“You’re vastly overqualified.” This didn’t sound like a compliment. His tie was the color of a kidney.
          I smiled demurely. The lenses of his glasses were tinted pink. He was the only thing standing between me and my immediate needs. “I have a theory about that,” I said.
          “Really.”
          “It’s like how unfair it is when someone tells you that he – or she – isn’t good enough for you. As if you don’t get a vote, as if one person can really say who’s good enough for someone else.” I gulped.
          “You lost me at ‘he or she.’” This didn’t sound droll.
          “At least give me a typing test or quiz me on the advanced features of Excel.” I considered groveling. I need a job, benefits, a new coffeemaker, a car. So I have a Master’s degree in European history. I am a supplicant. Take pity on me! But watching him purse his thin beige lips I knew I didn’t have it in me.
          “I’m sorry.” He was talking at my forehead. “I just don’t see this as being a good fit.” His stomach growled. Sorry my ass.
          “But you called me in for an interview, right?”
          “I did.”
          “So for at least three minutes yesterday you thought I might be a good fit.”
          “It may well be that I made a mistake.”
          There it was: my opening. “Let’s flip for it,” I said.
          “What?”
          I dumped the change compartment of my wallet onto his desk. The coins clattered nicely against the solid wood. I slid a quarter off the edge. “Heads you give me the job, tails I thank you for your time and let you get on with your day.”
          I’d been working on my flip – the goal was a high plumb vertical trajectory (for show) and a uniform release (for results) – attempting each time, with identical force, and with the same flat spot on my thumbnail, to hit the bottom face of the coin just shy of dead center. I’d won pitchers of beer, a seat on the bus, the last almond croissant in the pastry case.
          Now he was trying to figure out if I was serious. I wiped my palms on the brown corduroy of my skirt. “What do you say?”
          I wondered if he knew there was more to this than chance. Did he know that if a coin is launched from the heads position, by anyone, even an amateur, heads is the ever so slightly more likely result when caught? I pictured the silver coin rising and rotating and tumbling down, his watery eyes flickering behind the pink lenses.
          He cleared his throat. Maybe he was wavering, feeling the force of my determination. Or maybe he was about to call security. Perhaps he was stuck, afraid to decide his own fate and afraid to let it be decided. Perhaps he still thought he was in charge. The quarter grew hot in the cup of my hand. I knew things.