from the regular customers.
Eminickle and his crew raided the candy display and filled ICEEs at the machine before bringing their treasured treats up to the counter like they held golden jewels and silver chalices in their hands.
I rang everything up.
“I got y’all covered, boys,” Eminickle said generously, pulling out his velcro wallet to pay. It had an Angry Birds logo silkscreened on the outside. He handed me a ten dollar bill, which covered everything.
I made him change and slid it over the counter.
He lifted up the remaining dollar bill and held it out to me. “For you, girl, because you is so damn fine.”
“Save it for milk tomorrow at school,” I sneered.
His buddies cackled.
“Down in flames, dawg!” Space Invaders said.
“A’ight, I get it,” Eminickle said to me confidently. “You playin’ hard to get. But I can tell, I’m growing on you.”
“Like a zit,” I said.
His friends erupted with laughter.
“Any time you wanna
“Gross!” I don’t know how, but he made zits into sexual innuendo.
“See you next time, foxy momma,” Eminickle winked as he and his buddies walked out.
I waved sarcastically and rolled my eyes.
Once Eminickle and 2 Small Crew were gone, my tiredness set back in.
I eyed the coffee machine. Did I need a fourth cup?
No, caffeine wasn’t helping. All it did at this point was make my hands shake and my eyelids quiver.
I checked the clock on the far wall. Yup, it was running backward.
I really needed to find a different job.
Chapter 20
SAMANTHA
As mid-terms neared, I felt the crushing weight of looming disaster hovering over my life. Not only had my friendship with Kamiko gone off the rails, but my grades were falling into the crapper as well.
On the plus side, Oil Painting was most likely an A. Professor Cogdill was a great teacher, and very supportive. Check.
Sociology 2, on the other hand, was looking like a solid B. Not what I wanted. My parents wouldn’t be happy about anything less than an A. Unfortunately, Professor Tutan-yawn-yawn kept putting me to sleep, no matter how hard I tried to focus. The energy drain from my two jobs wasn’t helping.
History was heading toward a C. That freaked me out. I hadn’t had a C since junior high. Maybe I could pull it up to a B by the end of the quarter, but no hope of an A. Groan.
Figurative Sculpting was a wild card. I needed to actually go to Bittinger’s office hours to find out exactly where I stood.
I wasn’t looking forward to a friendly visit with the Bitchinger.
Luckily, her office hours were not on the same day as classes. Maybe she wouldn’t be so bitchy without Hunter in the room making gaga eyes at me while ignoring her.
I walked across campus in the morning and into the Visual Arts building to her office. I’d made sure to arrive well before her posted office hours. I wanted to be waiting on
As I hoped, she wasn’t there.
I slid down against the wall and pulled out my sketchbook to doodle while I waited. I almost started cartooning her, but I knew I’d get carried away and she’d walk up at the exact moment I finished an insulting picture of her.
I could see the cartoon in my mind. Marjorie would have a sour look on her pretty face and the body of a mangy dog from the waist down. She would be sitting behind a little roadside stand, waiting for the next willing idiot to come along and pay for her unique brand of cheap grief. The signage scrawled on the front of the stand would read:
“Insults and Aggravation. 5?.”
“The Bitch is In.”
With a grin on my face, I started drawing Doggy van Peltinger. I couldn’t resist. Maybe I needed to be a cartoonist.
Of course, that was the moment Marjorie Bittinger chose to walk down the hall. My drawing would have to wait. I stuffed my sketchbook in my book bag and stood up.
“Good morning, Miss Smith,” Professor Bittinger said as she pulled a ring of keys out of her purse and opened her office door. “I assume you’re here to inquire about mid-term grades?” She smirked.
“Um, yeah.”
She walked into the office and dropped her bags behind her desk. I sat down at one of the chairs in front of her desk. Her office had very clean, precise decoration. Three small pedestals along the wall had bronze sculptures of heads on top of them, each one of a different handsome young man. I didn’t recognize any of the people, but they were all very well done, and the men looked super-sexy. “Are those heads your work?” I asked.
“You mean the busts?”
“Yeah.” I guess that’s what they were called.
“Yes.” Still standing behind her desk, she rifled through a folder, looking for something. Maybe she’d find some social niceties inside, because I could tell she’d forgotten to bring hers with her this morning. A moment later she tugged out several sheets of paper and slapped them on the desk. “Your file.”
How did she manage to make me feel like I was sitting in the Principal’s Office, about to receive a bawling- out for in-class antics? Detention or expulsion to follow?
Marjorie sat down and slid a pair of reading glasses onto her face. Even in glasses, she projected an elegant beauty. Why was it that people’s insides and outsides could be so poorly matched?
Marjorie flipped back and forth between two pages, reading, flipping, reading. She pulled off her glasses, folded them up, and put them away before lacing her fingers primly on top of her desk. “Currently, your grade is a D.”
“A
She pressed her lips together. “Minus.”
“What?” That was impossible. At worst, I was expecting a B. I was working my butt off in her class, and my sculptures were as good as anybody else’s. I had assumed that, like Life Drawing, sculpture class would be graded on progress. “Why is it so low?”
“Because your work is shoddy and heavy-handed.”
“Heavy-handed? What does that mean?”
She smiled with ample superiority. “If you want to become a mason and pour cement for a living, you’re doing a terrific job.”
“But I’m learning,” I hoped I didn’t sound like I was whining. “Isn’t this a beginning-level class?”
“I would hope to see a finer level of execution in a college level course.” She leaned forward, going in for the kill, all smiles. “Not all of us have what it takes to become a figurative sculptor, Miss Smith. Perhaps you should consider a ceramics class. Ashtrays and painted plates might be more your speed.”
More my speed? She was making it sound like I wasn’t smart enough or talented enough to join her club. What an epic bitch. I felt myself starting to tear up. Then everything clicked into place.
