"What?" I ask her, excited because she's excited.
"They want to show more of my work!" she whisper-screams.
"Mine too!" I tell her.
"Oh my God. This is just too much. I think I'm going to need to lie down. I don't know if I can handle this much goodness in one day. We never have this much goodness. What the hell is going on?" Shea asks.
I shrug. "I don't know but right now I don't care. I am still having trouble believing I'm not dreaming."
She pinches me.
"Ow!" I rub my arm. "You bully."
"What? Now you know you're not dreaming."
I scoff. "Please. You'd pinch me in my dream, too."
Shea grins mischievously. "I so would."
"Some best friend you are," I tease.
"Onlythe best ever!" she declares.
"True story. Let's go accept our awards and see what's in store for our future," I urge.
"Hold up. If we go to NYU, we won't be able to show many pieces here," she points out.
"True, but they do have a gallery in New York," I inform her.
"They mentioned that, but I kinda like LA."
"Are you seriously whining about this?" I ask, astonished.
"Well…no.I just wish we could go back and forth," she tells me.
I roll my eyes. "Be thankful for what we've got. We're so fucking lucky, Shea. I didn't imagineanyof this until I was in my late twenties. But it's happeningnow."
She huffs. "You're right. Let's go."
* * *
They offeredboth me and Shea opportunities to show our work in the galleries not only in the US (which totaled to five) but also the two in Europe. How could we possibly say no to that? There's no way.
But, that put us at a crossroads. Take the business opportunity and not take the scholarship, or take the scholarship and give the galleries our finished products in a less aggressive manner. I needed to talk to Xander. He was right there when I called, cheering me on. His advice was to go to school part-time or, even, take a year off of school and see what happens. There's no way I can argue with that logic.
I don't want to end up burning out artistically, people tiring of my work, or just not fitting the trend anymore and not having an education to fall back on. I'm going to go to school part-time for business management. If my career takes off, I'm seriously gonna need it.
That's how I ended up the last one in the building. Angelina told me to go out the back. The door will automatically lock behind me. It sounded good to me since my car is right out there. It sounded good until I realized it was nearly one in the morning. It sounded good until I realized I was alone, in LA, at one in the morning, and I was scared.
Big cities this late… that makes me nervous.
I pause with the door cracked to listen, then peer around the door. No one's out here. I'm so silly. I get anxious like this in Chicago, too. Big city phobia, I suppose.
I quietly close the door behind me and walk swiftly to my car. I'm nearly there when I hear the laughter.
There's a group of people heading this way. I'm not sure by looking at them if they're my age, younger, or older. It's impossible to tell. They're dressed in regular street clothes, nothing special, nothing that sets off alarms for me.
"Miss," one of them calls out. I turn to look back. "You dropped your scarf." It's a male, a guy. I can't call him a boy because he looks older, but I don't think he's a man either.
