Текст книги "Painless"
Автор книги: Devon Hartford
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 32 страниц)
I had the distinct feeling I was nothing more than a number to him, one of thousands who went to SDU. The university had over thirty thousand students, so I wouldn’t be surprised.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You are aware that any student caught stealing at a work study job will be terminated?”
“Yes.”
“And that there are no exceptions to this rule?”
“Yes.”
“And that San Diego University has a zero tolerance policy toward theft?”
“Yes,” I rolled my eyes. Did they pay him to just read from the manual? Heck, I could do this guy’s job. I bet it paid pretty well, and I’d make more than enough to cover my tuition.
“This is a very serious offense, young lady. What do you have to say for yourself?” he asked.
I suddenly felt like every criminal ever who professed their innocence while nobody believed them. The only difference was, a jury hadn’t convicted me. Tiffany had. How to explain? I was going with the obvious, “Tiffany framed me.”
“Who is Tiffany?”
“The girl who says I stole her credit card,” I sighed.
Was he even listening? Or just doubting? I did my best to explain what Tiffany had likely done. Of course, I could only guess. But it was all I had to work with.
While I talked, I noticed the Dean slowly slouching farther and farther down in his slippery leather chair. His cheek was leaning against the hand he’d propped on an armrest.
To my horror, he slipped so far down in his chair while I spoke that his knuckles were driving the skin of his cheek up the side of his skull in wrinkly accordion folds. His lips were stretched so far up now that it made a gap in one corner of his mouth that couldn’t be closed. I could clearly see his bridgework.
“Mmmm,” he mumbled absently.
I waited for him to say something more in response to my theory about Tiffany.
Another wrinkle folded into place on Dean Livingston’s cheek as he continued to slide in slow motion down his chair. There were now sixteen folds. I know, because I had time to count while I waited politely for him to respond.
I glanced around and watched dust motes floating in the sunbeams pouring through the windows to my right. They danced. I always liked dust motes.
Hello! Dean Livingston? Anybody alive in there? Was he asleep with his eyes open? He certainly looked old enough to have come across the Atlantic on the Santa Maria with Columbus.
“The girl…” he said.
Uh, yeah? What the heck was I supposed to say to that? I raised my eyebrows expectantly.
He raised his a tad in response.
I raised mine a bit higher.
Back and forth we went, our eyebrows going up a millimeter higher at a time. He had the advantage because the eyebrow on the side of his face with the wrinkled cheek had an inch head start.
Okay, was this a game of who can raise whose eyebrows the highest? Did I win if mine touched my scalp? Because that’s how high they were now.
Any day, Mr. Livingdeadston!
I’d had it. I blurted, “Tiffany! Remember her?”
“Who?”
Had he forgotten already, or been asleep the whole time? Either was possible.
Exasperated, I blurted, “I told you, Tiffany was the girl who came into the art museum on my shift, and when I went to the ladies room, she must have put her credit card in my wallet so she could accuse me of stealing it.”
“The museum…” he sighed like a deflating gas bag.
Wow, was that as far as we’d gotten?
“Which…museum?” he burped.
I mean burped, an actual burp.
“Excuse me…” he slurred.
Wow, I think I saw his breath smoking out the gaping corner of his mouth, it was so thick and rank. And tinted brown. Ew. I think a housefly flew right through it and spiraled down to its death. So gross. Any second, spiders were going to crawl out of his mouth like it was a tomb. At least his corpse was showing signs of life. Except I think he was dozing again.
“Mr. Livingston?”
He was literally staring right at me, but didn’t say a word.
Wake up, Mr. Livingston! This was useless.
“Is this a bad time?” I asked carefully.
He blinked.
Was that it? Geez, I could totally do this guy’s job. I wondered what his job interview had consisted of? Blinking more than twice an hour?
Lameballs!
“Mr. Livingston, I really need my job back,” I pleaded, “and I didn’t take Tiffany’s credit card. Isn’t there anything we can do? I really need the work or I won’t be able to pay my tuition,” I gulped, suddenly worried that admitting I was having trouble covering my tuition bill might be digging a grave for myself. The university didn’t want broke students who couldn’t pay. Then again, I suspected Mr. Livingston was intimately familiar with graves, seeing as how he had one under his desk and kept one foot in it at all times.
He blinked three times, a record for him, then yawned, “You will need to make a formal appeal to the University, at which time,” he yawned again, “you will have an opportunity to state your case before a tribunal of administrators.” He was now fully awake. People usually were when they were bending you over and going to work with the broom handle.
“Until then,” he admonished, “you will not be allowed to work on campus. You will also be placed on academic probation until your name has been cleared. If the tribunal finds that you are indeed guilty of theft, or if you are caught committing any other crimes on campus, you will be subject to expulsion.”
Gulp. What? Had I heard him right?
Why had I gotten out of bed this morning?
Stupid Tiffany!
Chapter 17
SAMANTHA
The warm spring weather was perfect in contrast to my mood. I sat outside at one of the tables at the Student Center with Madison, Romeo and Kamiko. We were all eating fish tacos for lunch.
“I’m screwed, you guys,” I sighed.
"You say that like it’s a problem,” Romeo quipped. “In my world, getting screwed is the most desirable outcome of any encounter.”
“Even if Tiffany Kingston-Whitehouse is the one doing the screwing?” I asked skeptically.
“Now that you mention it, I always suspected that girl had a dick,” Romeo cackled.
“She’s way too much of a bitch to be a man or have a penis,” Kamiko said as she dipped a tortilla chip in her salsa.
“Female dogs everywhere are cringing because we’re comparing them to Tiffany,” Madison giggled.
“Maybe we could compare Tiffany to toxic waste or puppy murderers,” Romeo suggested.
“Don’t kill any puppies!” Kamiko pleaded.
Romeo frowned at her. “How is it that me saying ‘puppy murderers’ means it has actually happened? What, did a puppy somewhere in the world just die because I said it?”
“I don’t know,” Kamiko said sheepishly, “just don’t say it.”
Romeo rolled his eyes, “You’ve been watching way too many cartoons, darling.” He took a bite of his fish taco.
I sipped my iced tea, “What am I going to do, you guys? I can’t even find a math tutoring job. There’s no jobs anywhere right now. And, until my case with Tiffany goes up for review in front of SDU’s academic tribunal, Career Services won’t give me another on-campus job. I’m tainted goods.”
“Have you tried looking for work as a sex slave?” Romeo asked.
“Who wants a tainted sex slave?” Madison joked.
I glared at her, “Thanks a lot, Mads.”
She smiled, “Do you really want to work as a sex slave?”
“If the pay is good, I’ll do anything,” I sighed. “But I already checked the sex slave want ads. All the sex slave masters are looking for someone with experience.”
“Slave experience, or sex experience?” Romeo asked innocently.
“I’m assuming both,” I joked. “Most of the ads mentioned ball gag and whip experience. I’ve never used either.”
“If you need any pointers,” Romeo said, “let me know.”
“Yeah, Sam,” Kamiko smiled, “if you need practice whipping someone’s ass, I can demonstrate for you on Romeo.”
“Is it just me,” Romeo smirked, “or would Kamiko make a good dominatrix?”
I looked at Kamiko, who had her hands in her lap while leaning over her drink cup, which was sitting on the table, while she sucked on her drink straw. She looked like a little kid. The only thing missing was a twirly crazy straw. I said, “Maybe a cartoon dominatrix.”
“Butter lettuce?” Romeo said to Kamiko suggestively, like he was trying to seduce her. “Locally grown?”
I wasn’t sure what he was talking about.
Neither was Madison.
“You mean the butter lettuce party?” Kamiko asked. “Those weren’t dominatrices. Those were male stripper unicorns.”
“DominatriCEES?” Romeo enunciated forcefully. “When did you become Ms. Dictionary, Kamiko?” Romeo asked skeptically, as if Kamiko’s word pronunciation was weirder than male stripper unicorns.
I was so lost.
“Yes,” Kamiko said, “dominatrices is the primary spelling for the plural version of the word.”
Madison frowned at me, “What are they talking about?”
I shook my head, “Cartoons? The dictionary? I have no idea. My friends are insane.”
“Butter lettuce party from Bravest Warriors?!” Kamiko suggested with maximum frustration. “Episode three?! Season one?!” She slapped the table top for emphasis. “Don’t you guys watch the internet?!”
“Yeah,” Romeo glared at me and Madison sarcastically, “Duh!”
“Mads,” I said, “I can’t decide who is more cray cray. Them or us.”
“I’m just eating my fish tacos,” she giggled. “I don’t know any of you.”
* * *
I plugged my debit card into one of the ATMs on campus near the Student Center. I needed to check how much cash I had left in my account because my monthly tuition payment was barreling toward me at the speed of light. I was going to owe more than $5,000 to SDU in a few short weeks.
After I entered my PIN, I pressed Check Your Balance. Instead of a number, the ATM machine laughed at me and told me to get a job. I’m surprised it didn’t shred my card and flash the words YOU’RE BROKE repeatedly.
There were people waiting behind me in line to use the ATM, so I canceled out and took my card.
Where the hell was I going to find five grand? I had combed through the job search websites with a microscope and hadn’t found anything yet. Maybe I needed to go back to Grab-n-Dash and beg for my job? A scent memory of hot dogs and urine colored polyester wrinkled my nose.
Maybe not.
Short of selling a kidney or other parts of my body to the highest bidder, the only other thing that occurred to me was checking online for scholarships.
I walked to the Main Library and set up my laptop near a window on the seventh floor. I sighed as I logged onto the library’s wi-fi network and searched through scholarship websites. It didn’t take long to realize that most of the application deadlines had already passed. Not that it mattered. Most of them didn’t pay any money until the fall.
I sat back in my chair and sighed. I glanced out at the amazing view of San Diego. I’d always loved the Main Library’s wrap around windows. From the seventh floor where I sat, you could see for miles.
Usually, the view lifted my spirits. Too bad nothing short of a construction crane could lift my spirits today.
I sighed and went back to my job hunt. Trying to remain optimistic, I narrowed my internet search by application deadline. There weren’t many scholarships left on the list.
I found one for bagpipe majors. It paid seven thousand bucks! Bagpipes couldn’t be too hard to play, could they? I would totally double major in bagpipes if it meant seven grand. The only problem was I couldn’t even afford a set of bagpipes. Even if I could, I wouldn’t be surprised if Christos or Spiridon kicked me out of the house for taking up the fartbags. But I would play them every damn day if it meant $7,000. Crap. Who was I kidding? I don’t think I could deal with all that quacking.
Next.
There was one scholarship for people studying the Klingon language. I’d watched Star Trek. Didn’t Klingons just grunt? I could grunt.
There was also one for the American Nudist Research Library. No, seriously. I read it on the internet. What did nudist researchers research, anyway? Increased incidences of skin cancer among the nude? Early onset droopage, for both men and women? Because you know drooping was the biggest problem faced by nudists. I seriously would’ve applied if it wasn’t for the fact you had to live in a nudist colony to qualify. I didn’t even know where to find a nudist colony, unless you counted art models. Hey! Maybe with all the girls coming to Christos’ studio every day, the Manos house qualified! I was totally submitting an application.
I searched the scholarships for another two hours and applied to a dozen more. With any luck, I might actually get picked for one, but I wasn’t holding my breath.
I had to assume that I was no closer to covering the $5,000 I owed SDU than when I started.
Droopyballs!
Ew.
* * *
My spring classes consisted of: Sociology 3, History 3 (which focused on 20th Century America), Plein Air Painting (which Kamiko told me to take because she was), and Drawing the Costumed Figure (which Romeo and Kamiko both were taking).
I’d managed to gets B’s in Sosh and History during Winter Quarter, much to my surprise. I think all the cramming I did for mid terms and finals made up for my tendency to doodle in my sketchbook during class. With my current financial problems, I vowed to pay total attention and take notes during Sosh and History this term. No more doodling. The last thing I needed was a bad GPA making my financial aid situation worse than it already was.
I met Kamiko outside the Visual Arts building for our first Plein Air Painting class. It only met once a week, on Wednesday afternoon. How awesome was that? We both held portable easels that collapsed into the size of a suitcase. I’d borrowed mine from Christos. He had several in the studio. I couldn’t afford to buy one, and it was a requirement for the class, so I was in luck.
“Why do we have these easels?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” Kamiko grinned as we walked into the Visual Arts building.
“You know,” I wrinkled my nose, “Plein Air sounds kind of boring.” I was pronouncing it like ‘plain’ because I had no idea how to say it. “Are we going to paint plain things? Like vanilla ice cream and white rice? Because I don’t see how we could paint plain air. Unless we paint the sky? And because it has to be plain, we only paint cloudless skies? Isn’t that just squeezing blue paint on a canvas?”
Kamiko smiled at me indulgently as she held the door open to the classroom. “No, silly.”
Unlike my previous art classes, which had taken place in rooms that were obviously artist’s paradises, the Plein Air room was small and bland. The walls were blank. There was a teacher’s desk at the front of the room, one of those ancient metal ones that looked like a gray battleship that had seen several wars. And of course, a bunch of student desk chair combos with mustard yellow plastic seats crammed together. I had been right about the plain thing. This looked like any random high school classroom in America. Wasn’t this supposed to be a University?
“Why do I feel like we’re going to spend the next three hours in detention?” I asked Kamiko.
She arched her eyebrows, but said nothing.
A few students stood against the walls with their portable easels. There wasn’t much room to set them up. Maybe that’s why we had the portable easels, so we could squeeze them into the scant remaining available space?
A few minutes later, a middle aged woman walked into the room. She had curly hair and a big smile. She wore a wide brimmed hat and a khaki hunter’s vest with a bunch of pockets over a long sleeve shirt and jeans. Hiking boots completed her outfit. Were we going on a safari?
“Hello, everybody,” she said. “My name is Katherine Weatherspoon, and I’ll be your Plein Air instructor for spring term. If you haven’t figured it out by now, we’re going to be painting outdoors for the next ten weeks. En plein air,” she said it with an accent that sounded like she was saying ‘on plain air’, “is a French expression that means ‘in the open air’. Everyone, gather up your easels. We’re heading out.”
The students picked up their easels and followed Katherine Weatherspoon out the door.
I leaned over to Kamiko and whispered, “I was right, we’re going to be painting the blue sky all quarter.”
“It’s worse than that,” Kamiko whispered, “we’re actually going to be painting air, like oxygen. So it’s just clear. Did you remember to bring a tube of transparent acrylic glaze? Because that’s the only color you’re going to need.”
“What, like see through? We’re just going to put clear paint on canvases?”
Kamiko shrugged her shoulders.
This was going to be really boring. I guess not every aspect of painting was a winner. “Where are we going?” I asked Kamiko as we filed in behind the last of the students.
“I have no idea,” she said.
We walked across campus, through Adams College, and out to North Torrey Pines boulevard. We crossed at the light when it was green.
“Are we going to the cliffs?” I asked.
“I guess,” Kamiko said.
Sure enough, we ended up out at the cliffs west of the SDU campus. They overlooked the beach and the Pacific Ocean. There was lots of plain air for the painting. Yay.
“Here will be good,” Professor Weatherspoon said, setting her portable easel down. “Everyone, find a place to set your easels up, then I’ll begin a demonstration.”
Kamiko and I found a spot together. It didn’t really matter where I set up because there was oxygen in every direction.
A few minutes later, the professor had us all gather around her easel. She had a very small canvas mounted on it, about four by six inches. With her portable palette already covered with little dollops of oil, she began painting. She used a little metal spatula, which she kept referring to as a palette knife, to mix colors on her palette and smear them onto the canvas. It didn’t take long for her to cover the canvas with colors. I realized half way through that she was painting the curve of the Torrey Pines cliffs to the south, the beach, the ocean, and the sky. Her painting was really amazing, resembling a sloppy photograph made of cake frosting. If I squinted my eyes, it looked like the real thing.
When the professor was finished, she turned to the students and smiled, “Now go ahead and start your paintings. I’ll be walking around helping everyone out.”
Kamiko and I walked over to our easels. Now that I realized we weren’t going to be painting invisible oxygen all term, I adjusted my easel so I was facing the south cliffs, like the professor had.
I didn’t have a palette knife, so I just used brushes. I wasn’t used to working on such a complicated subject likes cliffs and waves. There were ten million different things to paint in my field of vision. I was getting a little flustered. I set my brush down and rubbed my forehead with the back of my wrist.
“Having troubles?” Professor Weatherspoon asked.
I was so used to Marjorie Bitchinger’s bitchiness and sarcasm last quarter, I was afraid to say anything for fear of incurring Professor Weatherspoon’s wrath.
“It’s okay,” she said in a kind voice, “there’s a lot to figure out all at once,” she smiled. “What you want to do is focus on the big shapes first. Work from big to small and add detail last. May I?” she asked, reaching for my brush.
“Yeah, totally,” I smiled.
She picked up my brush, dabbed it in some raw umber on my palette, and blocked in a few lines for the cliffs. “Since you’re using a brush, paint thin. You don’t want too much paint making a mess all over your canvas.” She rinsed the brush in my little jar of Turpenoid, then went in with a thin mix of white and ultramarine blue. “Put in the horizon line, like this,” she painted a faint blue horizontal line, “so you know where it is.” She cleaned the brush again, dipped it in some yellow ochre, and scribbled in the line of the beach where it met the water. My painting now looked like colored outlines of the view. “Now all you have to do is fill everything in,” she smiled and handed me my brush before walking away to help other students.
My good mood was back. I turned to Kamiko, “Is this even a real class? It seems like way too much fun.”
“I know, right?” she grinned while she mixed a pile of phthalo green with cerulean blue on her palette.
“Maybe we can both drop out of school and be Plein Air painters for the rest of our lives.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” she grinned as she applied her blue green paint to her canvas where the greenish waves met the golden sand of the beach. “We can hitchhike across America and paint whatever we see.”
“Then we can publish a book of our paintings,” I suggested.
“Totally,” Kamiko grinned.
Plein Air Painting was awesome. When class was over three hours later, we packed everything up and walked back to SDU.
I had totally forgotten about my financial woes the entire time. And for that, I was grateful.
But they hadn’t forgotten about me.
* * *
Five people stood in front of me in line for the teller at the bank in Del Mar when I walked in the next morning.
From what I understood, if you handed a note to the bank teller that you had a gun and wanted money, they gave it to you. They didn’t ask if you had a gun. They just assumed you did, and paid you, which meant I was in luck because I had no gun. I’d considered stopping at a 99 Cents Only store to buy a toy gun, but I didn’t have 99 cents to spare, so I decided to wing it.
Of course, when you handed the note to the teller, they also stepped on the floor alarm button and the cops showed up, but I was fast on my feet. I could be gone before the SWAT team arrived and guns started going off.
Besides, this was San Diego. Did they even have SWAT teams in San Diego? The security guard at this bank was an old guy. I’m pretty sure he had a banana in his holster. I would be fine.
And I was only going to ask for $10,000 to cover my tuition. Not a penny more. I liked to think of it like a scholarship, because no one expected you to pay scholarships back.
The person in front of me was a bulbous man in a sloppy windbreaker and saggy slacks. He kept clearing his throat every five seconds. I think he had a hairball. I was waiting for him to squat down on the marble floor, head hanging between his shoulder blades, and hack it up like a cat, but he never did. He just kept hacking.
Eventually, the teller called Hairball up to the counter. He pulled out a stack of cash, which he counted out in front of the teller, coughing after every fifth bill he laid down like clockwork. I think he was making a cash deposit. I didn’t understand why he was counting it. That was the bank’s job. But he insisted. It took forever. He was hacking so often, I was getting the urge to clear my own throat. Were there toxic spores in the air? Whatever Hairball had, it was catching.
I was getting more and more nervous by the second because I was next. For a minute, I considered leaving, but didn’t. I had to go through with this. As soon as Hairball was gone, I was asking for that ten grand.
About ten hours and a million hacks later, Hairball was finished. I stepped up to the teller window and opened my mouth to speak.
What came out was a hack. Stupid Hairball. It really was catching. I cleared my throat several times. When I finished, the teller was looking at me like I had tuberculosis. I probably did. Thanks, Hairball Hackmaster.
“Ahem,” I hacked a final time. I wrung my hands together. I was going to do this. I needed ten grand. My heart was pounding. It was time to ask for my money.
“Can I help you?” the teller asked like she was about to call the Center for Disease Control so she could have me quarantined.
My throat was tickling again, but I willed it to relax. “Yes,” I said hoarsely, “I need to speak to someone about getting a loan?”
“Certainly,” the teller fake smiled dryly. “I’ll have one of our loan officers speak with you. If you could take a seat over there,” she pointed to the far corner of the bank, “someone will be out to talk to you shortly.” She couldn’t wait to get me out of her breathing space.
“Thanks,” I said and sat down in one of the chairs. My throat was still tickling, but I refused to start hacking again while I waited.
It was ten in the morning, and I’d decided to cut classes today and try to solve my money problems. I mean, what was the point in studying if I couldn’t pay my tuition bill when it came due?
Sadly, I hadn’t been able to find a single job online, and the scholarships weren’t looking any more promising. I still hadn’t told Christos about losing my museum job. It had been two weeks already, but the last thing I wanted to do was bother him with my money problems. With all of the paintings he needed to finish for his next gallery show weighing down on him, he had more than enough stress already, and it was eating away at him. His continued drinking was proof.
When the loan officer finally called me into his cubicle, I was bummed to discover I needed a cosigner for a $10,000 loan.
Great.
Where was I going to find a cosigner? My parents? Ha! That was the funniest thing I’d ever heard. Christos? I couldn’t ask him. It was one thing to live in his house rent free, another to make him liable for a huge chunk of change. I couldn’t do it. And I couldn’t ask my friends. They didn’t have any money to spare.
Maybe I needed to head to Las Vegas on the weekend and pour some money into the slot machines? Oh, wait. I didn’t have any money to blow on gambling.
Wasn’t there some kind of college hooker organization that represented young college women like myself, and only paired you with hot guys? Nah, I think I read that in a romance novel somewhere. It couldn’t possibly be real. Besides, I had a boyfriend.
I was out of options.
Sane ones, anyway.
I sat in my car in the parking lot outside the bank and cried while I leaned my head against the steering wheel. My hair draped around my face and stuck to my wet cheeks. When I was out of tears, I drove to UTC, the shopping center just east of SDU. I walked from store to store, asking about jobs, just like I’d done with Romeo a few months ago.
No one was hiring.
Not even Hot Dog On A Stick. I considered waiting around until one of the hot dog girls took a break so I could knock her out and steal her multi-colored uniform. I was so desperate, I would gladly wear one of their clown outfits and re-subject myself to smelling like hot dogs if it meant I had some money coming in.
Since UTC was a bust, I drove to Mission Valley and hit up the Fashion Valley Mall, Hazard Center, and the Westfield. I filled out several applications and left them behind with promises from the managers they’d give me a call if anything opened up.
When I went home that night, I was exhausted. I had job searched for nine hours straight. My feet were killing me.
I checked the studio for Christos but he wasn’t there. I trudged upstairs and found him passed out in our bedroom. He reeked of booze. He was getting sloshed every day now.
When in Rome.
I was so tired and hungry and frustrated and disheartened from my failed job search today that I decided to get sloshed myself.
I drove to the grocery store under the cover of darkness and bought an armload of ice cream. When I got back to the house, it didn’t take long for me to stuff myself so full of ice cream that I was sloshing when I walked into one of the downstairs bathrooms. I unloaded my freshly consumed ice cream in private and prepared for round two. I walked back to the freezer and pulled out another pint.
Mmmm, ice cream.
Gag.
I ate two more pints before I’d had enough and went to bed.
* * *
A few days later, between Sociology 3 and American History 3, I spent several hours studying in the Main Library. When it was time to head to my history lecture, I closed my laptop and headed for the stairwell door.
There was a huge staircase that spiraled around the square cement tower that supported the fourth through seventh floors of the Main Library. From the outside, the Main Library resembled a squat cement squared-off oak tree with a narrow base that supported the four floors on top.
Going down the stairs inside the three-story base always reminded me of descending into a giant crypt, like in the pyramids, but without cool hieroglyphics on the walls. It was gray and dreary.
Too bad I wasn’t going to find any gold sarcophagi at the bottom of the stairs, or whatever other treasures grave robbers always found when they broke into pyramids. Oh well.
At least it was exercise.
When I walked out of the stairwell next to the elevators, I passed through a corridor that had glass cases on both sides. The cases contained an ever-changing collection of museum style exhibits of all kinds of things: old antique books, ceramics, folk art objects, or sometimes actual art. Today, I noticed that there was a new display in several of the cases.
To my surprise, when I read one of the placards, I discovered it was original art from the Dennis the Menace comic strip.
I stopped to look at the art more closely. I had only ever seen Dennis the Menace art in the pulpy newsprint paper my dad looked at every morning. Up close, the original inked art was magnificent. The lines were so precise and crisp, yet stylized and very geometrical. I would never have made an observation like this before I’d started studying drawing so intensely six months ago. I used to just think of Dennis the Menace as a cartoon with cute drawings. Now I had something vaguely profound to say. I was so proud of myself.
Maybe I had found treasure at the bottom of that library staircase.
“Hank Ketcham is amazing, isn’t he?” Justin Tomlinson asked.
“Oh!” I gasped. I’d been so engrossed in the art, I hadn’t noticed him walk up. “Hey, Justin.”
Justin wore a sporty lightweight leather jacket over a V-neck print tee, and skinny jeans. He looked like he was ready to walk up to the podium at the Grammys and accept an award for best male vocalist.
“The library just got the art in this week. I’ve been dying to see it in person,” he said.
Art? What art? I was busy admiring Justin’s impeccable fashion sense. He was stylish and hip without over doing it. I bet he had his own personal dresser and style consultant. His hair was carefully mussed in a sexy way that looked easy and relaxed but probably took an hour to arrange.
One look at Justin and my profound art observations had flown right out the window.
