Текст книги "Painless"
Автор книги: Devon Hartford
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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 32 страниц)
“Oh, we can’t, can we?” Mom said archly. “And how do you plan on paying your tuition in the future?”
“With the loan money I’m already getting and the job I have,” I said defiantly.
“Oh, is that so? Are you forgetting that your father and I have to sign your loan application each academic year for you to renew the loan?”
Oh, shit. My mom had headed me off at the pass.
I was screwed.
* * *
CHRISTOS
Blood red salsa blurted out of the squeezable red plastic container and drenched my carne asada burrito.
“You sure you got enough hot sauce?” my grandad asked sarcastically.
I chuckled. “You know I like it hot. This is just for the first bite.”
He smiled and took a bite of one of his chicken tacos, which had only a light drizzling of hot sauce.
We sat at a table outside the Roberto’s on the Pacific Coast Highway overlooking the San Elijo lagoon, having dinner. It had been my suggestion we go out and give Samantha and her parents some space to talk. I think Samantha had made sure she was never alone with them the whole week on purpose.
“Are you worried about Samoula?” my grandad asked.
“Yeah,” I muttered.
“It’s good we left them alone. Her parents probably want to talk to her. I can’t blame them. She is their daughter, after all.”
I sipped on my Jamaica tea. “Do you think they’re arguing right now?” I asked.
My grandad chewed then swallowed. He chased it with a gulp from his big cup of horchata. “Probably.”
Man, I wish I’d brought a flask so I could spike my Jamaica with some vodka or whatever went with hibiscus tea. The odd thing was, I’d cut back on my drinking more and more since Samantha’s parents had arrived. I’d wanted to spend Spring Break with Samantha so she didn’t have to endure an entire week alone with them. It had been so easy to forget about Brandon and my gallery show. As those pressures had faded from my awareness, the urge to drink had faded with them.
But now that Spring Break was coming to a close, I could feel all those old obligations ready to nip at my heels. I was itching for a drink. But the real reason I wanted to get bombed was because I was scared shitless about what I’d find when I got back to the house tonight.
I took a bite of my burrito and chewed thoughtfully. When I was finished, I said, “I’ve been waiting for her parents to go off on her all week. If you’d heard them on the phone when Samantha told them she wanted to move in with me, you’d be pissing your pants right now like I am. They were totally irate and made all kinds of threats about what they would do if she moved in with us. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get back to the house and she’s gone. Probably cuffed and gagged and thrown into a big duffel bag so her parents can haul her ass back to the east coast.”
“Relax, paidí mou,” my grandad smiled. “Samoula is a strong girl. I have a feeling she’s standing up to her parents right now. If they think they can corner her and bully her into giving up and going home, they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.”
He took a big bite of his taco and chomped on it.
“I hope you’re right,” I said before taking a huge bite of my burrito.
I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her.
* * *
SAMANTHA
A big boulder dropped down into my stomach, reminding me that my insides were more intact than I’d realized. I wasn’t a hollowed out husk.
Yet.
But my mom was working on it.
She was right. Without my parents’ signature, I wouldn’t get any loan money at all. I’d have to earn every cent of my tuition and books. I’d never be able to find jobs that paid for everything. But there was no way I was going back to D.C. As far as I was concerned, San Diego was now my home.
Maybe I could plug my parents’ PIN number into the form online and sign it myself? I knew what their number was.
“And don’t think about using our PIN to forge the electronic signature,” Mom chuckled. “We’ve already changed it.”
Wow, Mom had read my mind. I wasn’t surprised. I’d learned most of my dirty tricks from her.
My dad was leaning his elbows on his knees. He looked very tired. “Sam, this was our last resort. We’ve tried reasoning with you, but nothing has worked. We can’t in good conscience let you continue as an Art major. Come back home to American University and get your degree in Accounting. Your mother and I will make sure you don’t have to work and you can focus entirely on your studies. Maybe you’ll even find a boyfriend who is a business major like you. After you graduate, perhaps you can pursue art in your spare time. Everyone needs a hobby.”
A hobby? He was completely insane and it was making me insane. My mom was crazy too. I don’t think they’d listened to a word I’d said all evening. They were ignoring me and trying to grind me down until I agreed to go home.
My head was spinning from all their arguments. I couldn’t deal with either of them. I felt totally betrayed. My parents were treating me like an infant, like I was holding my fingers too close to the flame because I didn’t know any better. They were wrong.
I’d had enough.
“No!” I shouted and literally stomped my foot. “I’m not doing it! I’m not moving back home and I’m not changing my major! If you don’t like it, tough shit! Get out of here! Go home!” I pointed to the front doors. “I’m sure the Motel 6 has a room waiting for you. In fact, let me go pack your bags and I’ll drive you there myself.” I turned and marched toward the stairs, heading toward the guest rooms.
“YOU COME BACK HERE, YOUNG LADY!” Mom roared.
I ignored her.
Until her hand bit into my arm and she whipped me around.
Her other hand clamped on my other arm and she shook me violently with both hands as she screamed in my face, “YOU’RE MOVING BACK TO WASHINGTON D.C. WHETHER YOU WANT TO OR NOT!!”
After she stopped throttling me, I sneered at her. “Are you through?”
Her eyes burned hot with fiery insanity and her brows twisted into a rotten knot. She shouted, “I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR BACK TALKING!!”
I glared at her, my lips compressed into a thin line. “No, Mom,” I said calmly.
WHACK!!
She had slapped me across the mouth. My cheek stung.
“YOU WILL DO WHAT YOUR FATHER AND I TELL YOU, AND THAT’S FINAL!!”
I planted my palms against my mom’s chest and shoved her as hard as I could. She reeled backward, her arms pinwheeling, and stumbled into my dad. The two of them fell down on the couch in a tumbled heap.
My hands fisted at my sides. I was ready for whatever she did next. I was going to punch my mom in the face if I had to.
Her eyelids peeled back in stark horror. Her mouth was agape like I was the devil himself. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the devil in this room. She was.
I felt confidence and resolve fill me from head to toe. My heart beat strong in my chest. I was a rock, and neither of my parents were going to budge me. “I’m not doing anything you say. Mom—” I sneered when I said the word ‘Mom’ “—Linda. Whoever you are. You’re the worst parent ever. You’re a bully and you’re a jerk. Go back to D.C. where you belong. And take your loan money with you.”
I turned and calmly walked out of the living room.
Chapter 16
SAMANTHA
Luggage banged around inside the guest room while my parents packed. After our argument, I think they’d decided to stay at the Motel 6. I imagined my mom would’ve been throwing dishes against the wall, or at me, if it had been her house and her dishes. Since she couldn’t, the only thing she could do was assault her shoes, her clothes, and her travel kit as she shoved everything into her suitcase.
I stayed in my room with my door closed because I was convinced that if I looked at my mom one more time, I was going to vomit. My face still stung and throbbed where she’d slapped me. Every thump I felt in my cheek steeled my resolve to stay in San Diego and stay with Christos.
Eventually, I heard Mom stomping down the hallway toward the stairs. She was leaving in a huff.
Fine by me.
A few seconds later, I heard my dad mumbling as he trudged down the hallway after her. My parents were flying out the next day anyway, so it really didn’t matter if they spent the night here or not. They could spend it in a gutter somewhere, for all I cared.
The front door slammed shut. Their rental Honda revved and drove off.
Good riddance.
I was just glad Christos and Spiridon hadn’t been around to watch my parents’ bad behavior.
I laid down on the bed and covered my eyes with my arm. I must’ve dozed off because the next thing I knew, Christos was waking me.
“Agápi mou?” he said softly. “What happened to your parents? Their car is gone and their room is empty.”
I slid my arm down to my chest. It weighed about a thousand pounds. I was going to need a crane to lift me off this bed, I was so depressed. Not even ten gallons of ice cream could move me now.
Christos sat down next to me gently. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” I said flatly.
He smiled and nodded. My heart accelerated as I took in that beautiful grin of his. It melted my world every time. All the pain my parents had stabbed into me faded to a fuzzy pressure that was someone else’s problem. At least for now. For now, I was going to bask in the blue glow of Christos’ loving gaze.
He smiled more widely. “You sure? Talking it out will make it better.”
I had resolved to keep my emotions in check, but with all the love pouring off of Christos, I didn’t see the reason to hold them in. I sat up and wrapped my arms around him and cried softly. “Christos, agápi mou, my parents are evil. They want me to quit SDU and move back to D.C.”
I felt Christos suddenly tighten.
“What did you tell them?” he asked cautiously.
“I told them they’re crazy.” I felt him relax and melt against me.
“Thank goodness. I don’t think I could deal with losing you.” There was a tenderness in his voice that pierced straight to the center of my being. “I love you, agápi mou,” he said, “I don’t want to live without you in my life. I can’t imagine waking up to an empty bed because, once you leave it, my bed will remain as empty as my heart until the day I die. Life without you would be a dull, gray, tasteless thing without meaning. I would rather die a quick death than live a vacant life without you by my side.”
Whoa. Swoon.
Yeah, my mom was totally out to lunch about Christos.
“Oh, agápi mou,” I murmured, “I’m not going anywhere.”
* * *
Two days later, I was back at work at the Eleanor M. Westbrook art museum.
“Samantha,” Mr. Selfridge said, “I need to go out for a little while. I have a meeting with the Provost of Adams College. I’ll be gone for about an hour. Can you handle things while I’m gone?”
“Sure,” I smiled at him from where I sat behind the counter in the lobby.
“See you shortly,” he waved as he walked out the front doors.
I really loved my job at the museum and really liked having Mr. Selfridge for a boss. I only wished the museum could give me more hours. I’d asked Mr. Selfridge about it at the beginning of my shift today, but he had apologized that the museum had no more hours to give.
Now that Spring Quarter classes had started, and my remaining loan money had been eaten up paying the first of my monthly installment payments, I needed more cash in a hurry. I’d have to find a second job once again. With any luck my job hunt wouldn’t eat up all my study time. The last thing I needed was for my GPA to drop low enough that my loans got suspended.
With my parents back in D.C., I actually felt a sense of relief, despite my heinous financial predicament. My parents were just one more hassle that I wouldn’t have to deal with. I was going to figure things out without their help.
Somehow.
No customers had come into the museum today, so I had some down time. I pulled out my laptop and started searching for jobs online. As much as I hated the idea, it was time to suck it up and look for a math tutoring job. There had been tons the last time I’d looked for a job.
Unfortunately, it didn’t take long to realize that Sheri at the Financial Aid offices had been right. Jobs in general were scarce these days. The numerous math tutoring listings I’d seen a few months ago were all gone.
Great.
I sighed and closed my laptop. I’d do more job searching later. At least I had my museum job, which meant a little money coming in to offset my hemorrhaging budget crisis.
One of the glass front doors of the museum opened and Tiffany Nofun-Poophouse walked inside wearing a tight dress and platform heels. There went my good mood. Not that I had much of one to begin with, but she definitely knocked it to the bottom of a deep and dreary well, the kind of well with slippery slime on the sides you couldn’t climb back out of, the kind where they had to call the rescue crews to pull your muddied mood out.
“Hey, Tiffany,” I groaned as she clacked toward the counter in her hooker heels.
She smirked but said nothing.
“What brings you to the museum?” I asked blandly. At least I didn’t have to say “Welcome to Grab-n-Dash. How can I brighten your day?” And she didn’t have a big drink in her hand to throw in my face. I smiled as I realized there was little Tiffany could do to me here at the museum to actually ruin my day.
“I need a ticket,” she said brusquely.
“Are you an art major? Because if you are, you don’t have to pay.”
She slammed her huge purse on the counter and yanked her wallet out. There must have been more than a dozen credit cards inside. She peeled one out of the wallet and punched it at me.
“I didn’t know you liked coming to the art museum,” I said meekly, trying to make conversation. “It’s really nice. I find it very relaxing here, especially if you’ve had a bad day.”
She glared at me.
“Okay…” I muttered and rang her up. When she signed her receipt, I handed her a ticket.
She ripped it from my hand and walked toward the main gallery.
“Oh, um, Tiffany?” I called after her. “You need to leave your bag behind the counter.”
Tiffany stopped in her tracks and slowly pivoted to face me. I was expecting one of those horror movie reveals where her face suddenly looked monstrous, with dramatic up-lighting and dripping fangs, but it was just regular old Tiffany, not that there was a huge difference.
After sneering at me for about an hour, Tiffany stalked toward me and jammed her purse in my hands.
I squeezed it into one of the cubbies behind the counter.
About twenty minutes later, I realized I needed to go to the bathroom to change my tampon. Normally, Mr. Selfridge was always around and I could get him to cover the front desk. But he was still out on his errand.
How long was he supposed to be gone again?
I took a step and could tell I was on the verge of dripping. I hated how a tampon could up and quit on you without any warning like that.
Where was Mr. Selfridge?
I really needed to go to the restroom.
It wasn’t like I was going to change my tampon behind the counter. What if someone walked into the museum? If I had been wearing a skirt, I might have considered it. Might. But in jeans? Not bloody likely! I imagined how it would play out. I’d be squatting behind the counter, my pants around my ankles as I tried to plug a fresh tampon inside the hole in the dam, and BOOM! someone would walk inside and accuse me of public indecency.
No, thank you.
I bit my lower lip and used my ESP to will Mr. Selfridge to walk through the front doors. Where was he? I took a tentative step toward the waist high swinging door at the end of the counter, ready to make a run for the restrooms the second he walked in.
Squish.
Any second now, Mr. Selfridge was going to walk through those front doors…
I really couldn’t wait any longer.
I took another step toward the swinging door at the end of the counter.
I glanced back at the front doors, and switched over to my telekinetic powers. I used them to draw Mr. Selfridge, wherever he was, toward the museum.
Crap. It wasn’t working. My telekinesis was as bad as my ESP.
Another step.
Squish.
This was not good.
Where the fuck was Mr. Selfridge?
I looked at the clock. He wouldn’t be here for at least ten minutes. In ten minutes, I would need to throw my panties and jeans in the laundry. But there was no washing machine at the museum and I didn’t have any sweats to wear while I waited anyway. I’d have to go home, but I had classes later today. I wouldn’t have time to make it to home and back before they started. So much for my day running smoothly.
I picked up a pen off the counter top and waved it in the air like a magic wand. I pretended I was Hermione from a Harry Potter movie. It was the intention that made all the difference. “Mr. Selfridge, please appear, so my panties remain clear.” It was the best I could come up with on short notice.
Sadly, Mr. Selfridge did not magically appear in a puff of smoke.
Screw it. I couldn’t wait any longer.
The only person in the museum was Tiffany. What damage could she do while I was in the ladies room? She wasn’t one of those lunatics who would slash a painting with a knife, was she? I hoped not. Besides, I had her bag behind the counter, and I don’t think she had any room in her tight dress for a knife. And I didn’t think she was likely to pull a painting off the wall and carry it out. She hired workmen to do things like that, and I hadn’t seen her come in with a work crew.
Okay. I was going to risk it. I walked carefully out from behind the counter and bee lined for the restroom. I swear I only moved my legs from the knees down so as to minimize possible leakage. There was a lot of heel-toeing involved, but I was amazed by how fast I could move without the use of my knees.
I made it into a stall in the restroom and heaved a sigh of relief when I saw that my panties had but a single red blotch. Apparently, my magic wand waving spell a minute ago hadn’t kept my panties clean. I would’ve made a terrible wizard.
At least the leakage had been minimal. And I’d made it just in time. My tampon was ready to burst when I dropped it into the bowl. I blotted the red dot on my underwear with toilet paper until there was no moisture. Wow, I’d been close to bleeding out, no pun intended.
When I finished my business, I washed my hands and jogged back behind the counter.
The museum wasn’t on fire, the ceiling hadn’t fallen in, and there wasn’t a riot of people throwing molotov cocktails, so I figured everything was okay. Nobody could have gotten into the cash register, because I had the key for it around my wrist on a springy elastic band.
I was good.
I heaved a sigh of relief.
Mr. Selfridge walked in ten seconds later. Good timing, Mr. Selfridge. Not that it mattered.
“How was your meeting?” I asked him.
“Excellent,” he smiled. “Thanks for asking.”
Tiffany walked out of the museum gallery and up to the counter. “I need my bag,” she grumbled.
“Oh, let me get it for you,” I said enthusiastically. I dug it out of the cubby and handed it over.
Tiffany snatched it from me and walked out the front doors without saying thank you. Such a bitch.
Mr. Selfridge frowned. “I guess that young woman didn’t like the museum?”
“I don’t think she likes anything,” I said.
Mr. Selfridge furrowed his brows, confused. “It wasn’t anything you said to her, was it?”
“No, she just has a bad attitude.”
Mr. Selfridge nodded uncertainly. “Okay, then. Well, I’m going back to my office. Ring my phone if you need me.” He started walking across the large lobby toward the side hallway that led to the offices in back.
One of the museum doors burst open.
“You!” Tiffany blurted as she stalked across the lobby to the counter where I stood.
I wasn’t surprised she’d come back. She hadn’t managed to ruin my day, so she was going to call me names or demand a refund because she hated the art in the museum.
Mr. Selfridge had stopped at the other side of the lobby to see what was going on. Tiffany noticed him.
“Hey, you!” she shouted.
Mr. Selfridge was startled. “May I help you, young lady?”
She cocked her hips and jammed her fists against her sides, “Your employee stole my credit card!”
I’d spoken too soon. Never put it past Tiffany to do her very best to ruin my life.
Mr. Selfridge walked over to the counter. “I’m sorry,” he said to Tiffany, “what did you just say?”
“I said,” Tiffany huffed, “your employee stole my credit card.”
Mr. Selfridge leveled a look at me over his glasses.
I sighed. At least Tiffany was crazy, and it would only take a second to prove to Mr. Selfridge that I was innocent. I mean, why would I take Tiffany’s credit card? This was proof she had finally cracked.
“She must’ve taken it from my bag when she made me put it behind the counter,” Tiffany growled.
Mr. Selfridge raised his eyebrows at me.
“She’s crazy,” I laughed defensively. “I didn’t take her credit card.”
Tiffany slammed her bag on the counter, opened it, and wrestled with the contents inside like her bag was full of rabid chipmunks. Eventually, she pulled her wallet out. She opened it and presented the missing space. “See? I keep it right here. It’s gone.”
Tiffany had so many other cards of every sort in her wallet, it was like she was pointing at a lawn and accusing me of stealing a blade of grass.
More importantly, I didn’t steal it.
“How do you know you didn’t lose it someplace else?” I scoffed. “Maybe it fell out of your wallet. It’s probably in the bottom of your purse.”
Tiffany narrowed her eyes. “I looked,” she hissed.
“Look again,” I sneered.
Mr. Selfridge watched all of this with neutral interest.
“I didn’t take her credit card, Mr. Selfridge.”
“You’re such a liar,” Tiffany sneered.
Mr. Selfridge cleared his throat and said to Tiffany, “Perhaps you’d be willing to place the contents of your hand bag on the counter top, young lady?”
Tiffany glared rusty daggers at me. “Fine.” She up ended her bag and everything spilled out like a garbage truck emptying its load at the dump. I was surprised a cloud of dust didn’t billow up. How did she find anything in there? I thought my purse was bad.
Tiffany spread the contents out on the counter until it looked like landfill. “It’s not here,” she grunted.
“You’re sure you didn’t lose it someplace else?” Mr. Selfridge asked.
“Yes. I used it to pay for my museum ticket. I have the receipt right here.” Tiffany held the slip of paper up to show Mr. Selfridge. “See?”
Mr. Selfridge nodded. “And the card is not in your wallet?”
“No! Do you want me to pull out every credit card to prove it?”
“Yes, as I matter of fact, I do,” Mr. Selfridge said calmly. At least he was on my side in all this. “May I see your receipt from purchasing your museum ticket?”
Tiffany jammed it in his hand.
He examined it. “We’ll check the number on the receipt against the cards in your wallet.”
This was such a waste of time. Tiffany had run out of good ideas about how to ruin my day so she was grasping desperately at anything she could think of to piss me off. Whatever. I was over it and over her. She was a nuisance at best.
Mr. Selfridge meticulously matched the numbers on each card with the number on the receipt. When he was finished, he sighed and looked at me gravely. “I don’t see the card here anywhere. Could it be in your pockets?”
Tiffany laughed in his face. “Do I look like I have any pockets?” She motioned toward her tight dress. While it was true she had no pockets, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d shoved her credit card up her butt just to get me in trouble.
“Maybe you dropped it outside,” I suggested. Or threw it in the bushes or a garbage can on purpose.
Tiffany snarled, “I told you, she took it from my bag when I left it behind the counter while I toured the museum.”
Mr. Selfridge raised an eyebrow and folded his arms across his chest. He stroked his chin with one hand. “Samantha?” he asked expectantly.
“I promise, Mr. Selfridge,” I sighed, “I didn’t take it.”
“Check her bags,” Tiffany insisted. “She must have stolen it. Where else could it be?”
“This is crazy,” I said absently. “I didn’t take her credit card, Mr. Selfridge.”
“Do I have to call campus security?” Tiffany demanded.
Mr. Selfridge looked between me and Tiffany. He said, “The simplest thing to do, Samantha, is for you to turn out your own bag. If you didn’t take this young woman’s credit card, we won’t find anything, correct?”
“Yeah,” I said. I just hoped Tiffany didn’t demand a strip search after going through my book bag failed to turn anything up. “I’ve got nothing to hide.” I reached under the counter for my book bag and set it on the other side of the counter from Tiffany’s pile of crap. I didn’t want her claiming that her stuff had been in my bag. I pulled out my laptop and my books.
“What about the side pockets?” Tiffany demanded.
“I don’t have your credit card, Tiffany,” I said as I grabbed everything out of the side pockets and added it to the pile of my stuff on the glass counter. Amongst pens, my keys, a tube of lipstick, crumpled receipts, a nail file, an eyeliner pencil, two tampons, and twenty other things, was only my wallet. “See? No credit card.”
“Check her wallet,” Tiffany insisted to Mr. Selfridge, like I wasn’t even there.
“Do you mind, Samantha?” Mr. Selfridge asked.
“It’s not in my wallet.” I opened my wallet and showed it to both of them. “Do I have to go through every pocket?”
Tiffany gave me a dirty authoritarian look. “Yes, you do.”
“Fine.” I began peeling cards out of my wallet and slapping them down in a row on the counter. “MY Driver’s License,” SLAP! “MY SDU Student ID,” SLAP! “MY MasterCard,” SLAP! “MY Frequent Buyer’s Card for Bath & Body Works,” SLAP! “MY Debit Card,” SLAP, “and…”
SLAP.
Why was there a fancy black VISA card in my wallet?
Tiffany’s lips curled into a victorious smile. “That’s my card. Just like I thought. She took it.”
What? I glanced at the black VISA card. How had it gotten into my wallet?
Mr. Selfridge reached over and picked up the card and examined it closely. “You are Tiffany Kingston-Whitehouse, correct?”
Tiffany pulled her SDU student ID and her driver’s license out of her wallet, which Mr. Selfridge had never checked, and showed it to him.
Mr. Selfridge examined both, then looked at me over his glasses. “This doesn’t look good, Ms. Smith,” he muttered.
Why had Mr. Selfridge gone from calling me Samantha all the time to Ms. Smith all of a sudden? The answer was obvious. I had been framed by Tiffany Kingdumb-Sleazehouse and Mr. Selfridge thought I was a criminal.
“I told you she stole it,” Tiffany growled.
“Yes,” Mr. Selfridge sighed, “I’m afraid this doesn’t look good at all, Ms. Smith.”
And that was how I got fired from my job at the campus art museum.
If somebody had offered me a job working nude in a rat infested dungeon as a math tutor for convicted rapists, I would’ve gladly taken it.
* * *
Mr. Selfridge didn’t have a choice. It was academic policy at SDU that any student employed at an on-campus job would be terminated if caught stealing. Mr. Selfridge was very apologetic, but said that because of the evidence, he had to let me go.
The good news was that Tiffany had her credit card back, and I know I hadn’t used it to pay for anything. And I’m sure no one else had used it between the time it was sitting safely in her purse and mine.
The bad news was that Tiffany had filed an official grievance with the Dean.
What a surprise.
Mr. Selfridge said he would tell the Dean that I was a model employee the entire time I’d worked for him. Hopefully, it would inspire the Dean to believe my version of events. With any luck, I might get my job back. Eventually.
I just wished Mr. Selfridge could tell the Dean that Tiffany was a rich bitch who hated me because I stole Christos from her, and she’d snuck her credit card into my wallet when I’d been changing my tampon, but I didn’t think that would mean squat to the Dean. Shit, I should’ve squatted behind the museum counter like I’d imagined and changed my tampon in plain sight. Then I wouldn’t be up Menses Creek without a paddle. Yeah, it was a gruesome image, but somehow it captured Tiffany Blingston-Douchehouse’s scheming to a tee.
Tiff the Bitch was the all time epic bitch of the universe. Apologies to female dogs everywhere.
I made an appointment to see Dean Livingston.
A few days later, I sat in the waiting room to his office.
While I waited, I sketched yet another cartoon of Tiffany being murdered in yet another heinous way in my sketchbook. This time I had her buried up to her neck in sand while shiny black DeathStalker scorpions (which were the second most poisonous in the world, I’d learned) stung her in the eyeballs and dungeness crabs performed sloppy plastic surgery all over her grimacing face.
“The Dean will see you now,” his secretary said from her desk.
I gasped and slapped my sketchbook closed, realizing it was starting to resemble a serial killer’s hatebook. Maybe I needed to tear my Tiffany drawings out, lest someone notice them and cite them as evidence of my guilt.
I shoved my sketchbook in my bag and walked into the Dean’s office. It looked like your classic wood and books Oxford College office. It seemed out of place in San Diego, yet there it was.
Dean Livingston was standing behind his desk. He was a tall, older man with clean cut silver hair and a conservative navy suit. “Have a seat,” he motioned toward the leather chairs facing his desk.
As I walked across a huge Oriental rug, I noticed the Dean had a big antique globe mounted in one of those huge round wooden floor stands. Sitting on one of the bookshelves was one of those brass sextant things ship captains used. Probably in case the Dean suddenly needed to explore the new world. He certainly looked old enough to have been on Columbus’ boat. I just hoped he considered himself the nice kind of explorer who brought exotic silks and spices to trade, not the mean kind who brought conquistadors or small pox infested blankets to invade.
I sat down while the Dean opened a folder on his desk and flipped through the papers inside it. I think it was my file. My legendary permanent file. The one they always told you about in high school that haunted you your entire life. Great. Now they were going to add petty criminal to my list of transgressions.
The Dean continued to examine the papers while he spoke, “I see here that you’ve had a bit of a problem with your job at the art museum?”
