A solid four years since I’d graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute, and I was still having that recurring nightmare. A psychologist might have said that was a reflection on how unprepared I felt in everyday life.
But I majored in art, not psych, so that psychologist can suck it. I prefer to swallow my feelings, preferably with Cheetos, and let them turn into low-level anxieties and weird inspiration for canvas and paper and T-shirt designs, like a normal person.
“I’m not sure if you passed,” Marc said, picking up the sketchbook and trying his hardest not to look at my boobs. “But your alarm is going off.”
Sure enough, a loud blaring was sounding from my room. Shaking the fuzzies from my head, I ran to turn it off. This wasn’t the first time I’d fallen asleep on the couch while working on a project. It also wasn’t the first time Marc had been the one to wake me. Maybe eventually I’d learn my lesson and work in my bed. Or move my alarm to the living room. And maybe wear more presentable PJ’s.
These sweats probably date to the year of my birth.
“Orphan Black?” Marc asked when I returned, referring to the image I’d been working on. Don’t correct him, don’t correct him, I thought. Don’t--
I took the spiral book from his hands. “It’s Jessica Jones.”
He snapped his fingers. “So close.”
No. Not close at all. I bit back a laugh. Though my roommate and I were near strangers, I’d learned enough about him to know he was not as pop cultured as he could be. Not that anyone expected a history professor to know the difference between Orphan Black and Jessica Jones.
Correction––soon to be history professor. According to Ava, he’d been finishing up his masters this past year with the intent to teach at the university level. He was too busy learning the difference between the Hundred Years War and the Eighty Years War to be cool.
I sincerely doubt he’s ever heard of the Marvel Secret Wars. Lame. Although to be fair, only hardcore comic nerds knew that one, so your definition of cool needed to be fluid.
But, really. When a man looked like that––so firm and sculpted that it showed even under his suit––he didn’t have to be cool. Or.. Okay, I’m more nerdy than cool. All he had to be was the subject of a few of my late-night, um, drawing sessions. Yeah, drawing.
And speaking of his attire…
I pushed my glasses up on my nose and gave him a once-over. Be cool, Madison. Be cool. But he made me nervous. “You clean up pretty well. What’s the occasion?” And the understatement award goes to… me! But I was totally cool, so.
Really, though, he did clean up well. As far as I could tell from my few encounters with the man, Marc had two types of outfits––business casual and workout. (Workout was my favorite, in case anyone wondered. Post-workout, specifically--the shirt was frequently missing by that point.) Today’s look was decidedly more upscale.
“I had to defend my thesis this afternoon,” he said, loosening his tie. I was prepared to loosen my shirt as well, with as hot as the room was rapidly becoming. Actually, it was just him. Ha! Ha!
“Thesis! Man, that’s big.” I knew almost nothing about the thesis process, but I did know it was a big deal.
In fact...crap. Should I have gone to support him? Had anyone been there for him? Was that something people did for a thesis defense? Was that a thing that roommates did for each other?
Welp. Too late to wonder now.
“How did it go?” I asked instead, trying not to stare––okay, drool––as he tossed his tie on the arm of the couch and began unbuttoning his collar. I was going to have to have a “drawing” session immediately following this conversation.
“Pretty good. I’d been offered a teaching position for next year before I’d presented my argument and no one rescinded it afterwards, so I think, all in all, it was a success.”
“Awesome! Congrats! Woot! Yay!” Be COOL, Madison! “On both the thesis and the job. I hope you have big plans to celebrate.”
Actually, I couldn’t imagine him in a celebration situation, low key as he was, but it was Friday and he’d had quite the day. Surely he had a buddy to go out and drink with. Or a girlfriend. I was fairly certain he had one of those. She frequently left her wine coolers in our fridge and once I saw a bottle of her strawberry-basil bubble bath when I’d helped Marc unload his groceries.
Of course Hot Marc’s girlfriend smells like summer all the time. Le sigh.
“Celebrate?” The spot above his nose crinkled in confusion. It made him seem younger somehow. Less serious. More fun. I bet his students love that crinkle. I wish I was his student. “Oh, yes, that’s right. I do. Lots of celebration to be had. You’re off to work now?”
“Yeah, as soon as I clean up. Maybe, um, draw for a hot minute.” I twisted my lips to one side of my mouth than the other, a habit I had when I didn’t know what else to say. I mean, what else could I say? It wasn’t like I could invite myself to his party, even if I didn’t have a job and responsibilities. Even though I was awfully tempted, purely for curiosity’s sake. “I guess I better go and do that now.”
“Okay. And I’m going to change too. Have to get ready to, uh, celebrate and all.” He grabbed the tie off the couch and smiled awkwardly before heading down the hall.
“Right then. Bye.”
I slipped into my bedroom and shut the door behind me before letting out a sigh of relief. All in all, it had been a pretty decent encounter. We’d exchanged about as many words as we ever had at a time, and no dicks were injured in the process. Maybe there was hope for us as roommates after all.
So I worked full-time for SplatScreen, but I didn’t consider it my real job. The indie shop specialized in custom T-shirts and screen prints. Though we did have a small storefront where people could walk in and buy prints or shirts, most of our jobs came in over the internet, everything from labels for craft breweries to shirts announcing local sports championships.
I’d started at the counter but was quickly moved to the back where I could operate the screen printing machines. Every night I came in at five, an hour before the store closed to the public, then I spent the rest of the evening pumping out orders. I was usually done by ten or so.
If I got done at a reasonable time, I got to play with my own designs, often staying another two or three hours to knock out some new pieces. I liked to consider that my “real” job, but it was more like my goal job. The SplatScreen work itself was easy (boring) and paid the bills (barely) but the two main reasons I kept it was for the free use of equipment and the health insurance.
Those were things my Etsy store and occasional convention booth would never provide, no matter how successful they became. Even with a roommate and a car older than my (mom’s) high school diploma, health insurance would be impossible to pay for on my own, and I couldn’t even imagine being able to afford my own studio. Just keeping a single press in my room would be a lost-deposit waiting to happen.