Bella walked into the house a week later with slumped shoulders and a dejected look. Ben, her twin brother, took one look at Bella and stood up to give her a hug. He didn't need anyone to tell him that she hadn't passed her job interview again.
"So what happened this time? What did you say wrong, Miss Proud?" Their mother, Heather Stuart, who was setting the table for dinner, paused long enough to ask with a sigh and a knowing look.
"Why do you think I said something wrong?" Bella asked with an angry pout.
Heather, had always wanted a female child and had been so delighted when she had given birth to the twins. But now she wasn't so sure God had heard her prayers correctly. How else could she explain having a female child with the soul of a man?
She probably would have been able to live with Bella's tomboyish attitude if Bella wasn't so proud, stubborn, and short-tempered.
Bella had insisted she didn't want to work in the family restaurant like her twin brother and that she had much bigger dreams of working in a big company elsewhere and making enough money to have a gender reassignment surgery and live independently.
She had decided to drop her standards a wee bit and start by working in a big departmental store until she could get something else, but she had flopped even this interview as she had done the others in the past.
"You always say or do something. So go ahead and tell us what you did this time," Her mother said with a scowl making Mr. Stuart, Bella's father, who had just stepped out of his room, chuckle.
He had known she wasn't going to get the job anyway. It had little or nothing to do with what she had said or done but more to do with her free spirit and her manner of dressing.
"Let her be. You should be cheering her up, not accusing her and trying to ruin her mood. At this rate, you're just going to make her lose her appetite for dinner," He chided his wife before turning to look at Bella with a comforting smile.
"Cheer her up? I'm actually surprised that she still looks dejected every time she is rejected. She should be used to it by now. Besides, has there ever been a time when she lost her appetite because she was angry?" Bella's mom asked with a scoff.
"You'll get a job soon, don't worry too much about it," Ben assured her, patting her back affectionately.
Bella kicked off her shoes and walked to her room without saying a word to anyone. She dropped to her bed and closed her eyes as she remembered her interview earlier.
The baldheaded interviewer, who looked like he was in his early forties, had glanced at her curriculum vitae disinterestedly before raising his head to look at her and then back at the curriculum vitae again.
Bella's foot shook impatiently, and she quickly caught herself before she could start tapping her foot impatiently.
"You're Miss Isabella Stuart?" He asked with narrowed eyes as he glanced at her outfit. The person before him looked so much like a guy and nothing like a girl.
"Obvio... Yes, sir," She caught herself and quickly answered with a forced smile.
"And you're Twenty-six years old?" He asked, making Bella look at him in irritation. Why was he asking such obvious questions when the answers were well displayed in her CV? She wondered until she saw his eyes looking directly at her small breasts.
She remembered what that crazy idiot had said about not being interested in 'A cup' ladies, and her hands balled into a fist beside her.
"Not a day less nor more," She said with a sigh.
"You have no real job experience," He told her with an apologetic smile.
"Why do I need a 'real' job experience to work in a departmental store? Anyone can sell in here," Bella said before she could stop herself.
"I'm afraid we can't employ you. We don't need just anyone," He told her with a dismissive wave of his hands, making Bella's blood boil. Had he just wasted over thirty minutes of her time when he had no intention of hiring her?
"Let me ask you a question. What is the real reason why you can't offer me this job? I'm very sure it has nothing to do with my lack of experience," Bella said, standing up from her seat to move closer to the table as she unbuttoned the first few buttons of her shirt.
"Why would you think so?" He asked and swallowed nervously when she leaned forward slightly, exposing her cleavage.