And now I hadtwothings I needed to be distracted from.
I ran my hand along the hanging clothes, reaching impulsively toward the back of the closet, where the colors were. I pulled out a robin’s egg blue silk top—I’d loved it the moment I’d seen it but vividly remembered Darren calling it “very ...Easteregg.” The tag was still on.
The stupid part of me—the part that had so easily convinced me that Armand had stood me up on purpose—still believed what Darren had said. That calling any kind of attention to myself waschildish, and that I’d make myself look ridiculous if I wore clothes like this.
But the rest of me—the parts that still warmed at the comfort and compassion Armand had shown me over the past few days, at the thought of a night at the theater, at“I’ll make it up to you.”
The rest of me couldn’t wait to be the most fabulous damn Easter egg Armand had ever laid eyes on.
August 14th- One day until the convention oh god oh god
I stood at the front of the classroom and surveilled my troops, trying not to allow myself to be overcome with emotion. I’d managed to save enough time for this, the last class, to be spent on critique. The students were presenting their work to each other, explaining their processes, making suggestions, and complimenting each other, using the terminology and storytelling locutions I’d taught them.
Ashley (Long-Face-Freckle-Mullet), who had rolled their eyes so decisively during our full week of layout discussion, had done a marvelous job pacing. Aiden (Button-Nose-Sleek-Goatee), who had struggled with drawing bodies in any other stance than standing, had used multiple dynamic poses. Aubrey (Square-Jaw-Cat-Eye-Specs), who could not draw at the start of the workshop, still could not draw, but had developed increasingly creative ways to hide this fact withstylization.
Every single one of them had made progress. Myself included.
And I definitely wasn’t near tears.
Some backroom deal had been struck early on between the university and the Drawn & Quartered Comic Convention organizers so that the three-page works my students produced would be galleried on the same day of my talk and Q&A panel. It was quite brilliant, when you thought about it—the students had all been awarded free entry to view their own work, but family and friends would have to buy tickets if they wished to dote.
Money would be made and everyone would be happy.
I really was a sellout. With any luck, I’d continue to be one for the foreseeable future.
Please, god, let me be a sellout.
“Well done, lads.” I cleared my throat. “You’ve all done a lovely job ... er ...” Now, in the last twenty minutes or so of our final class, I was meant to make a speech. To wrap up the entire workshop to the best of my ability ... but it was as if I’d never learned to speak to them properly. I’d fully regressed—I couldn’t stop swallowing, my palms were damp, the back of my neck was sweating, I could feel my pulse in my molars. What could I even say to these people? Sorry to have wasted a month of your life? But no, theyhadimproved, if not thanks to anythingI’ddone—
“Ahem.”
I pulled myself back from the brink of despair. Finch had stood up in his seat and the rest of the class was turning back to look at him.
He was grinning his impish, Peter Pan grin, eyes sparkling and cheeks flushed. When he spoke, his voice had a theatrical cruise-conductor quality which seemed to draft everyone in the room into his dastardly machination. “I think we should all go around and take a few minutes to tell Professor Demetrio how much we learned in this class. How much fun we had, and how grateful we are that he came here to teach this workshop. Does that sound good to you guys?”
There was a general, enthusiastic cheer of assent, while I tried my absolute best to evaporate.
That littlebastard.
“I’ll start.” He beamed, rocking back on his heels. “When I first heard about this workshop I wassoexcited.Surrogate Gooseis aphenomenon, right? Like, it’s so weird, and it came out of nowhere. And now Mr. Nowhere Man is teaching a class? How cool is that?”
The students gave a collective chuckle. I’d leaned back against my desk, legs crossed, hugging myself with one arm and biting my knuckle like a bloody caricature of myself.
“Anyway, I really appreciate how comprehensive this class was,” Finch continued. “Like, we covered so much in only a month.”
“Yeah.” Blue-Glasses-Afro-Puffs (Ashlyn? Adrian ... Ariadne) stood up. “Me too. I thought maybe we were just going to cover basics or comics history or whatever, but this was like comicsbootcamp!”
“I don’t feel like I only learned about comics.” Blond-Apple-Cheeks (Bently) stood up—why were they all standing up? What was happening? “I feel like I learned aboutart.”
Nose-Ring-Purple-Hair (Corrine? Corey. No, Cyrus) stood up as well. “I feel like I learned aboutlife.”
Thiskept going. Until each and every one of these sun-kissed Californian children had stood from their seat and expressed their appreciation for whatever they perceived me to have been doing during these ill-conceived sessions. All I’d done was ramble and rant and try to make sense out of this ...thingI was compelled to make. What had Finch called it? A phenomenon? More like a ridiculous, self-indulgent spectacle.
Finch watched over it all with an evil, beatific grin, and when the last of the Sparticuses had O Captain, My Captain-ed me into oblivion, the horrible little traitor led them in a round of applause.
All but curled into a ball on my desk, I thanked the students, trying to pretend my voice wasn’t thick with emotion and my face wasn’t burning. Several of them requested hugs, and I was helpless to refuse.
“See you at the con!” said Braids-Sloe-Eyed-Gap-Tooth (Damian) and hugged me around the middle. “I can’t believe it’s tomorrow!”
