Page 10 of Out of Bounds

He released the ball. In a room full of drunk coeds, you could hear a pin drop. Time stretched out and sped up at the same time. The ball hit the edge of the cup, circled around the rim, and...and…

The crowd went wild.

The room cheered on someonenotdrinking. There was a first for everything.

“Four in a row! Holy fuck!” Cudia said. “Better watch out, Altshuler, that he doesn’t take your slot.”

Altshuler flipped him off, a smile on his lips and a glare in his eyes.

Cliff felt his whole insides beating. The shot clock in his head was counting down the seconds. He licked his lips, took a breath. He released the ping pong ball. It sailed through the air. A smile crossed his lips as its trajectory put the ball squarely on course for the Solo cup.

Almost.

Until the table rocked slightly, an imperceptible shake that misaligned cup and ball for the most inopportune split second in history. The ping pong ball tipped the rim of the cup and rolled down the table. Cliff’s eyes clocked Altshuler’s foot sliding away from the table leg.

The crowd let out a mix of gasp and cheer, more a release of tension than anything else.

Altshuler poured him a shot. The pungent smell of everclear made Cliff dizzy.

“Drink up. And welcome to the team.”

4

BRENNAN

Four days later, after the regular new student orientation rigamarole, Brennan found himself in the office of his new advisor Professor Leslie Adamson. She was an accomplished avant-garde artist who spent the 1990s rebelling against gender stereotypes with her provocative work, and now she was half-leaning out the window to sneak a cigarette.

The story went that she used to smoke freely in her office until the turn of the millennium when they banned indoor smoking on campus. Then she still continued to smoke freely, white clouds puffing out of her office whenever she opened the door. But then as she described it to Brennan, damn millennials and their sensitive feelings and helicopter parents made a fuss, and the administration installed a fire sprinkler in her office. Students knew they had gained her trust when she started secretly smoking with them in the room during meetings, blowing smoke out the window to keep the fire alarm appeased.

“Want one?” She held out her carton of Virginia Slims, which she claimed to smoke ironically.

“I’m good.”

“You’re the only artist I know who doesn’t smoke.”

“Those videos they showed us of people talking through a hole in their neck really fucked me up good as a kid, ruined any chance I might’ve had about becoming a smoker.” Brennan became very talented at fanning away smoke from his classmates’ cigarettes without seeming rude.

Bookshelves overflowed with art books lacking any kind of discernible organization, but he knew that she could find any book in a second. Brennan slumped back in the chair, leaning an arm around the back.

“How are you settling in?” she asked once she returned from the window. To her credit, she mastered getting the smoke outside.

“So far, so good.”

Adamson pulled a file off the top of a stack on her desk. He appreciated that she printed records out, rather than staring at a computer screen during their conversation like his last advisor.

“I loved your portfolio. You have an interesting mix of found objects but also technical skill with painting.”

For his submission to Browerton, he took grocery store coupon inserts from Sunday papers and fashioned them into a cyclone next to a painting of a starving family. In another piece, he glued scraps of cardboard boxes into a three-dimensional maze on the canvas. Both were a comment on America’s waste and abundance.

“The precision and craftsmanship don’t take away from the vitality. It makes a statement and dares you to engage with it. That spirit is welcome here.”

Brennan smiled and nodded with modesty. He struggled with compliments.

“I saw that same spirit in your piece at the MOMA,” Brennan said genuinely, not trying for brownie points.

“They still have that there?”

It seemed that all artists struggled with compliments. Except Paul, who acted like they were common knowledge.