“Maybe.” I give a noncommittal shrug.
“I’ve also heard rumblings of a position that you’d be perfect for.”
“At LACMA?” I freeze, holding a chunk of bread halfway to my mouth. Anything that well-known opens up infinite opportunities.
“Tate,” Eleanor says.
“Tate Modern?”
She nods, and the disaster with my last job becomes a pinpoint on the horizon behind me.
“Don’t get too excited yet, and this”—she points back and forth between us—“stays here. They won’t hire until October, maybe November, and I have no clue what the salary will be. But an old colleague who works there explained it as a new initiative curating traveling exhibits.”
After a few weeks of endless awful things, this news fills me with hope.
“It would be advisable to, you know…” She bobs her head left and right. “Get something else on the resume.”
“And you think that should be teaching?”
“The pay’s abysmal. It’s practically volunteer work. I’m happy to write you a glowing recommendation for Tate, and they’ll like your real-world experience, but having Impressions as your last workplace might spook them regardless. But a teaching position? That’ll look good.”
“How long does the contract last?”
“My friend said she desperately needs someone for the summer classes, which gives you some breathing room. Job openings in your line of work don’t come around every day.”
I sink into the chair in defeat. “That’s a long time for me to sleep on a leaking air mattress in my parents’ home gym.”
I’m already a disappointment for going into art, and being back only proves their point. But if I go elsewhere and stay with friends, I won’t have a firm end date, and my savings won’t last forever. No hiring manager in their right mind would want me, not with Impressions as the most recent thing on my resume. This teaching position is the only lead I have.
“I’ll give you her contact info,” Eleanor says, smearing a glob of thick cultured butter on a roll. “She’ll love you.”
“Thanks.” I offer Eleanor as much of a smile as I can muster.
“Many talented artists teach,” she says. “Iteach.”
“Teaching doesn’t bother me. It’s just not what I envisioned for my life.”
“The air mattress or the job situation?”
“Both.”
“Well, what did you picture?”
“What I was doing.”
After graduation, I lucked out snagging a position at Impressions—the sort of place that called itself an art-up. They brought innovative exhibits to unexpected places. While we originally intended to do small-scale projects throughout Western Europe and the United Kingdom, we went worldwide as an almost overnight success.
“I’m sure all curators feel this way sometimes,” I say, “but I really wanted to change the world with art. Give people experiences they wouldn’t forget. I felt like we were doing that.”
“You can’t tell me that a pop-up museum dedicated to mushrooms was anything other than an Instagram trap.”
“The Fungus Among Uswas a hit.”
That was my most recent pop-up and my least favorite by far. Since Impressions grew over the years, my latest work involved a constant battle with event coordinators, marketing specialists, and content writers. The team had become more concerned with engaging influencers and posting clever hashtags than producing something meaningful beyond viral images. People loved it, but they wouldn’t remember it.
“Okay, I didn’t exactly reach the pinnacle of my career there,” I admit, staring at my utensils. “Not yet. If I’d had more time, I could have done it.”
“Done what?”
