I’m not going.

I send the text off to Justine. Her reply arrives a few seconds later: just a simple and resigned ‘okay.’

I groan and lean against the wall in the almost-deserted hallway of a McGill building; Friday classes at eight in the morning aren’t a popular choice. Dragging a hand down my face, I use the other to type out a second text.

Fine. I’ll go.

She sends the same reply.

We’ve been having the same discussion all week, so I don’t blame her for her lack of enthusiasm. I’ve been waffling between going to the interview at Metro Records and ignoring it altogether for so long that my brain is basically just one big conflicted waffle house.

On the one waffle, there’s the fact that doing graphic design work for a record label is my own personal definition of career porn. More than one fan on Sounds of the Station has said the stuff I make for the site is good enough to be professional, and it’s a thought that haunts me every time I’m fighting to keep my eyes open in a sociology lecture. I know it’s a naive and unrealistic thing to dream about, but it’s not like anyone really has control over their fantasies.

On the other waffle, I don’t have the time to take on more than a very part time job, and my mom would kill me if she found out I was letting anything distract me from school—the school she’s paying for. Also, discussing my work with an actual music industry mogul sounds akin to entering the ninth circle of hell.

I kind of just want to sit in my room and eat waffles tonight.

I find myself wishing I had a truc like JP as I sit in my lecture, staring down the clock. I have to sit on my hands to keep them from tapping against the edge of my laptop, which means I’m screwed as far as taking notes today goes.

I find myself thinking about the little shoulder punch JP gave me before he left on Saturday, the one that gave me the same kind of tingles as my fingers brushing his palm.

Une vraie artiste.

I looked the meaning up after to be sure: a true artist.

He said the poster was good before he even knew it was mine, so he isn’t just being nice about it. He really believed my work was good enough to bring it up with the label, and I know Metro Records wouldn’t be wasting their time interviewing someone they weren’t seriously interested in.

If I’m being totally honest, I know my design work isn’t bad. I’m not a pro by any means, but shapes and colours always arrange themselves for me in a way the words that come out of my mouth don’t. The interaction between textures and lines is instinctive to me in a way human interaction never will be. I could be good at this job if art was all there was to it, but the inevitable ‘talking to people’ part would be my downfall.

By the time I’m done with classes for the day, I’ve texted Justine to say I’ve changed my mind three more times. It’s just after one in the afternoon, and I treat myself to some Indian takeaway on the trip home. I hear voices behind the door when I pull out my keys at our apartment and brace myself to say hello to one of Stéphanie’s friends, but when I open the door, I find her sitting on the couch while a familiar man-bun-sporting figure digs around in our kitchen cupboard.

“Oh, hi!” Stéphanie calls out. “Don’t mind JP. I got him hooked on protein bars, and he came by to sample all my flavours so can decide which ones to buy.”

“Hello, Molly,” JP greets me, his head still basically shoved inside the cupboard.

“By the way, I said sample, JP,” Stéphanie admonishes.

She says something in French so fast I don’t have a hope of understanding, and JP extracts himself from the cupboard, both his hands full of foil-wrapped bars.

“Sample,” he repeats. “Got it.”

“Molly, can you keep an eye on him?” Stéphanie asks me. “I’m hanging out with Ace for a bit before class tonight.”

My heart still lurches reflexively at the reminder that she gets to ‘hang out’ with my ex-fantasy, but I mumble my agreement. JP tosses a protein bar at me as soon as she’s gone. I’m not fast enough to catch it, and it hits me square in the face.

I let out a string of swear words and clutch my eye. JP drops a few curses of his own and vaults over the couch to reach me.

“Tabarnak. Fuck. I’m sorry. Esti.”

His hands flutter from my shoulders to my elbows and back, like he’s not sure what to do with them.

“Uh, do you want...ice?” he asks, sounding panicked.

The edge of the wrapper hit me right in the eye. Tears are now streaming down my cheek, but I can’t help laughing at the way his accent turns ‘ice’ into ‘hice.’

“I’m okay,” I assure him, still chuckling with my hand cupped over my eye. “I think you may have blinded me, but other than that, I’m okay.”

“I just wanted to give you some protein for your interview,” he says sheepishly, his hands still hovering over my shoulders.

I look directly into his face and realize he’s standing much closer than I thought. His grey t-shirt is stretched tight by his broad shoulders. He smells like laundry drying out in the sun. Maybe it’s just to steady myself in my partially blinded state, but in the next second, I’m pressing a hand against his chest. His heartbeat throbs beneath my fingers. Neither of us is laughing anymore.

A few breaths from each of us fill the silence.

“I don’t think I’m going to the interview,” I find myself murmuring.

“I really think you should.” His thumb brushes the collar of my sweater. “Are you nervous?”

I just nod.

“Everybody gets nervous.”

I take my hand away from injured eye so I can meet both of his with both of mine.

“You don’t get nervous.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. “Yeah, but I’m basically a superhero, so...”

My laugh is breathless. I drop my gaze to where I’m still touching his chest and try to make out the words printed on his shirt.

“Were you really a...champion grill master at the Great Northampton Cook-Off of 2001?”

I don’t know why, but I whisper the question like it’s a secret, like if we continue this conversation in normal voices, the moment will shatter around us.

“No.” He’s whispering too, his thumbs now resting against my collarbones. “I got this at the thrift store. But would you find it sexy if I was?”

I draw in a breath. “Yes, I would. Very sexy.”

He snorts. The air that’s crystallized between us smashes like a wine glass on the floor.

Time starts moving again. Our hands fall away from each other. We stand there shuffling our feet and chuckling nervously, as if we’re two strangers who’ve been tossed up against each other on a train.

“Watch your step. We’re neck deep in renovations right now. I’m thinking about making all the staff wear hardhats.”

I follow Shayla McDougal’s leather jacket-clad back through the disaster zone that is the Metro Records office. Bare light bulbs hang down from the ceiling, and there are piles of building supplies all over the floor. Very hip-looking twenty and thirty-somethings sit at desks that are like islands of order amongst all the mess. They hunch over laptop and phone screens, lifting their eyes to flash distracted smiles at us before getting back to work.

They’re all so cool. I am not this level of cool.

I do my best to keep from hyperventilating as I notice all their tattoos and trendy haircuts. I thought my black skinny pants and slouchy sweater were ‘edgy chic’ enough, but right now I feel like a Mennonite walking into Coachella.

Shayla ushers me to a partitioned-off space at the very back of the room. “Come inside my office, Molly. You’re in luck; you get to see it on a day when it actually has walls.”

She sits down behind a desk made of two sawhorses with a sheet of wood on top and motions for me to take the other chair.

“Still waiting on my desk to arrive, I’m afraid.”

I let out a laugh that I hope doesn’t make me sound like I’m being strangled.

I feel like I’m being strangled. This place is full of professionals who actually know what they’re doing. I’m sure they can practically sniff out the imposter in me. I’ve taken one free graphic design course online, and here I am, sitting in front of Shayla Freaking McDougal and hoping for a job at a label that signed the biggest rock band in Montreal.

I’m embarrassed to even give her my resume.

She takes the piece of paper from my visibly shaking hands and scans over my meagre accomplishments. I focus on my breathing, and on what JP said to me once he’d finally convinced me to walk out the door.

“Hey, Molly!” he’d shouted from across the street, just after we’d parted ways outside my building. “You go girl!”

He remembered the words from my favourite piece of street art. My stomach settles a little as I think about the dopey-looking grin on his face.

“So this would be your first graphic design job?”

Aaaand there goes the bottom of my stomach again.

“Uh...yes.” I know that’s not a sufficient answer. I swallow and try again. “It would, um, be my first graphic design specific job, but as you can see on my resume, I’ve v-volunteered as part of the design team for some McGill events. I, uh, also worked on the yearbook committee in high school.”

Shayla nods. “Yes, that’s useful. And you’re studying art history, I see.”

“Minoring in it, yes.”

She appraises my resume again. “You seem like a great student, Molly. However, I think you’ll understand when I say I’m more interested in seeing some of your actual work than I am in looking at a piece of paper with some bullet points on it. Did you bring a portfolio?”

I almost forgot to bring my laptop with me. I give a mental sigh of relief when I pull it out and open up a folder on my desktop.

“These are some of my most recent designs,” I tell Shayla, passing the computer over so she can click through the images. Her face doesn’t give anything away until she reaches a picture that makes her pause and hold up a finger.

“You’ve worked with Sounds of the Station?”

I included a few website banners in my portfolio, but I didn’t think the site name would mean anything to Shayla.

“I started it,” I admit, feeling myself flush. “Well, a friend and I did. I know it’s not a very professional thing to include in my portfolio, but I just wanted to show that I’m, um, comfortable with, uh, basic web design...”

I trail off when I notice Shayla grinning, her dark lipstick a sharp contrast to her white teeth and the silver gleam of her septum piercing.

“It’s definitely professional,” she assures me. “I make sure to check your website out at least once a week. I was on it every day when I was Sherbrooke Station’s manager. You guys seemed to know what was going on with them before I even did. I’m pretty sure your site gets more hits than the actual Sherbrooke Station website. It’s impressive to have a following that big and that strong.”

I haven’t looked at the website’s stats in ages, but she might actually be right. There are fans who check Sounds of the Station like normal people check the weather. Still, it’s just a fan site. It may have tens of thousands of monthly visitors, but they’re mostly visitors who want to talk about Ace’s hair.

Really, though, anyone in their right mind should want to talk about Ace’s hair. It looks like it was sculpted by divine hands and blessed by a chorus of heavenly angels.

“I remember when I first showed Sounds of the Station to the band.” Shayla gives a sigh that’s almost wistful. “Their debut album had just dropped, and it was doing better than we’d ever hoped it would. They were so excited to have an actual fan site, it was almost pathetic. I think they were happier about that than seeing their name in the charts.”

I blink a few times. “The band knows about Sounds of the Station?”

The image of them looking at something Justine and I made just doesn’t compute.

“Of course they do. Hell, the PR team treats your website like it’s the Rosetta Stone—like if they study it hard enough, they’ll learn the secret language of the fans.”

She waves her hands around like she’s mockingly trying to channel some kind of mystic energy. I just sit there, unable to process the fact that I’ve had an actual impact on Sherbrooke Station’s career.

“Really,” Shayla urges, when she notices my reaction. “Your site is great, and so is this portfolio.”

She hands my laptop back, and I tuck it away in its case. The shock is wearing off now, and I’m struggling to keep a giant, obsessive fangirl smile off my face. Shayla folds her hands on top of her desk, interlocking fingers that are all adorned with thick metal rings. The look like they’d be as good for punching people as they are for looking stylish. She really is intimidating.

“We can get into the specifics of the job after,” she tells me, “but before we go any further, I just have one question for you, Molly.”

“Y—Yes?” I stammer when she doesn’t go on.

“Why do you want to work for Metro Records?”

“I...” My throat goes dry. Shayla just sits there, staring. “I...I like music.”

I like music? Seriously?

Shayla tilts her head to the side, like she knows I can do better than that. She’s right; I can.

“I love music,” I correct myself. “I need it. It’s part of everything I do. Seriously, I have a playlist for every possible occasion you can think of.”

Shayla chuckles. I can’t look at her as I continue, or I know I’ll back out on everything I have to say next. My voice is getting stronger, and I push through before it can fail me.

“When I draw, it’s like there’s a song in my head, only it comes out through ink and pixels instead of an instrument. When I look at art, sometimes I swear I can hear it. Music always makes sense. It’s a home you can always come back to. I think that’s why everyone at Metro Records works here, and if it’s not, then—then it should be. It’s why I want to work here. I know it won’t be easy, but...I want to help build that home for other people, because I know what it’s like to not feel at home anywhere else.”

I still can’t look at Shayla. There’s no way she’s going to give me the job after I spewed all that word-vomit on her. She’s just looking for someone who knows how to use Photoshop, not a basket case who might as well walk around with a sticker on her shirt that says, ‘Hello my name is Low Self-Esteem.’

Everyone here is miles above me. They’re the kind of people I re-blog photos of; they’re not the kind of people I actually talk to. I don’t know why I thought I could do this.

“Molly? Hello, Molly? You still here?”

Shayla’s peering into my zoned-out face with a mix of curiosity and alarm.

“Yes. Sorry. Yes,” I assure her.

She seems like someone who uses her smiles sparingly. When she flashes one at me, it feels like a gift.

“I want you to help build that home, too. I’d like to offer you the job.”

I don’t know how I make it through the rest of the interview without screaming, but as soon as I’m outside the Metro Records office, I punch Justine’s’ number into my phone and greet her with a sound that can only be described as a squawk.

“You got the job!” she shrieks, easily interpreting what my exotic bird noises mean. “Molly, that is insane! You’re a graphic designer for Sherbrooke Station’s record label. You’re living the dream, girl!”

“I’m living the dream!” I repeat, throwing a few punches into the air. “I’m living the dream for ten hours a week for the next three months!”

Not exactly a triumphant battle cry, but I shout the words like that’s exactly what they are.

“Here’s to Molly the hot tamale!” Justine shouts into her phone. “I’m toasting you with imaginary champagne right now.”

“Justine, Queen of the Scene, I’m pouring imaginary champagne all over my body in the street right now.”

There’s no one in sight on the sidewalk, so I use my free hand to hold up a pretend bottle and pour it all over my face and chest—exaggerated porno style. I’m whipping my imaginary-champagne-soaked hair around and laughing into the receiver when a flash of movement over my shoulder catches my eye.

I’m still standing in front of Metro Records, and a guy using the photocopier by the window is laughing at me like I’m prime time TV. He raises his hand in a wave. I jerk my head in a nod, and then I bolt out of sight down the street.

“Oh my god,” I pant into the phone, only slowing down when I’ve reached the next block. “Someone at Metro Records saw my sexy champagne show. It was mortifying. My career is off to a great start.”

Justine cackles. “Oh, Molly. Only you. Relax about it, okay? Maybe we can video chat tonight and celebrate with some real champagne.”

“I’d like that,” I admit, still panting.

When I hang up, I find a new text from JP on my phone

How did it go?

A warmth that has nothing to do with sprinting creeps from my chest, up my neck, and into my cheeks. He was thinking about me.

I catch the vapid, teenage girl grin spreading across my face and mentally slap it right off.

No. Bad Molly.

Text-induced cheek warmth is not something I should be feeling for this guy. Whatever happened in my apartment today was a fluke. I was nervous, stressed, and blinded in one eye. I can’t be held responsible for taking comfort in the nearest hot male body. It was a temporary lapse in judgement I know better than to make again.

People like JP don’t go for girls like me. They have girls like Stéphanie waiting for them backstage—beautiful, leggy blondes who shine as bright as they do. I belong with the other faceless groupies down in the sticky, sweaty crowd. I learned that the hard way long ago.

I have to let him know I understand that. He was probably too polite to push my hand away when I laid it against his chest, probably too full of pity to flat-out tell me I was reading the signals wrong. He’s just a sweet and silly guy who, for some reason, seems to want to be my friend. I can let myself have that with him, at least.

I type out a text that will make it clear I know where I stand:

I got the job!!! Thanks for getting me the interview. You’re a good guy, grill master. I think this officially makes us friends.