Be My Friday Night (17 page)

"I know. I get it," said Layla.

Sam nodded. She began to well up too. She knew Layla got it. She'd been there to watch Layla go through similar experiences over the years.

Holly's eyes grew red as well. She shook her head.

“Well, okay maybe it's for selfish reasons too. You can’t leave Grover now. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you when Ethan left, and now I don't want you to leave,” she said.

Sam couldn’t say anything in response for a moment. She only nodded in understanding. She started to move to hug Holly.

Rosalind’s car drove up to the front of the house. Her engine idling. She waved toward the front door, and the young women all waved back.

“I will be back guys. I just have to go do this. I just have to go give it a try,” said Sam.

Layla and Holly looked at each other.

“We know,” said Holly.

They hugged their good-byes, Bob got a final snuggle, and Sam left her friends on the couch as she walked toward her mother's car to go to the airport.

S
am didn’t recognize
the person in the mirror. None of the outfits she’d brought seemed to make sense anymore for the person she’d become. It was strange. When she’d bought the outfits after graduation in anticipation for job interviews the clothes had seemed perfect. She’d even felt the flutter of excitement over the garments. Now the suit was too severe. The black pencil skirt with pinstripes and practical heels was depressing.

She turned around in front of the mirror. This is what professors wore to prospective job interviews. She could become more eccentric once she had the job secured. At least her butt looked good in the pencil skirt.

* * *

“
W
ell Dr. Henry
, we’re very excited to hear your presentation,” said a jovial looking older man with a gravelly voice. Professor Simon Ashley was the dean of the art history department at Kipley College. Sam had spent the plane ride reviewing all of his journal articles, and skimming his most current book when she hadn’t been going over her own presentation.

Sam took a step toward the podium. She looked out to the panel of professors and the few students who’d decided to show up. They were waiting. Sam had been waiting for this moment too.

Presenting her dissertation to a hiring panel was supposed to be an amazing. In Sam's daydreams the presentation had even been a transformative experience for everyone involved. It was supposed to feel the way teaching the high school seniors had felt the other day.

Sam paused. Her moment had already happened, and she hadn’t even realized it. She shook her head in surprise. She really didn’t want to start thinking about everything else she’d left in Grover that was right for her. Not right now.

“Dr. Henry, are you all right?” said Dean Ashley.

Sam nodded.

“Fine, just fine,” said Sam. She looked out to the small crowd again. She took a breath. It was time to live in the moment even if the moment didn’t feel exactly as she’d planned. The pressure was off, maybe she'd even have a little fun with it for once. She began to speak about her work.

The presentation went off without a hitch. There was really no need to draw in the panel of professors in the way Sam had drawn in the students just the week before. The panel was already interested by her research, her speculations, and her conclusions. This is why they’d picked her to come speak.

Sam knew they would be. She’d spent years preparing for this moment. A moment she dedicated her mind and body to while she lived it. Yet when it was over she simply felt as if she’d had a haze raised from her conscious. She’d practiced so much. It had been exhausting.

She had thought hard work was supposed to be that way. Difficult, hard, and not fun. Sure it was supposed to be challenging, but maybe you did it because it turned you on at the same time. This had been an experience she'd never forget, but her life wasn't here. As much as she respected it, she didn’t belong in the ivory tower of academia.

Based on the reserved applause and the sideway glances the professors gave each other, Sam knew she’d nailed it.

Dean Ashley rose.

“Samantha— may I call you Samantha? Would you like to join us for our weekly staff lunch? We tend to discuss more day to day matters during these meetings. Hopefully it will give you a feel of what our daily lives are like at Kipley,” he said.

“Of course, please call me Samantha, and yes, I’d love to join you all for lunch,” she said.

No one called Sam by her full name except her mother, and people calling her name in waiting rooms. She had no idea why she said she was fine with it.

Despite the formality, she knew she was really in. Lunch was going to really be a final, informal interview, and they loved her already. Oddly, this all had been easier than she’d planned. Besides being exhausted from the overwhelming situation, it was all running smoothly. It was nothing like a typical day in Grover where anything and everything would happen with plans thrown to the wayside.

During lunch, Sam found herself enveloped in the same haze that had clouded her during her presentation. The staff area of the cafeteria had a floor of colorful tiles and stained glass windows letting in rose colored light. Sam picked at her salad and chastised herself for not enjoying the grand design of the cafeteria.
The cafeteria!
The whole campus was the definition of lovely, and all she could think about was Grover.

Be in the moment.

“Samantha what’s your opinion?” said a voice.

Sam looked around the table. Every set of eyes were on her, expectant of an opinion about what some artist was thinking about a hundred years ago.

Their eyes were hungry and excited, bright and encouraging, sharp and skeptical. Sam had a flashback of witnessing such lunches as a student herself. The professors then had always looked so fascinating, riveting, and sophisticated.

She had worked so hard to be like them. She’d planned for her whole life to look like their lives, and in an instant the paint of the façade washed away. She’d been playing dress-up this entire time, because being a college professor at a liberal arts college was respectful. It was tangible. She had watched others achieve it. It was real. It had taken a long time to achieve, which had given her time to not examine her true feelings about what she wanted to do with her life.

Today she’d proven to herself she could run with them. She also now knew she wasn’t one of them. It was now in this moment that she knew without a doubt this life would never be for her.

“Samantha?” the voice said again.

“Ah, excuse me. I need to go to the bathroom,” said Sam.

Her wooden chair scraped across the tiled floor. She felt the bewildered stares follow her out of the cafeteria. She walked quickly to the daylight outside the cafeteria door.

Outside the air was crisp, and Sam felt the judgment of the professors roll off her shoulders. In the dim autumn sunlight it didn’t matter anymore. Instead, she could simply look around.

The cool part about being in Maine, Sam mused, was the changing of seasons. Fiery orange leaves flitted in the wind as Sam walked across the campus.

People would kill for this chance. The full time position as an Assistant Professor at a liberal arts college rarely ever happened these days.

If she were smart, she would go back into that dining hall, crack a joke about being gone for so long in the bathroom, and explain that she felt a recent exhibition she had caught in LA was a prime example of contemporary artists borrowing from the old masters.

The only problem was the idea of going back into the dining hall made Sam’s stomach lurch. Her feet stayed firmly planted on the gravel path. She had to keep walking.

A fleck of light caught the corner of Sam’s eye. Toward the edge of campus, where the town met the college was a small wooden building. Sam blinked. Floating flecks of bright color twinkled inside the structure.

Sam walked closer to the twinkling light. She realized it was coming from globes of glass hanging from the rafters of the ceiling, all different colors, shapes, and sizes. She walked into the building. She looked up at the orbs.

The delicately blown bubbles swung slowly at the ends of pieces of gardening twine. Sam's shoulders loosened from the area right below her ears. She finally felt calm. She hadn't been since she’d told Otto she was leaving for the East Coast.

Sam began to look around the rest of the gallery space. Vases with wispy patterns resembling sea grass, glass votive candle holders modeled after sea urchins with candles flickering inside, glass sculptures that could have found homes nestled on the sea floor next to a coral reef. Sam was under the sea, a serene glass sea. She closed her eyes and let the energy of the beauty enter her body.

“May I help you?” said a voice.

Sam turned to see an elfin woman with short, shiny brown hair walk out of the back. The woman’s cheeks were rosy against her pale skin. Sam’s cheeks would have flushed as well with embarrassment for being caught in her wonder. Instead she automatically felt a complete understanding with the woman. Her pixie face was warm, her voice welcoming.

“Hi, I’m Sam Henry and I was wondering if you’d be interested in doing a show at my gallery. I’d like to represent you,” Sam said, not really sure where her words came from.

They came out of Sam’s mouth before her brain had a chance to function. All she knew was they were the first words that had felt like her all day. She put out her hand as if she knew what she was doing. The young woman shook it and sputtered a bit.

The woman shook her head. Sam noticed tears begin to well in her eyes. Sam waved her hands frantically.

“I’m sorry. I know that was a little sudden. I didn’t mean to surprise you,” said Sam.

The woman shook her head. She wiped her eyes and looked up at Sam. The woman’s eyes were still shining.

“No, it’s not that. Just, I had gotten to a point I just never thought anyone would ever be interested in giving me a show, in possibly representing me. What I do isn’t considered fine art. There are only a few glass artists who have really been successful, so well, thank you. I’m Julia by the way,” she said, grinning like a wild woman.

Sam grinned and shrugged back at Julia.

“How could I not want to have a show with you? Your studio is absolutely magical,” Sam said as she paused to take another look around the whimsical space.

“I just need to make a phone call really quick, and then if you have the time, I’d love to talk specifics about scheduling and shipping and such,” said Sam.

Julia nodded and did a little dance. Sam laughed out loud.

“By the way, where is your gallery? I have a hunch you’re not from Maine. You have a sunny quality to you,” Julia said.

Sam laughed again. It felt good. She hadn’t laughed all day. It was nice to get a good dose of it now.

“Grover, California. It’s a small town outside of San Diego. It’s not much to some, but I like it,” said Sam.

“California! That sounds fabulous. In a lot of ways, my work comes from a small town, I think it’d do well being shown in another small town,” said Julia.

“I agree,” said Sam, responding to Julia’s enthusiasm.

Julia dashed toward the back of her studio to retrieve her portfolio and sketches and bits of tiny glass she was using for models for bigger pieces.

Sam stepped back outside. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket. She took a deep breath and called the dean of the department. It was probably one of the most deranged things Sam had ever done, but she'd never felt so free. She wouldn’t trade the feeling for anything.

After hanging up with a befuddled Dean Ashley, whose tone of disapproval had told Sam he wanted to make it clear to her she had made the wrong choice, she quickly dialed Zelda’s number.

As the phone rang her stomach caught. Otto would still be at school, unless he’d stopped by Zelda’s for his lunch break. Otto could potentially answer the phone. Sam wasn’t sure how she felt about such a prospect.

“Zelda’s,” said a female voice on the other line.

“I want to rent the space on Oak Street from you,” Sam said, spitting it out before she lost the nerve.

“Hi Sam. Sure you can rent it. How much does my nephew pay you to organize his professional life?” said Zelda, cutting to the chase.

Sam told her.

“You’ll keep that job until the gallery starts making money, and Otto has time to find a new assistant. You’re not allowed to turn his professional and his personal life upside down all at the same time,” said Zelda.

“Well, he did quite a number on me too,” Sam said with a shot of indignation that made her stop, embarrassed. Not the way she wanted to be talking to her future landlord.

Zelda’s laughter on the other end of the line made Sam start to laugh again too. Sam was impressed Zelda already knew what Sam wanted to use the space for. Zelda always knew these things.

“Glad to hear it. He’s crazy about you,” said Zelda.

Sam felt something get caught in her throat. She wanted to start crying, hard. She was about to make her first business deal, and there was the possibility romantic love could flourish right alongside it. The mere thought of everything coming together was absolutely overwhelming.

“Zelda, honestly I don’t even really know what I’m doing. I just know what I want. I want the gallery space. I want to make it a gathering place where people can see art. I want to make my home in Grover, no matter what. I’m not sure what Otto will think about all of this; I love him, it’s just—”

“Sam, sometimes we have to fight for the life we want,” said Zelda. The wisdom in her voice was solid and full of experience like the ancient boulders that lined Grover.

Sam took a deep breath.

“Okay,” she said, jittery for the prospect.

They agreed to discuss details over coffee and hot breakfast bread when Sam returned home.

Sam turned back toward Julia’s studio. The artist had cleared space on one of the tables for her portfolio. She looked like a fairy mermaid surrounded by her glass sculptures.