Page 5 of June (New Orleans #6)

E nid had agreed to run the booth for her professor, but only because it gave her a leg up in class. He’d been looking for volunteers to try to attract some top talent for their graduate program and the careers that came along with it. Enid had offered because she’d had nothing better to do, and she wanted to have contacts from school once she graduated. She had set the booth up an hour in advance of the career fair and thought it was a little ridiculous to have actual brochures and catalogs sitting on the table. No one would actually read one of these. At most, they’d just ask questions of Enid and then look things up on their phones or computers later.

Deciding that she didn’t need to wave people over or try to actively get their attention because her professor wasn’t there and wouldn’t know if she was trying to sell the program or not, she sat in the chair and waited for her two-hour shift to be over. The fair went on for four hours, but another grad student would be here later to relieve her and tear it down. Enid needed to finish several articles before her next class, so she pulled out her phone and began reading one of them. When thirty minutes had gone by and no one had stopped by the booth, she was ready to keep reading for the remainder of her shift and not talk to anyone, but then the first person walked up and grabbed a brochure.

“Hey,” Enid said.

“Hi,” the guy replied and said nothing else while he read the brochure. “This is for a program, not a job,” he noted a few seconds later.

“Yes, it’s for the master’s program,” she said.

“But this is a career fair,” he replied.

“True,” she said, unable to argue. “But this program is one of the best in the country. We’re in the top ten nationwide. We offer an advanced program and a standard one, so two or three years, depending on which one you pick, and you’d come out of it with connections and likely be able to find a job easier and with a higher salary.”

Enid heard herself say the spiel she’d been instructed to tell anyone who expressed interest and only hoped that was true because she had a year left and needed those connections, a job, and a higher salary.

“What do you mean, advanced program?” he asked.

“There’s a two-year program where you’re taking classes over the summer, but you’re done sooner. The three-year one has no summer sessions. You’ll take more classes, but it requires a lower GPA and GRE test score to get into.”

“You’re in the program now?”

“Yeah, the advanced one,” she replied. “You need three letters of recommendation and an essay, but you don’t have to take the GRE or any other graduate entrance exams.”

“I’m only a sophomore,” he revealed.

“Not a bad idea to start thinking about this stuff now. What’s your major?”

“Poly sci. I couldn’t decide, so I just picked it.”

“It’s a good major,” Enid said. “If you think you might be interested in a program like this, but you’re not sure yet, next semester, try to take an advanced econ or stat class. If you can hang there and you like it, you might want to think about the grad program.”

“Okay. Cool. Thanks,” he said before he left the brochure he’d picked up and walked away.

That sophomore guy was the only person who had approached the booth, so when her two hours were up, Enid stood and was ready for her fellow grad student to relieve her. She wanted to wander around a bit before the fair ended.

“Um… Hi.”

Enid turned to see a woman standing there in front of the table. She looked a little familiar, but Enid couldn’t place her.

“Hi. Are you interested in learning more about the program?” she asked.

“Uh… No,” the woman replied.

Enid looked around, not sure what she should do.

“You don’t recognize me, do you? Sorry, I thought–” The woman turned to go.

Enid recognized the voice then and said, “At the bar.”

This woman, who, in daylight, looked a little younger than her, had long brown hair and bright green eyes. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt with the school’s logo on the front. Her backpack was slung over one shoulder, and where there hadn’t been a smile on her face before, there was one on it now.

“I wasn’t sure… I saw you and thought I’d say hi.”

“You go here?” Enid asked.

“Yeah. Taking summer classes.”

“Undergrad?”

“Soon to be a junior, technically. I took a semester off, so I’m playing catch-up over the summer. You?”

“Grad school,” Enid said.

“Oh, cool. Um… I can leave you to get back to whatever you’re doing. I just wanted to say hi.”

“I’m here. Sorry, I couldn’t find a parking space,” Enid’s relief said as she approached from the right.

“No problem,” Enid replied.

“Did I miss anything important?” she asked, dropping her bag to the ground.

“Not really. Only one person interested,” Enid said.

“Hi. Are you interested in the program?” she asked the woman in front of the table.

“Oh, no. Not me,” the woman replied.

“Yeah, not her. A guy,” Enid added.

“Okay. Well, I guess you can go,” her relief told her.

“Thanks,” Enid said before she picked up her own bag off the ground, stuffed her phone inside, and traded places with the other grad student at the table. “I was going to walk around. You?” she asked the woman she’d run into at the bar.

“Yeah. I’m still trying to figure out what to do with my entire life.”

“That seems like a lot of pressure for one four-hour job fair,” Enid noted as they walked a little farther away from the booth with no particular direction in mind.

The woman chuckled at her comment, brushing a non-existent strand of hair behind her ear, and Enid thought it was cute.

“I’m Enid,” she said and held out her hand.

“Oh. Caroline. Sorry,” she said, shaking it. “Should’ve introduced myself earlier.”

“It’s okay. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone in line at the bathroom before and actually gotten their name. Besides, you were busy talking to your… girlfriend?” she more asked than said.

“Who? Oh. Jodie? No, not a girlfriend; just a friend,” Caroline told her and then looked at Enid, confused. “Wait. How did you know?”

“I didn’t. I mean, I don’t know anything.”

“But you just asked if she was my girlfriend,” Caroline pointed out.

“She’s a little… on the butch side,” Enid replied. “And her fingernails and yours both…”

“Oh.” Caroline looked down at her hand. “Yeah. Well, always want to be ready, right?” Her eyes went wide. “I can’t believe I just said that. That makes it sound like I have a lot of sex or something. I don’t. I mean, I’m no virgin; I’ve had sex before. It’s just not, like, every day or anything.”

Enid laughed and said, “No? That sucks.”

“It does?” Caroline asked.

“Yeah. I mean, sex is great. Well, good sex is great. I’d like to have that every day, if I could.”

“Me too,” Caroline replied with a little laugh, and when her eyes lowered, Enid knew exactly what she was looking at. “You too?”

Enid held up her hands and said, “Always ready.” She laughed this time. “I also just like short nails. I used to have them longer, but I kept breaking them, so I just cut them all down. Although, it is easier when you–”

“Want to be ready?” Caroline guessed.

Enid nodded and asked, “Want to walk around?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Anything in particular that you’re interested in?” Enid asked as they resumed walking.

“No, and that’s the problem. I need to declare a major before the fall semester. It’s a requirement. I don’t want to just choose a random one, but I also don’t want to pick the wrong one, so I’m here. My friend, Jodie, whom you met at the bar, is running late, but she was going to join me to see if I can find anything interesting. You’re in a graduate program. Are you looking for a job by the end of the summer or something?

“I’m only a year in. I still have another year to go. I’m mainly working this thing to get some credit from a professor, but I thought I’d see if there’s anything here that interests me and maybe make a connection at a company or two, if I could.”

“What do you want to do?” Caroline asked.

“I’m going for my MBA now, but that wasn’t my original plan,” she shared. “I actually had a great job out of my bachelor’s, which I also got here. I moved to Florida for that job and, not long after, I got laid off, so I had to move back. I decided to get my MBA to make things easier, maybe, when it comes to the job search later, but I’m looking for something part-time while I’m in school or an internship or something. I’ll start really looking in about six months from now or so when I’m almost done with the program.”

“I thought the MBA program here was three years. My friend was thinking of going for it.”

“It is, but there’s an advanced one. I’m in that one.”

“So, you’re a smarty?” Caroline asked with a smile.

“I’m all right,” Enid replied.

“What’s all right? What was your GPA in your undergrad?”

“3.9,” she said.

“Damn. Really?” Caroline replied. “I’ve got a 3.5, and I thought that was good.”

“It is good,” Enid said. “I’ve always thought school was pretty easy, so I’m just lucky, I guess, but I’ve been working really hard in my program to try to graduate at the top of my class. We only take a hundred students here, and it’s a nationally recognized program, so if I’m at the top of that list, it’ll help me get a better job.”

“Do you want to move back to Florida?”

“No, that was just where the job was, but it was okay. I never planned on staying in Florida forever, though. They had offices in three states, so I thought I would start there and transfer to the one in Baton Rouge or maybe Charlotte. They said I could after the first couple of years.”

“Sucks that it didn’t work out,” Caroline replied.

“Yes, it did.” Enid looked at all the booths they were passing as they walked. They hadn’t stopped at one of them yet, and she wasn’t sure she had even noticed any of them. “Do you want to sit?” she asked. “There’s a coffee cart at the end of the row.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Caroline said.

Enid bought her a cup of black coffee and she watched Caroline add two of the pink sugar packets to it along with more cream than Enid thought would fit in the little paper cup. Surprisingly, the lid did fit when Caroline placed it back on. Enid had gotten herself a black coffee, too, but she only added one packet of regular sugar and gave it a stir. At first, there weren’t any available tables on the quad, which made sense because the place was packed with people, but as they walked closer, a group at one of the dark-green metal tables got up and left. Enid made a beeline for it, losing Caroline a few feet behind her in the process.

“You’re fast when you need to be,” Caroline remarked, laughing a little as she sat down across from Enid.

“I didn’t want to lose the table,” she replied.

“I guess not. So, what kind of a job do you want after this?”

“I want something in any business at this point. I’d like to start out in management. I’m thinking about accounting, but not being a CPA.”

“You can be an accountant without being a CPA?”

“There are certifications you can get, but I don’t mean being an actual accountant. I meant working in a company as an accountant or someone in finance.”

“You like that stuff?” Caroline asked.

“I take it, you don’t?”

“No, but I’m weirdly good at it,” Caroline said. “I got an A in my statistics class last semester. I get the stuff. I just don’t enjoy it.”

“What do you enjoy?” Enid asked.

“Not school.” Caroline laughed.

“It’s not for everyone,” Enid replied.

“My parents wanted me to go, so I’m here. I’d like to get a good job when I’m done, too. I just don’t know what that is. I think it’s a little ridiculous to know what you want to do with the rest of your life by the time you’re eighteen.”

“I can agree with that. I’m still mad that I’m back here when I’m twenty-four and should be working my way up already and not in school, but I’m glad that I’ve pretty much always known what I wanted to do, which has its own advantages.”

“So many advantages. You’ve probably known exactly what classes to take the entire time in school.”

“For the most part,” Enid replied.

“I envy you. I have taken everything from geology and sociology to statistics and even a chemistry class to see if I wanted to be in the sciences. I tried a human anatomy class my second semester, but I dropped it before the add-drop deadline because I hated it. I also took an art history class, which I had thought I would like because I sometimes draw in my sketchbook, but it was harder than I’d thought it would be, so I dropped that one, too.”

“You like to draw? What about the arts?”

“I draw for fun. I did take an actual composition class last semester, but there was just so much pressure, and if you didn’t follow the exact instructions of the professor, you got a bad grade. I didn’t like that. Art is art, you know? I get that we’re learning the foundations, but I don’t want to get a grade for my art. I just draw it.”

“What kinds of things do you draw?” Enid asked as she took a drink of her coffee, which was still too hot.

“Mostly, whatever I see around me. I’ve drawn my desk about ten times because it’s right there, and I’ve drawn the campus or the classroom. When I took that semester off, I did a road trip thing, and I drew what I saw along the way.”

“Yeah?” Enid said with a smile. “Can I see any of it?”

“You want to see my lame sketches?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Um… Okay,” Caroline said, appearing a little nervous now. “My trip sketchbook is back at home. I only have my new one with me, and that’s mainly the stuff around here.”

“Do you maybe want to…” Enid took a drink to stall because she didn’t know how to ask if Caroline wanted to go to her place without it sounding like she was asking for something else.

“My place?” Caroline guessed.

“Or not,” Enid said. “That sounded weird. I shouldn’t have asked that.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s a ten-minute walk from here.”

“You live in the dorms?” Enid asked.

“Yeah. I might be getting an apartment for the fall semester, but I haven’t decided yet. My parents pay for school and the dorm, so I need to check with them.”

Enid nodded, realizing only now just how young this woman really was. It wasn’t a big deal, but there were probably several years between them.

“Hey.”

Enid looked up and saw Caroline’s friend from the bar standing at their table.

“Oh, hey. Jodie, this is Enid. Enid, this is my friend , Jodie,” Caroline emphasized the word ‘friend,’ causing Enid to smile.