Page 11 of Between the Blue
I’m not sure what to make of all of it, but I just know I don’t have any further time to devote to my not-friend, James. I tell myself now that I’m pushing him from my mind for the rest of the day.
“This seat taken?” a voice suddenly asks.
I turn to the side, seeing a woman motioning to the desk next to me.
“Nope, go for it,” I tell her.
“Thanks,” she says, sliding into the seat.
She pulls a blue bag out from her purse, fishing a piece of candy out of it and unwrapping it. I notice her looking me over as she pops the candy into her mouth. “I like your tattoos,” she says, nodding towards my right arm.
I hate that my first thought is another set of tattoos I saw this morning before my own.
“Oh,” I blurt, shaking the image of the swirling ink from my mind, “thank you.”
I look down at my handful of small fine line tattoos that are fully on display with the sleeveless blouse I’m wearing.
A Cherokee rose on the outside of my wrist. A camera on my forearm. A sun above the crease of my elbow. A cardinal on my inner bicep. An open book in the crook of my arm. A little mirrorball near my shoulder.
“Jolly Rancher?” my desk neighbor asks, holding the blue bag out towards me.
“Sure,” I smile, dipping my hand inside the bag.
“I think I’m only down to one flavor, unfortunately,” she says.
“That’s okay. I’m not picky.” I remove my hand from the bag, rolling over the candy in my palm.
Cherry.
I press my lips together.
For the love of–
“Okay, welcome everyone. I’m Mr. Hartmann, and this is editorial photography. So, if you’re in the wrong place, now’s your chance to leave.”
I turn to the front of the classroom, seeing a gray-haired man setting his things down at the podium.
“Well, there was your chance. Now you’re all stuck with me,” Mr. Hartmann says, giving us a grin that makes a few people in the class chuckle. “No, don’t worry,” he continues. “We’re going to have a fun semester together. I'm very excited to see what you all bring to this class and even more anxious to see how you apply what you learn to your internships.”
Internship.
Instantly, my stomach starts to churn with a mixture of excited butterflies at my role with COBO and unease with the reminder that I haven’t heard back from them.
Collins Bohemian, or COBO for short, is the magazine I’ve read and hoarded in stacks under my bed since I was eight years old, and the company I’ve dreamed of working for from the moment I was old enough to pick up a camera.
When we were given writing assignments in elementary school on our biggest inspirations and other kids were reporting on athletes and Disney Channel stars, I was writingabout Natasha Collins, founder and editor-in-chief of Collins Bohemian.
As a bohemian chic editorial fashion and lifestyle magazine, COBO is the perfect combination of my personal style and favorite photography techniques.
And with COBO’s North American headquarters being in Austin, Texas, the very same city as my dream photography school, it just made for the most perfectly packaged vision of my future.
It only took a few hundred daily emails and a whole lot of charm to land the position with COBO that would satisfy my necessary internship credit at AIT. All of their staff whose emails I was lucky enough to track down had insisted (repeatedly) when I got into contact with them that they didn’t typically take on anyone with less than a decade of professional editorial experience, much less college interns. But, after much persistence, and finally catching the right person at the right time with another very desperate email, it was agreed that they would have me on as an intern to help work on their next big campaign starting this fall.
I’m surprised I didn’t break my laptop between almost dropping it twice while jumping for joy and the amount of tears I cried onto it when I got that email response.
AIT was my dream, but COBO was the fantasy. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. I wouldn’t take it for granted. I’ve been given the opportunity to prove myself, and I intend to do it.
I tell myself that I’ll call my academic advisor this afternoon to see if she can help me with getting back in contact with COBO. Just to be on the safe side.
