Sean didn’t know why his heart was racing. Surprisingly, he could feel the ever-so-subtle amount of perspiration beneath his armpits. As he sat alone with his thoughts muddling his conscientiousness, Sean fixed his hair for one last time. He didn’t have a mirror, so whatever he looked like right now, he would stick with it until he got home.
    He wasn’t nervous because this was his first job interview, nor because of meeting a total stranger by himself in park. It wasn’t either one of those. It was the thought that he might not get the job. Even though he was seventeen, Sean looked like he was on the brink of turning fourteen. As Emily would say, “With his looks, he could pass for a prepubescent child with a college guy’s voice”.
    All that seemed to matter to Sean right now was the way he looked. He started to understand a little why Emily took so darn long in the bathroom every morning before school or before she went over to a friend’s house. Sean could only imagine how he looked, in his wrinkled faded blue dress shirt, lint covered dark slacks, and faded gray converse. If Sean had a mirror right now he was sure he would find four things wrong about his pants, for example, the stupid grease stain that had somehow managed to sneak itself onto the rear and right of his slacks after he had searched thoroughly for stains.
    Or his dress shirt. He wasn’t sure the last time he had used it, but he was pretty it had been years. When he had picked it out from his closet, it sure had smelled like it. Sean’s shoulders barely fit as some of the fabric stretched along the rear of his upper back. Sean figured he probably looked buff, but it didn’t help that it was totally uncomfortable. Sean always had a limit between what looked cool and what was comfortable, and right now he was thinking of where to buy a new dress shirt.
    Sean looked down at his wrist, spying the time through the faded glass lens of the swiss watch at the base of his hand. A quarter after one. It was almost time. Harry had been vague when describing what time Jon Smyth would come by and interview him. His cousin said that the old curator would come around two, but whether it was before or after Sean wasn’t exactly clear on that detail. It didn’t matter. Sean usually preferred later than earlier. He wasn’t as surprised when someone arrived late. Sean liked to prepare what to say beforehand, especially in this situation, just before his interview.
    He looked at his watch again, feeling the veil of anxiety wrap tighter around his stomach. Sean despised the feeling. It always upset his appetite at the wrong time, always spoiling his day. But his mind was quickly averted when a voice called out to him.
    “Sean Knight Jr, I presume?”
    Turning around, Sean saw an ancient man dressed as if time was still back in the 1940’s. He wore a brown tweed jacket that seemed irregular wear for an afternoon summer. His brown slacks had numerous thin lines of dark dun stretching vertically, Sean thought it was made out of corduroy. The old guy had a folded handkerchief on his right breast pocket, while on the other had a pin the size of a small coin with some sort of design, but Sean couldn’t see what.
The man’s face was stretched and contorted with lines and wrinkles, travelling up and down head and neck. The picture was in no comparison of the man that stood behind Sean. The man he had expected was at least seventy years old. This guy was at least looking eighty, perhaps even eighty-nine.
    The very old man moved forward, as if his age on the outside didn't matter. He held onto a tattered and matching color attache case at his left side when he moved closer to Sean.
    “Hello sir.” Sean managed to squeak out as he stood and shook the old man’s hand. Even though as wrinkled and aged the old guy’s hand was, he had a surprisingly strong grip. Perhaps he did a lot of golf in his spare time.
    “You must be Jon Smyth.” Sean continued, waiting, looking the curator in the eyes. Then he saw them. Two things. First, was that there was an unusual look in the old man’s emerald green eyes. At first Sean thought it was just the post noon light, but the way this old guy Smyth squinted, Sean saw a gleam of joy radiating off his irises. The second detail that caught his eye was the emblem on the pin. On the quarter sized pin, Sean spied what looked to be an upside down compass.
    Sean knew he had seen that same exact symbol before another pin just like this one, but the word escaped him. Much like many other things in his life recently.
    Jon Smyth grinned, white teeth that shined brightly in the sun.
    “Yes, I am, dear sir.” When he spoke, his voice wasn’t feeble, nor did it sound like it was filled with phlegm. But instead, his voice was clear and distinct; with possibly better annunciation than Sean’s. Smyth had a faint accent that Sean could barely pin down, since it slipped in and out in between consonants.
    “Well, this looks like a good spot to sit”, cued Smyth as he held out an arm for Sean to sit beside him. “Please.”
    Sean nodded slowly, careful not to trip on his own two feet as he slid slowly to his left. As soon Smyth was seated, he didn’t waste any time in commencing with the interview. He pulled out several white papers filled with inked lettering and handed one to Sean.
    “Please fill out this liability form.”
    Sean held the piece of gray parchment paper in his hands. It felt heavier and rougher than most copying paper, and it smelled faintly of wet leather. Wrinkling his nose, Sean rubbed the form in between his thumb and forefinger. The paper would barely bend, much less yield to being folded. Sean frowned, realizing he didn’t have a pen. He opened his mouth, about to ask for one, but just as he did Jon Smyth held out an old fashioned fountain pen to Sean. The old man didn’t look at Sean, instead he was fully enthralled with a yellow manila folder he was sorting through. As he took the pen, Sean glanced at the open folder and was stunned to see his own face staring back at him. There was a 2X4 photograph of Sean’s face in the folder, along with three bold words as the heading.
    JR KNITE, SEAN
    “Hey, wait a minute.” Sean exclaimed, nearly dropping the fountain pen. Instead he used it to point at the folder disdainfully. “How did you get that?”
    The old curator looked up at Sean over the rim of his gold plated bifocals that were also from the last decade.
    “My dear boy,” Jon Smyth replied coolly, as if he were maintaining a conversation at a cafe. “You need not be so startled all of a sudden. This is just a copy of your student I.D. Is it not?”
    Sean’s eyes flitted from his face in the folder to the older man’s face and then back again.
    “Let me see it.”
    The old man willingly obliged and picked up the photograph, handing it to Sean who snatched it out of his wrinkled hands.
    Shaking his head, he gave the old man an incredulous stare. “You didn’t answer my question, how did you get a picture of my face?”
    The old man shrugged silently, as if his answer meant nothing more than just the information of what food he ate in the morning. “I asked for it.”
    Sean frowned, about to spout a snide comment that would possibly border on harsh sarcasm, but Smyth interjected quickly, taking off his bifocals.
    “Mr. Knite.” Smyth’s voice was low and serious. “I think that you and I are not very different. I see you as a careful-in fact, cautious young man-and I conclude that it would’ve taken quite some talking to have brought you out here today to meet with a stranger such as myself. In your current situation, I might guess-and I shall-you are not here on your behalf and therefore you are doing this for someone other than yourself. Am I right?”
    Sean squinted, his jaw tightening slightly. Who was this guy to assume so much without having even met Sean? Sure, what he said might be true, but this only made the well of uneasiness that lay at the pit of his stomach slowly grow into an abyss. Whoever this guy was, he was either a mind reader, or he was something more nefarious.
    “What are you, a mind reader?”
    The old man stared at him for a lengthy three seconds before replying, his wrinkled brow clustering in a mass of deliberation.
    Smyth pursed his lips and said simply, “No. I am not.”
    He continued. “Just simple cold reading. But for what lies deep beneath you, that is what worries me.”
    Sean frowned, leaning back in his seat.
    “And if you will be working with me, Mr. Knite, it is important that you know that I do my research.” Smyth looked at the younger man at his side through the corner of his eyes. “And my research brings me to many things.”
    Sean opened his mouth again, about to speak his mind, but the old man held up a trembling finger.
    “And no, it is not illegal.”
    This was the tipping point for Sean, for it was the exact answer to Sean’s unannounced question. He looked at the old man for a long, excruciatingly lengthy moment. Sean stared at the elderly man’s emerald irises, finding only the slightest hint of merriment. When he stared at the man’s countless wrinkles on his face, they reminded him of the wrinkles his dad would’ve had, if he had grown old. They weren’t wrinkles of age nor stress or anger, but joy-wrinkles you would accumulate through years of laughter and mirth. But Smyth was exuding anything but mirth right now as Sean stared at the wizen figure before him.
    Sean gulped, eyes slitted as he pooched out his lips and scrunched his brows together in an expression that could only signify extreme bafflement.
    “Well, then!” Smyth said loudly, closing the folder that contained Sean’s information. He looked up at the younger man and smiled, all mirth restored in his striking green eyes, and somehow that look caused Sean’s head to swim. The old man seemed to press on with his stare, as if mentally trying to speak to Sean through telepathy.
    “Let’s talk business.”
    Sean was taken back by surprise. All of a sudden his head felt strained and heated, as if he had just stuck his brain in a microwave and turned it on high. Perspiration covered his temple and he forgot what he had been so worried about. This old man was more stranger than he had imagined him to be; not stiff or stuck up as his picture had made him out to be. All suspicion disappeared from Sean’s mind and for a while he felt rested-almost peaceful-sitting here in the quiet park. Minutes passed by in casual conversation. Talking about recent events turned into sharing life stories, in where Smyth and Sean swapped a few comical anecdotes.
    The reason why he was so open to a man he had just met didn’t plague his mind at all as he was enraptured with telling Smyth an embarrassing childhood memory that involved underwear and a zoo. When Sean was nine, he and his family visited the San Francisco zoo, and he had the ineptitude to get his pants belt loop stuck on a jutting piece of metal on a rail next to the lion’s exhibit. It was only after he told this to Smyth, Sean wondered why in the world he was so open around this charismatic old man. He paused halfway in his story, a glazed look on his eyes.
    Was it the old man’s bearing, his grandfatherly attitude? Or was it because Smyth just happened to smile like Sean’s father? The same tilted, off center smirk that would curl the lips and cause dimples to appear at the corners of the mouth?
    “Sean?” the old man’s smile was gone, and now it puckered in worry.
    Sean was able to look away from Smyth’s face and around himself. The sun which had been at the apex of its journey across the sky was now at its midpoint, threatening to set in a few more hours. Sean made his eyes look down at his watch instead of Smyth’s face and read the time. 3:56.
    “Wow.” Sean was able to muster through a dry throat. Had they really been talking that long? How had time so easily slipped past him? Usually Sean was all about being punctual and keeping in mind the time. But it only felt like minutes had ticked away, not a full hour. Smyth perceived the frown on Sean’s face. Sean thought he saw something glint in the irises of the old man. It was for a second, but Sean almost saw the look of disappointment in Smyth’s eyes. Not disappointment in Sean, but maybe in Sean’s discovery of how much time had passed.
    “I’m. . . I’m sorry.” Sean flustered, scratching at his left temple. For some odd reason it had suddenly become extremely itchy, as if a horsefly at bitten it. “Where were we?”
    Smyth sniffed, touching the side of his nose with a thin, long finger.
    “We were-well we were just finishing up everything I suppose.” Smyth held out three pieces of paper, each colored differently. One of was yellow, the other was purple, and the last one was the texture of the same rough parchment paper.
    Sean read all three of the papers, each with different titles. The purple one read: Employment Application Form. The yellow’s heading was printed in big, bold letters EMPLOYMENT APPLICATION AND RELEASE WAIVER. The final piece of parchment was different than the others. Instead of blocky headings, Arial fonts, and business copy paper, it looked like it was written with the fountain pen that was promptly tucked in Smyth’s vest pocket. The entire paper was filled from header to bottom page with handwritten paragraphs. It was the most beautiful calligraphy he had ever seen; the flowing script, the letters aligned in perfect symmetry almost as if it had been printed by an inkjet.
    But it wasn’t.
    Sean brushed a finger over an aesthetic swirl at the bottom corner. Ink came away, smudging his finger thoroughly.
    Looking up, Sean met the watchful eyes of Smyth, who stared back at him with a grin.
    “Is it all in order?”
    Sean’s mind began whirling again, the same disorientated gut sweeping feeling one would get after he’s been on a carousel too long. Then, for reasons unbeknownst to Sean, he replied with a befuddled and half slurred, “Yeah.”
    Both men stood in unison, Sean’s legs wobbled unsteadily. Sean couldn’t get in touch with his legs, much less his mind as he shook hands with Smyth who imparted words he couldn’t quite hear. Sean’s hearing consisted only of the rapid thump thump thump of his heart beating in his ear canal and his vision blurred and focused in and out like a bad camera viewer. For three long, agonizing seconds Sean was left watching the back of the old man’s brown tweed coat, slowly shrinking in size and diminishing out of sight.
    After Sean had the mental capacity to breath, he realized he could find his vocal chords again. His vision returned to clarity. His Adam’s apple reset in its resting position. Sean clenched both fists, preventing them from trembling. Just to assure himself that he hadn’t lost his voice, Sean croaked,
    “What the heck just happened?”