AllFreeNovel
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I like this painting. I don’t like a lot of paintings, but this one is good. I get it.
The other painting is three women seated around a table. They don’t look modern, but they don’t look old either. But the ladies are old. I mean they are mothering age. One of them leans forward with her elbows on the table and a cigarette in her fingers. She looks like she was just saying something. The other two look at each other, like whatever was just said is getting a reaction. Not a good reaction.
I don’t like this painting much at all. It’s probably good, though, whatever that means. It just doesn’t mean anything to me.
“Spencer?” Dean Rhodes calls out as she settles behind her desk.
Her desk is littered with shiny things, paper things, and at least five cups filled with brushes or pencils. That’s way too many. How many pencils could a person even use? The shiny things look like maybe sculptures or figurines or something. Glass and metal.
“Thank you for seeing me,” I smile back.
She slides her glasses onto the bridge of her nose and opens a folder in front of her. I didn’t know there were going to be any folders today, but that is fine.
“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to help you,” she sniffs.
My smile freezes. That seems a little stubborn, honestly. If she’s not going to help me, then dragging me out here was pointless.
She glances up at me as she holds the folder open in front of her. Her eyes are gray, but bright. Like metal. Like aluminum. Her hair is short and spiky, twisted around her head like there is an invisible wind blowing it. Her lips—I can’t help but notice—are bright red. Something I normally like, a lot.
She purses her lips, sucking in her cheeks as she stares at me. Slowly she slides to one side and leans on one elbow, gaping the V-shaped neckline of her painted silk blouse.
“The semester has already started,” she reminds me sympathetically.
I lean back in the barrel-shaped chair, expecting her to watch me. Women always watch me. But she only sort of raises the outer edges of her eyebrows and flattens her lips in the center. That’s not good.
“Okay, real talk,” I start, thinking there’s not a lot of point in trying to charm this one. “Hillby says we have to finish our elective credits this semester.”
She nods slowly. “That is how electives work,” she confirms. “Don’t you have electives in the business school?”
“We do,” I admit. “But as you noted… the semester already started. Registration is closed. Believe me, I tried.”
She looks down but raises her eyebrows, as though rolling her eyes at the piece of paper in the folder.
“Registration is closed in the art school too,” she adds. “Honestly, you’re probably better off returning to your school and finding something that has a seat open, Spencer, don’t you think?”
“Yes, yes,” I nod, as though I’m taking her objection seriously. “Truth of the matter is, there’s another player who also needs the elective requirement met.”
“Ezekiel Arroyo,” she answers.
Is his name on the paper too? What has she got in the folder?
“Zeke, right,” I answer, starting to feel little bit uncomfortable. “And we are a team, you know. We work well together, so even though Zeke is in the English program and I am in the Business school—”
“You’re telling me there aren’t any electives open in the liberal arts college?” she squints, as though this conversation is beginning to cause her some amount of pain.
I spread my hands out. “Maybe there are. Nothing at our level. You understand.”
“Your level?” she repeats. “What do you think is… your level?”
“We are juniors,” I explain simply.
“Diego is a senior,” she shrugs one shoulder. “Just barely, just by two credit hours. But he is.”
“You have notes about Diego in there too?” I can’t help but ask.
She gives me a smile with her lips still closed and closes the folder in front of her while taking her glasses off. Dropping her glasses on the closed folder, she spreads her fingers in midair as if to show there’s nothing in her hand.
“Let me ask you a question,” she begins, the challenge plain in her voice. “You’re all juniors, right?”
