Page 11 of Down My Chimney

Henry

Iwas late.

I was supposed to meet Noreen, my advisor, at the coffee shop in the student center, but I’d gotten held up at my work-study job in the library. Normally, my job involved checking people out, reshelving books, and cleaning the day-old coffee cups out of the carrels, but today I’d had to deal with my least favorite task: telling a couple having sex in the stacks that they should not, in fact, be fucking against a shelf of books on late-nineteenth-century economic theory.

I hated that. Not because I was mad at the couple. Hell, I understood the appeal. Sex, secrets, and old books—it was a perfect combination. Except that every time it happened, we had to report it to our supervisor, and thenweended up having to sit through another training on appropriate workplace conduct, rather than the couple in question.

So I was late, I was annoyed, and I was, frankly, a little jealous. Stumbling upon two people having sex only reminded me of all the sexIwasn’t having. Blake was coming to visit next weekend, but that was still four weeks since I’d seen him in February.

“Sit down, sit down,” Noreen said when I found her at an old wooden table next to the windows in the coffee shop. “I got you a tea. Earl Grey, right?”

“Oh my God, you’re my favorite person ever,” I said as I sank into my seat. Not technically true, but a little flattery never hurt.

And Ididlike Noreen. I had to get to class in half an hour, and I had an SAT prep session with a high-school student after that—because tutoring paid loads better than the library—but I hadn’t had the heart to tell her I was too busy. Besides, the weekend I’d visited Blake in San Diego was the weekend a play she’d written had opened at a little theater out in Boyle Heights, and I still felt guilty about missing that.

Noreen closed her laptop as I took a sip of my tea, folding her hands on top of it and giving me a long look. I took a second, less certain sip. She’d seemed happy to see me a second ago, but now I felt like I was being weighed on a scale and found wanting.

Should I offer to do more volunteer work for her? She taught a few intro to drama classes every spring, full of freshmen who had to put together a performance at the end of the semester. I’d already offered to help with that however she needed, but maybe I should have been more specific?

When she didn’t speak for another ten seconds, I cleared my throat.

“What was it you wanted to talk about?” The wordtalkcame out two octaves higher than normal.

Noreen pressed her lips together and stared at me for another ten seconds before finally nodding. “You’re not going to like what I have to say, but I suppose there’s no point in beating around the bush. I wanted to let you know—”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, jumping in before she could finish. Sweat beaded on my forehead. I should have known this wouldn’t be a good meeting. “I know I haven’t been helping out with your first-year groups as much as I said I would. I’ve just been swamped with work. But I was thinking, do you need an assistant director? Or stage manager? I know you usually have some of them take on those roles, but maybe that would free you up some more, if you didn’t have to supervise that too? I really am sorry, I didn’t mean to let you down. I could even come in and help you around the—”

“Henry, Henry,” she said, cutting me off. “Calm down. That’s not why I asked you here.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure if I felt relieved or stupid. Possibly both. I frowned. “Well, I’m glad I’m not in trouble, but why did you want to talk then?”

Noreen laughed. “You know I’m not your mom, right? You can’tget in troublewith me. You’re an adult.”

“Um, I’m a student, and you’re my advisor. You’ll be grading my senior thesis. Writing recommendation letters for me to any grad programs or jobs I apply to. You know, like,everyonein the LA theater scene. One word from you could make or break me.”

“I’m not going to have you blacklisted because you were busy going to class and being a student,” she said. “That’s exactly what you should be doing. Also, I hate to break it to you, but I don’t know nearly as many people as you think. Iwillhelp you, but I’m not exactly a puppetmaster over here.”

“Still, you said you could use extra help this semester, and I haven’t really followed through on that. Plus, I missed the opening of your show.” I winced. “I feel like I’m letting you down.”

“Well, that sounds like ayouproblem,” Noreen said with a laugh. “Because I don’t feel that way at all.”

“Then why did you say I wasn’t going to like what you were going to tell me?”

“Because you won’t.” She sighed, then reached into her briefcase and pulled out a manila envelope. She took a brochure from it and slid it across the table. “I want you to consider applying to Arts Abroad.”

My heart sank as I stared at the brochure, the letters swimming in front of my eyes. I didn’t need to read it. I already knew what it said.

Arts Abroad was a study abroad program for theater, film, and television students. It was kind of like a semester at sea, except you moved from city to city in Europe, studying the history of the performing arts. Modern theater in London, opera in Italy, and the origins of drama in Greece. You spent six weeks in each country, taking classes and visiting museums, theaters, and other sites on the weekends.

It was incredibly hard to get into. They only took fifteen students each semester, and competition was fierce. It was also incredibly expensive. It cost way more than a regular semester at home, and there was no way to do work-study while traveling across Europe, let alone keep up with any of my other jobs.

I opened my mouth to tell her as much, but she didn’t even let me start.

“I know what you’re going to say. It’s expensive, and it would mess up your graduation requirements, and you might not get your work-study job when you got back, and you want to spend all the time you can networking in LA, but Henry. This is an incredible opportunity.”

“I know,” I protested. “Believe me, I know. I would love to study abroad if I could. But I’m barely going to graduate in four years as it is. And my financial aid package isn’t going to cover the additional expenses. It just doesn’t make sense to upend my whole life to go see some old ruins in Greece.”

“But it’s so much more than that,” Noreen said. “It’s life-changing, getting to learn all that history, getting to see it all first-hand. The Old Vic? La Scala? The Theater of Dionysus? You can’t put a price on that.”

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