Page 95 of Wicked Me
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Paige
“ARULER,” NICOLE SAID, kneeling in front of her poster easel next to me. She raked a hand through her glossy red hair so hard, it looked like she pulled out more than a few strands. “I need a ruler, Paige.”
“You need some meds,” Charlotte muttered.
The other interns in the House Members room bustled about with final preparations on either side of us. A couple tables up from Nicole’s, Doug pointed and smiled at something on his laptop for Janice to see, but she looked wholly unimpressed. We had half an hour until show time and Display Day officially began.
“I would bet you a whole dollar that whoever lands the job doesn’t have their poster’s corners all lined up with the edges of the table.” Charlotte sat in front of Nicole’s table on a stool she’d stolen from one of the janitor closets, her bum leg decked out in a combat boot and stretched to the side. I feared for the poor soul who accidentally bumped it.
“Easy for you to say,” Nicole said. “You’re high.”
Charlotte’s grin widened. “As a kite.”
And yet she still limped and now walked with a cane. On Monday, the doctor had said she had pulled a muscle and loaded her up with painkillers. On Friday, today, I called bullshit and threatened to take away her Starbucks card if she didn’t get a second opinion.
“Here,” I said stooping behind my table next door for my purse. My hands needed something to do besides fidget all over the place, and I didn’t want Nicole to yank out any more of her hair. I handed her my phone. “Surely there’s an app for that.”
She took it from me with a grateful smile. As soon as she adjusted the corners of her poster into the same exact position it had been before, she clasped her hands in front of her and stared down at her sensible shoes as if in prayer. Or meditation. Was she sleeping?
While she did whatever she had to do to get ready to practice her presentation for us, I bit down hard on my tongue to keep the tears at bay. Janice knew. She’d seen everything and had accused me of ‘tainting these sacred walls with promiscuity and heretic thoughts.’ She didn’t have to say I wouldn’t get the library job. I already knew it.
A part of me was devastated. Another part, a part that didn’t control my tear glands but lifted my chin in times of uncertainty, was relieved. There were other libraries, and I was an extremely capable library science major with one more semester and an impressive Library of Congress internship on my stack of accomplishments. I would be fine. I would be a librarian. Just not here.
Nicole raised her head and leveled her shockingly green eyes at both Charlotte and me. She launched into a summary of her six weeks here while gesturing wildly with her hands. Her contagious grin infected us, and other interns nearby, with her natural energy and humor. The girl was gaining a fan club for life with every word she said, and the self-elected president stood several feet away next to the American flag.
William, decked out in his black security uniform, watched her, a faint smile touching his mouth. He was always so stoic, but with her in his sights, he seemed to drop some of that seriousness and be a little more...him. Little by little, he’d also helped bring Nicole out of her shell. Rumor had it that he had walked her to Charlotte’s car that night at The Underground Hill. They were kind of perfect. I hoped for both their sakes they could spend more time together.
“...and that’s why my relationship with bleach is strictly professional. Go home, bleach. You’re drunk on your own chemicals, and you will ruin a tiny section of a very rare political cartoon about the surrender of Saratoga,” Nicole was saying.
Charlotte and I laughed, and I wouldn’t be surprised if William had cracked a little more, too.
“My six weeks here has been filled with triumph and glee, but also a great amount of risk and quite possibly a boatload of stupidity,” Nicole continued. “The week before I received the acceptance letter for this internship, my grandmother, my only living relative, died in a rest home. I made just over minimum wage at the public library where I worked, so I had to dip into most of my savings to cover her funeral costs. I broke my lease in Montana, which forfeited my deposit. I couldn’t afford a car to get here, so I sold almost everything I owned for a plane ticket here and barely enough to cover my first month’s rent. The wages I received here went toward the next month’s rent, so I didn’t have enough money for electricity, furniture, or food for Jimmy the turtle and me.” Nicole’s smile was far away as she stared at a spot over our heads and gestured with her hands. “But I had this.”
I blinked. “What?” But even as I said it, I felt like the biggest idiot alive. Nicole’s attachment to her tie-dyed parachute bag wasn’t just some shy girl quirk; that, and everything inside, was all she owned.
Charlotte just stared, her eyes glistening. “Why didn’t you tell us? We could’ve helped you.”
“You did help me,” she said, shrugging, and met Charlotte’s gaze with a watery one of her own. “Eighteen and twenty-four.”
“Huh?” Charlotte took the word right out of my mouth.
Nicole held up her fists where she’d scrawled the numbers eighteen and twenty-four. “Spongebob kept track. That’s what I owe you for the food and drinks, and I intend to pay you both back right after we get our final check today.” Her cheeks bloomed red when she glanced in William’s direction. “Lots of people helped.”
“But...” I shook my head, not caring one bit about what she owed us.
