucinda thought, admiring Wahida's well-manicured nails.
"Well, I heard about your posted positions, and I could really use a job right now, and besides, I'm a good worker," Wahida Ali declared, and she licked her full, sensuous lips, a gesture which registered with Lucinda. The Nova Coast Call Center, an outgrowth of a call center chain originating from the City of Halifax, Nova Scotia, was the newest addition to the Kanata Business Park, an area which hosted a number of corporations including Mitel, Avaya, and other Canadian tech giants.
"Your resume is unfortunately quite thin, Wahida," Lucinda remarked, and she looked at the piece of paper in her hand, and shook her head. Wahida smiled nonchalantly, the smile of a young woman who was used to getting her way. Decked out in a black leather jacket over a men's style, sky-blue dress shirt, black dress pants and black Timberland boots, Wahida embodied the Tomboy Chic to a T. The Hijab on her head sent an entirely different message, though...
"Ma'am, this is a call center, you need people with linguistics and customer service skills, I am fluent in English, French, and Somali, I'm good with people, I got good customer service skills, I used to work for Fido, selling phones at a kiosk at Bayshore Mall," Wahida said confidently, and Lucinda smiled. This one's got spunk, but I must watch her, Lucinda thought, and when Wahida's eyes met hers, there was a smoldering intensity in them.
"Control yourself," Lucinda thought, steeling herself against the intensity of Wahida's glare. The young woman looked like she could see right through Lucinda, and the human resources director found this more than a little intimidating. Wahida had a certain...presence. A few months ago, Lucinda's marriage to Edgar Lopes ended, after twenty five years. They both wanted different things out of life. For Lucinda, it was the beginning of truly strange times, as she acknowledged her long-repressed sexual attraction to women.
The news of the Lopes divorce ( along with Lucinda's lesbianism ) shocked many. Lucinda and Edgar Lopes were once pillars of the Latin American community of Ottawa, Ontario. They co-owned a chain of restaurants, Casa Lopes, with locations in the City of Orleans, Ontario, and also in the City of Gatineau, Quebec, along with suburban Vanier, Ontario. The couple have twins sons, Mateo and Romano, both of whom are in their second year at Carleton University. The brothers sided with their father in the divorce and were now estranged from their mother. I will endure and survive this, Lucinda vowed.
"Lucinda, may I call you Lucinda? I may be only twenty but I am mature for my age," Wahida said calmly, and Lucinda nodded, quietly assessing this confident young woman. You've got the whole world at your feet and your whole life ahead of you and I don't, Lucinda thought bitterly. Lucinda was a forty-five-year-old woman starting anew, alone, in a world that viewed her as past her prime. Wahida could tell there was a quiet desperation hidden under that pretty face and those stylish business clothes...
"Age is no measure of maturity, Wahida, I'm older than you and I am still learning new things about myself," Lucinda said wistfully, and Wahida smiled, as all of a sudden, things that should have been obvious to her from the get-go suddenly made sense. Closet case, Wahida thought, and she nodded understandingly. The Hijab-wearing Somali tomboy had been macking on babes for ages, and knew a fellow pussy lover when she saw one...
"I think we all learn new things about ourselves every day, Lucinda, on a personal note I just ended a relationship, and my now ex-girlfriend has a boyfriend, that was a surprise but I moved on," Wahida said, veering into the personal, just to throw Lucinda off her game. Lucinda blinked in surprise and fell silent, then finally formulated a coherent reply.
"Well, I'm sorry to hear that, a pretty gal like you will find someone new in no time," Lucinda replied, and Wahida flashed her a sinister I-got-you smirk. There was no girlfriend, and no boyfriend, but Lucinda didn't need to know that. One of Wahida's talents was analyzing people. Long before she began studying Criminal Psychology at the University of Ottawa, Wahida had a gift for figuring out things about people which they didn't even know about themselves. It was the key to winning, in every situation...
