Page 72 of Space Balls: Houston, We Have Liftoff
Glitter.
I’ve taken showers, I’ve done laundry, and yet still, the glitter remains.
The perfect metaphor for my relationship with Rose West.
Even when she’s not here, she’s here.
Rose
Vance is being weird.
My phone is dark and silent as it rests screen up on my favorite table at the coolest work café in Houston.
Brass Tacks serves coffee and breakfast tacos, so I’m winning at life every time I come. Add in the converted old brick building that gives it its millennial/hipster vibe (in all the good ways), and the atmosphere is legit amaze-balls. Top it all off with the plant lady, Gladys, the owner of a local garden shop, who keeps a steady rotation of oxygen cleansing plants arranged throughout the café, and I’ve died and gone to bougie heaven.
I’d seriously consider franchising this place after I graduate, but the hipsters would probably drive me out with pitchforks made of recycled tires if I mentioned the F word to them.
I tap my phone screen just to make sure I didn’t miss any notifications.
I didn’t.
After Vance and I set off the glitter bomb and successfully coated the kitchen mixer, I told him I’d be majorly swamped during exams this week. And I am. Graduation is imminent.
But I also needed a break from my warring emotions.
At the start, I told Vance I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend. We said friends with benefits. I probably should’ve said sex buddies instead. Booty calls only. Stranger danger pals. Because all these extra ‘benefits’ that aren’t sex are starting to confuse me.
And then he went and threw lotus in the mix.
So distance. Distance is good.
I tap my pen on the flea market found table, wondering why I am so annoyed if distance is good.
Vance is giving me exactly what I asked for. Space. Quiet. Breathing room.
All the things a Business Fellow in their last week of college needs.
I’ve got shit to do. Shit that doesn’t include having an emotional breakdown over a man.
I nod to myself for emphasis and settle back into my work, the clacks and clinks of the café soothing me.
For about five minutes.
Giving up, I close out my screen before I do something stupid to my completed thesis presentation.
Over the past few days, I’ve turned in all my papers, taken my exams, and said good-bye to my fellow Fellows. All that’s left is the presentation on Monday. A presentation I’m already prepared for but came to Brass Tacks to fiddle with so I wouldn’t sit in my apartment and obsess over my phone.
Hashtag feminist fail.
You’d think I’d be excited or nervous orsomethingabout this presentation.It marks the culmination of all my hard work. The end of co-ed life and the beginning of… adulthood? Becoming a contributing member of society?
Ugh. I rub my face with my hands, disgusted that I still have no idea what comes next.
I’ve always known I was born lucky. Aside from selfish parents and a lonely boarding school upbringing, I was born with a silver spoon I had no hand in forging.
Like I told Vance, technically, I don’thaveto do anything. I can live the Richie Rich lifestyle and spend my days in a mansion with a butler and a pool boy.
And true, I did party it up with Houston’s young socialites for a while. The same crowd that took Flynn down the wrong path when he was younger.
