The weekend passed. I worked and reworked my mixed-media project. I got India to appraise my portfolio. I wondered what one was supposed to wear to one of these interviews. I spilled an entire can of turpentine all over my floor. Jonah accidentally burned me with a cigarette, the first time in our entire relationship that that had ever happened. I finished my original drawings of the characters for the digital media project and e-mailed them to the group. Tristan said he liked all of them except one. Owen said he couldn’t tell the genders of two of them, which was a serious obstacle to his idea of the story. Stephanie said she liked them, but they didn’t fit what she’d had in mind. Adia didn’t respond. I slept with Jonah in the metaphorical sense, but I only actually slept five hours.
The publisher’s office smelled like leather and strawberries.
“Lissy Kenway?” said the receptionist.
I stood up, portfolio in hand, and approached her desk. “Yes?”
“Mr. Sovanich will see you now.”
“Okay.”
“He’s in the conference room — down that way—” she pointed to her left “— and the fourth door on the right.
“Thank you.”
“Not a problem.”
I ventured slowly down the hall, clutching my portfolio. I noticed my hands were getting sweaty. Ew. I wiped them on my skirt before knocking tentatively on the door.
Nobody responded.
I looked around. Was this the right door? Fourth door on the right. That’s what the receptionist had said, right? Right?
I knocked again.
“—heavens,” said a British accent. A tall, beefy man sighed as he glared down at me over his almost-cartoonishly small glasses. “Please tell me you’re Miss Kenway.”
“I am.”
“Thank heavens,” he said, sounding like the weight of the world had been lifted from his huge shoulders. “Please. Come in.” He stepped aside.
Labels: january brings few faces
