He glanced at me, perhaps hoping I would intervene.
When I did not, he leaned forward and lowered his voice.
“Maya, can we speak privately?”
“The interview panel needs to hear anything relevant to your candidacy.”
His eyes hardened for half a second.
“This position matters to me.”
“Then answer the question.”
He looked back at the projected résumé.
“I contributed significantly to that deal.
The executive who received credit had better internal relationships.
Everyone in enterprise sales understands how that works.”
Jennifer tapped her tablet again.
“Your previous employer also stated that you are still employed there.
Is that correct?”
Marcus hesitated.
At Easter, Lauren had praised his promotion.
My father had mentioned the huge deal Marcus had just closed.
My mother had held him up as proof of what a successful adult looked like.
Now he cleared his throat.
“Technically, yes.”
“Why are you leaving?” Marcus Williams asked.
“I’ve reached the ceiling of what I can accomplish there.”
Jennifer’s gaze did not move.
“They told us your position is being eliminated at the end of the month after a restructuring.”
The boardroom went still.
Marcus looked at me again.
This time there was no request in his expression.
There was accusation.
“Did you call them because of Easter?”
“Our recruiting team verifies every executive candidate’s employment history,” Jennifer replied before I could speak.
“The process began last week, before Ms.
Maya knew you were an applicant.”
He pressed his lips together.
I thought of Lauren’s ring flashing beside the ham while she told me to build an actual life.
I wondered whether she knew the man beside her was weeks away from unemployment.
Marcus Williams moved to the next question.
“Tell us why you want to join Sentinel Systems.”
Marcus recovered enough to launch into a practiced answer about market disruption, strategic alignment, and enterprise scalability.
The words were smooth, but none of them explained why he wanted to work for us.
Jennifer interrupted.
“Which of our products would you be responsible for positioning?”
He paused.
“Your cybersecurity platform.”
“Which one?”
Another pause.
Sentinel offered three core products, each designed for a different type of enterprise risk.
Any serious candidate for a director-level partnership role should have known their names.
Marcus glanced at the wall, as though an answer might be written among the framed patents.
“The threat detection suite,” he said.
We did not have a product called that.
Marcus Williams made another note.
The interview continued for twenty minutes.
Marcus spoke well when the questions were broad.
The moment Jennifer asked for specifics, his answers collapsed into phrases he had memorized from our website.
He could not explain our channel strategy.
