“Ugh.” Susan’s face scrunches up. “I hate the waiting game.”
“The trial’s going well, though?” Frank asks.
“It is,” Regina replies, and Susan squeals. “Come September, we may be looking at our very own school.”
Regina hopes to get enough interest to launch an art school by the end of the year. Students would have their core classes at their high school and two days a week dedicated to arts coursework. Sort of like how some students go to trade schools alongside their high school curriculum, but for the visual arts.
“Congrats,” I say, holding out my fourth—maybe fifth?—drink of the night.
After we clink our glasses together, Susan leans forward again. “But when will weknow?”
“Sweetheart,” Regina says, her voice smooth, “you’ll know when I know. Once the district sends approval, I’m bringing you all with me to the next semester, and the next one, and the one after that.”
“I’m not…” I grab my straw and stab at the clumps of ice in my drink. “Honestly, I don’t know if teaching’s for me.”
“Your classes are a hit.” Frank’s mouth drops open into a small O shape. “Is it the pay?”
“No, just—”
“All the kids are raving about your classes,” Regina says in an obvious attempt to reassure me. “They can be difficult, but trust me, they’ve really grown to like you.”
“I mean, sure, I’m fine at it. Shaping young minds.” All of their eyes are on me as they wait for me to explain myself. “I’ve got a kid sister, so relating to people younger than me comes naturally. But I…” I sip on my Painkiller to find the right words, the dregs of the drink gurgling up the straw. “I want a career in art.”
“You’re teaching art,” Susan says.
“I meaninart. Not just teaching.”
“You…you realize, we’re all teachers here?” Frank asks, keeping his tone even.
Susan cocks her head to the side. “Teaching art is a career in art.”
The three of them eye me, and I regret the last ten seconds.
“There’s nothing wrong with teaching,” I say in a hurry to backtrack. “I don’t think it’s for me.”
“Oh. Okay.” Regina rests her elbows on the table and quirks a brow at me. “Well, what is for you?”
“Curating. I’m a curator for museums around the world. That’s what I do.”
They all nod their heads to a chorus ofohs.
“So you mean like…” Susan holds her water glass, sticking one pinky out as she uses her other hand to stroke a fake mustache. “Art.” She draws out the word with a long A-sound and a half-decent British accent. Frank and Regina crack up at this. “The hoity-toity stuff. Gotcha.”
“Like, let me tape a banana to the wall and call it a masterpiece?” Frank chuckles.
I laugh along with them because, at a certain level, art peoplecanbe pretentious. It doesn’t make me love the job any less, even if people take themselves a little too seriously sometimes.
“Okay, fine,” I interject. “But you all sort of seem to have a bias against what I do.”
“We could say the same about you,” Regina shoots back.
I gulp, aware I’m coming off like an asshole in front of my boss. “I mean, art on a global scale,” I go on. “Extraordinary pieces that people travel to see. To be moved by. Doesn’t that excite you?”
“But why is it extraordinary?” Susan asks. “Because some crusty white guy said so? Like, did I cry when I sawThe Execution of Lady Jane Greyin London? Sure. But I think the most fired up I get, and some of the best stuff I’ve made, is because a revelation hits me in the middle of teaching. Then I stay up half the night painting.”
“People have bought plates off my Etsy shop from as far away as Tuvalu,” Frank says. “I didn’t even know Tuvalu existed.”
Their stories make me shrink in the booth.
