Presley
Working five days a week was exhausting. The money was decent, but it felt like I never slept enough. It had only been a few weeks, and I was dragging. I’d been waiting tables for four years, so it wasn’t like I couldn’t do the job, but this restaurant by the mall was always slammed. No breaks, no time to grab a drink, nothing but running from one table to the next.
Today I was meeting with my advisor about graduation and his email hadn’t sounded like he had good news, which made my stomach churn with anxiety. By the time I got to his office, I felt like I might lose my breakfast, and I paused outside the door to take a few deep breaths.
I’d done a great job on my final project, no matter what he said. I was proud of the work I’d done, even if I hadn’t managed to snag an interview with the hottest rock band in the world. I had to keep that in mind as I knocked on his door and walked into his office.
“Hi, Dr. Russell.”
“Good afternoon, Presley. Have a seat.” He took off his reading glasses and looked at me.
“Based on your tone of voice, I’m guessing you don’t have good news for me,” I said quietly.
He sighed. “I do not.”
Fuck.
“Are you failing me?” I asked, my heart sinking.
“Although you did excellent work on your e-zine, the content isn’t what we agreed upon.” He sifted through some papers on his desk. “Your design and the technical part of the project was top-notch, but I can’t in good conscience give you a pass on that alone.”
“Well, if half the project was perfect, and the other half was a fail, wouldn’t that be a C?” I asked.
“It’s not that simple, Presley. You chose the project track, and the agreement was that you would push the boundaries and accomplish something you wouldn’t normally be able to do as a college student. The whole point was for those of you who went that direction to be treated like employees, instead of students. If you recall, I tried to talk you out of the music magazine idea, but you insisted you could do it.”
“I did do it,” I said quietly.
“You did. But not the way we agreed it would be done. Frankly, it wasn’t what I expected from you, Presley. You’ve always been a stellar student. This project fell flat. If that interview had been your assignment at a real magazine, your editor could very well have fired you.”
“I spent eight months creating the website, the content—even getting legitimate advertising! And you’re going to fail me because the guys in Onyx Knight decided to be jerks and blow me off? How is that fair?”
“Did someone tell you that life would be fair? In the music industry, no less?” He sighed, putting his glasses back on. “Look, I have a compromise for you.” He ruffled some more papers around on his desk until he found the one he was looking for.
I was already exhausted and nauseated, and now my chest tightened as I waited to hear if there was anything I could do to graduate.
“Re-take the class this summer and find another band to interview. Maybe not quite at the level of Onyx Knight, but if you can get a band with some level of success—instead of a local band—I’ll pass you and you can graduate.”
I stared at him, trying to understand why he was being such a hard ass about this. He knew how much I’d struggled since Aunt Meg’s diagnosis. How she couldn’t work anymore because of it. How I was already drowning in student loans since I hadn’t qualified for any scholarships. He knew damn well I couldn’t afford another semester of classes. Not to mention that I needed to start working full-time as soon as possible.
“I can’t afford another semester,” I whispered, hating the tears that filled my eyes. “Aunt Meg’s meds cost a fortune and her disability only goes so far.”
“I’m sorry, Presley. I truly am. If it was just up to me, I could make an exception, but there’s a whole committee. You opted for the project track.”
“So that’s it? You’re failing me, so I can’t graduate, and I can only get my degree if I come back over the summer, and somehow find another big band to write about?”
“Unless you want to change your entire project, but then you’d need to come back for a full semester in the fall.”
I opened my mouth, but a wave of nausea hit me that was strong enough to make my stomach roll.
“Presley?”
“I’m sorry. I’m not feeling great. Excuse me.”
I barely got out of the room before I heaved into the nearest garbage can.
Dammit.
I was so embarrassed and humiliated it was making me physically ill.
“Presley? Are you okay?”
I tried to breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth. “I’ll be fine.” I spoke through gritted teeth, praying I wouldn’t vomit in front of him.
“Can I call someone—”
“No! I’m fine.” I dug a tissue out of my purse and wiped my mouth before making a beeline for the nearest bathroom.
* * *
Something smelled good, but Aunt Meg wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room when I got home, and I momentarily forgot about my miserable meeting and unsettled stomach. Her car had been in the driveway, so I hurried up the stairs to her room.
“Aunt Meg?”
“In here, honey.”
“Are you oaky?” I stood in the doorway of her bedroom worriedly.
“Just feeling weak today,” she said. “But come tell me about your meeting.”
I sighed, perching on the edge of her mattress. “He failed me.”
“Bastard.” Her blue eyes glittered with annoyance. Her body may have been falling apart, but her spirit was as feisty as ever.
“He said I can re-take that part of the class in the summer if I can find another band to interview.”
“Oh.” Her face brightened. “That’s good news.”
I gave her a look. “Aunt Meg. Where will I get the money? I already have student loans up the butt. I don’t want to take out more. Not to mention, I have to start working full-time.”
“But you worked so hard for your degree. We can get by another few months.”
My shoulders slumped, and I felt a fresh wave of tears coming on.
What the hell was wrong with me? I never cried like this.
“It’s going to be okay.” Aunt Meg sat up. “And get this.” She held up her phone. “Remember that video my friend Ginnie and I did for the Insta-whatever?”
“It’s called InstaPixel,” I said, laughing. She’d only recently discovered that there were social media platforms beyond Facebook. She’d started watching videos on InstaPixel, which was the newest one that had taken the world by storm, and she and her friend had posted something on there last week. I’d been so caught up in learning my new job I hadn’t paid that much attention.
“Well, it got 8000 views.” She paused. “Ginnie said that means it went viral.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I wouldn’t say that’s viral. Viral is more like a hundred thousand. But 8K is really good.” I pulled out my phone and opened the app. “What’s your handle?”
“Eye-Lights with Aunt Meg.” Her eyes twinkled.
“Eye-Lights?” I asked, as I typed it in.
“Ginnie buys all these so-called miracle creams and potions. You know the ones, where they promise to temporarily make all your wrinkles and shit go away? And then she doesn’t use them. So we had a few glasses of wine that night and decided to video ourselves trying them out. We chose four of them, and we each did two, one on each half of our faces. And one of the four worked!”
“Really?” I found the video and played it.
Aunt Meg was a lot of fun, especially after a few glasses of wine. She giggled and told the most cringe-worthy jokes, but they were so bad you couldn’t help but laugh. Ginnie didn’t have a good persona for this kind of thing, but Aunt Meg killed it. With her infectious laughter, combined with the intelligent way she talked about her aging skin and the changes she was undergoing with the MS, she was incredibly engaging. No wonder it had gotten so many views.
“And today,” she continued when the video ended, “someone left me one of those private messages, offering to send me a sample of their cream if I would do it in a video. I don’t know if it’s a scam or not, but it’s kind of fun, right?”
“Let me see.” She handed me her phone and I checked out the messages. Sure enough, a new skincare company called SkinWrecked, had contacted her, offering to send her samples if she would do videos talking about them.
“It looks legit,” I said. “As long as they don’t ask for any money, I don’t see the harm.”
“Ginnie’s going to die,” she said, shaking her head.
“I hope not,” I quipped, getting up.
“Let’s eat,” she said. “I cooked earlier and then came up for a little nap. Now I’m feeling better so we can warm up the lasagna and have dinner.”
“Okay.” I held out a hand to help her as she carefully got to her feet.
“And you’ll see. We’ll figure out what to do about your project.”
“Dr. Russell warned me I was taking a big risk,” I admitted. “But I honestly thought I could do it. I was so sure if Sam got me backstage, I could get someone in the band to talk to me. Even ten minutes worth of an interview would’ve been enough to write the cover story.”
“The story you wrote was really good,” she said. “You got two more advertisers after it came out. And you’re getting visits to the site every day.”
“Like forty or fifty,” I mumbled. “That’s not very impressive. And a lot of those hits are probably the same people coming back every day looking for new content. When they don’t find it, they’re going to get bored.”
“So add new content.” She quirked a brow at me.
“It’s not that easy,” I said. “And besides, now that I won’t be graduating, I don’t know if I want to keep it up.”
“Now you listen to me.” She put her hands on her hips as we got to the bottom of the stairs. “You put a ton of heart, not to mention time, into that website. You absolutely need to continue it.”
“Aunt Meg. It’s hosted on the school’s server. Once the semester is over, they’ll take it down and I can’t afford to pay for web hosting right now.”
“Of course we can.” She squeezed my arm. “How much can it cost?”
“I don’t know. I’d have to buy a domain name and then the server…” I let out a heavy sigh. “It’s a lot, Meg.”
“I follow a bunch of book bloggers who host websites, and I’m sure they don’t all spend a ton of money. There has to be an inexpensive way to do it.”
I grabbed two potholders and pulled the lasagna out of the oven. “This is still warm.”
“Then let’s eat. And you can Google inexpensive website hosting or whatever it’s called.”
“Okay.” I smiled, shaking my head. She was like a dog with a bone once she got something in her head. It was one of the things I loved about her, but I didn’t know what I would do going forward. Right now, it felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. I’d been so sure I’d graduate next month.
I looked down at the piece of lasagna Aunt Meg had just put in front of me and my stomach rolled.
The next thing I knew I was puking my guts out into the trash can.