French bistro? They want to talk to me about a job? Me? They apparently like my resume, probably because I omitted all my editorial work from it and sound younger than I actually am. I seem to look younger than I am, too, as evidenced by my getting carded at the Plaid Pantry for scratch-offs and Pall Malls in the blue pack. I’m a younger, Jewish, nonalcoholic Janeane Garofalo: short, chunky, with a few meaningful tattoos, donning faded indie-band T-shirts and the requisite vintage-look specs, and still wearing the same Revlon Colorstay shade I’ve worn since Cindy Crawford did the commercials. I never really grew out of the ’90s, and in Portland one doesn’t have to.

3 p.m. Wednesday. The time is set after an awkward phone call filled with pregnant pauses. I stay up half the night Tuesday refreshing my memory on how to make the perfect Hollandaise and how to cool large quantities of soup so as to avoid bacterial growth. But how do I pretend to like pate? I wish this place were Thai instead.

I search on the TriMet Website for the quickest route to the restaurant, which the chef says is “in the Pearl,” a trendy neighborhood adjacent to Old Town and Chinatown. I board the train, and a hefty woman wearing a Backstreet Boys T-shirt, gladiator sandals revealing unclipped toenails, and a Walkman cassette player over scraggly dishwater-blond hair crams next to me; I tense up my arms at every turn to avoid hitting her left breast, which sags sadly beneath Nick Carter‘s perpetual baby face.

It doesn’t look like a trendy neighborhood. I don’t see Portland Mercury boxes anywhere. I inhale the familiar stench of week-old addict piss as I walk past the dim doorway of an adult shop inviting pervy passersby to experience the “new glass” in the peep-show booths. Hello again, L.A. Good afternoon, Bed-Stuy; meet Portland, your downy-white cousin in the Pacific Northwest. 

Le Something Bistro is on a quiet corner across from a gigantic club with rainbow flags hanging above the windows. I am hoping to God this chef is a lesbian so I can maybe name-drop some of the gay magazines I worked for in my former career. And maybe she will like my lipstick or the fit of the professional pants I purchased at Ross back in Florida.

“Hi,” she says, even her voice blushing. “Take a seat back here,” she adds, walking me through the empty dining room. In the corner of my eye, I see a counter full of plates lined with doilies; that probably should have been a rouge flag.

“I am the world’s worst interviewer,” she tells me, chuckling uncomfortably. She has an obviously bleached mustache, the tomboyish gait of a soft-butch dyke, and a red bandanna that brings to mind Leif Garrett. I will get this job. It will impress my friends and family when I create witty Facebook posts about escargot and baguettes. She is probably one of the world’s worst interviewers, and I am probably rambling, but she’s too shy to hold up her end of the interview. She also claims she is one of the world’s worst managers, just a really good cook. She seems sweet though. I think I have impressed her. She’s got to be gay.

Part 2 is coming when it’s not nearing 3 a.m.