Boy, she really didn’t like me, did she? I don’t know how I’d gotten so far under her skin without even trying. Served her right for blindsiding me like that.
Madison shook her head, “That girl is trippin’ monkey nuts. I thought she’d gone over the edge on her yacht, but now I’m worried we’ve only seen her at stage-one crazy.”
I didn’t want to consider the morbid lengths to which Tiffany might go when pushed to her limits. She’d demonstrated her penchant for violence toward me twice already. For all I knew, she was planning on making me the first tragic victim in her very own true-crime documentary about girl murderers gone wild. “What’s she doing here anyway?” I sneered. “She wasn’t in Accounting last term, was she?”
“I don’t remember,” Madison said thoughtfully. “You think we would’ve noticed her throne and her attending hobots parading in and out of class every time.”
“She’s such an amaze-douche.” I rubbed the back of my head again. A knotty lump was already forming. “Maybe we can have her assassinated after class.”
“Let me know if you need to hire a hit man,” Madison said cagily.
“Why, do you know one?” I asked skeptically.
“No, I’ll do it for you.” Madison smacked her little fist into the palm of her hand. “Just give me a reason.” She glared at Tiffany.
“Are you mad-dogging her?”
“Yeah,” Madison smiled. “That’s why they call me Mads.”
I giggled, glad to have Madison on my side. Not that Tiffany seemed worried. Now that she was settled into her desk, she wasn’t paying any attention to us at all. Probably for the best.
“If push comes to shove, I will cut a bitch,” Madison said.
“Well, she pretty much pushed and shoved me with her book bag a minute ago,” I suggested.
Madison narrowed her eyes and snarled. “All right, fine. I’m cutting the bitch’s guts out after class. Don’t try and stop me,” she said menacingly.
“I won’t,” I smiled. “Promise.”
Me and Madison broke into giggles.
SAMANTHA
A few minutes later, the professor walked through a pair of double doors at the bottom of the lecture hall. He wore a white button-down shirt with a conservative tie. He was cue-bald with a thick ring of head-warmer hair.
I was totally stumped.
Why the heck was Managerial Accounting so packed? For this guy? Based on the crowd, I’d expected some gorgeous supermodel (male or female) or maybe a dancing bear.
Perhaps Madison’s easy-A theory was accurate? It was all I could think of.
The professor set his shoulder bag down on the table at the bottom of the lecture hall, and pulled out the contents. I was expecting stacks of free money and booze for all the students, but all the professor pulled out was a laptop and a stack of syllabi.
I was perplexed.
He walked up to one of the wall-to-wall chalkboards behind him, grabbed a fresh stick of yellow chalk, and starting spelling out his name.
“All right class,” he quacked, and I mean quacked, “My name is Doctor Dorkman—”
What?! He couldn’t be serious. Did he just say Dorkman? My jaw practically banged against my desktop as he spelled out his name on the board in all caps, like so:
DR. D O R Q U E M A N N
“—and I will be instructing you on the topic of Managerial Accounting for the duration of the quarter. Shall we begin?”
When I said quacked, I literally meant quacked. Like, I was expecting a flock of mallards to come flapping in and settle down at the bottom of the lecture hall by the side of their great king.
Because Dorquemann had the nasaliest voice I’d ever heard in my entire life.
Madison and I exchanged a horrified look. There was no way we were going to make it through the hour without getting ejected for interrupting the lecture with our hysterical laughter.
I gave us five minutes, tops.
Our only option was to focus on the material.
We did our best to take notes.
Unlike in Sociology 2, where I’d easily tuned out the droning Professor Tutan-yawn-yawn, listening to Dr. Dorquemann forced me to dig deep and find reserves of concentration I didn’t know I had. I teetered on the precipitous ledge of silence while staring down at a pit of insanely inappropriate laughter. The only thing preventing my fall from grace was my ingrained sense of politeness. At least my parental upbringing had been good for something.
Despite my best efforts, I knew my silence wouldn’t last much longer. Within minutes, snickers issued from around the lecture hall. I was certain the professor—I couldn’t even think his name without wanting to laugh—would notice his anonymous hecklers, but he didn’t seem to care. Was he ignoring everyone?
Maybe he was used to this.
I, on the other hand, was about to lose it. I did the only thing I could. I pulled out my sketchbook, ready to start drawing. I had learned over the last several months that drawing consumed my attention like nothing else. It sucked me right in.
But I needed to find a subject to draw, quick.
I glanced around the room, looking anywhere except at the professor. It only took a second before my eyes landed on Tiffany, and I had my subject.
I went to work in my sketchbook doodling out the gory cartoon murder of Tiffany Meanston-Lightsout.
Madison, bless her stone-cold focus, was busy typing notes into her laptop. “Shouldn’t you be taking notes, Sam?” she whispered seriously.
“I can’t!” I whisper-whined, “not without losing my shit. This guy is going to be the end of me if I listen to one more word, I swear.”
“I hear you, girlfriend. I’ll share my notes with you later.”
“Thanks, Mads,” I whispered, still drawing.
Madison periodically peeked over at what I was doing.
“Don’t look!” I whispered, a big smile lighting up my face. “Wait till I’m done.”
The drawing had been the perfect protection against Dorquemann’s quacky voice. I don’t think I heard a word he said for twenty minutes.
During that time, I scrawled a cartoon of Tiffany lying on a big table with her tongue hanging out, her head haloed by a pool of blue ballpoint blood, her torso cut in half by a giant circular saw operated by what was supposed to be Madison wearing a magician’s tuxedo and a top hat with her blonde hair flowing out below the brim. I made Madison’s eyebrows a stark, angry V and gave her snarling fangs. I drew a word balloon over cartoon Madison’s head that read:
“WHEN I SAY I’LL CUT A BITCH, I MEAN IN HALF.”
When I leaned back in my seat, finished, with a satisfied smile stretched across my face, Madison glanced over. I allowed her a good look at my handiwork.
Madison erupted like a laughing klaxon, snorting bellows of belly-laughter, drowning out the professor.
Everyone in the entire lecture hall stopped and slowly turned to stare at us.
Unsure whether I should be proud of my comic accomplishment or horrified, I sank down in my seat, trying to slide to the floor. But the seat-back in front of me was too close. I was stuck in plain view.
Madison clapped her hand to her mouth in mid-bellow.
The room was pin-drop silent.
The sensation of nuclear embarrassment continued unabated for what seemed like an hour. Or four. I don’t think I breathed the entire time.
“Should I call for an ambulance, miss?” Professor Dorquemann quacked at last. He had a good-natured smile on his face, as if nothing was wrong. “Or is Managerial Accounting inherently funny?” He paused in thought for several moments as a smile of his own appeared, then he honked, “I always thought so, anyway.”
I couldn’t help myself, I had to say it, even if everyone was still staring. In the smallest squeaky whisper I could manage, I said to Madison, “How does he not realize it’s his voice?”
“Shut up!” she whispered from the corner of her mouth through clenched teeth, then kicked my ankle.
Dr. Dorquemann raised his eyebrows at Madison expectantly.
“Uhhhh,” Madison croaked. She glowed tomato red, her eyes darting around for the nearest hole to hide in. “Sam! I’m going to pee my pants!” she hissed.
“Please don’t, Mads,” I whispered pathetically. “Otherwise they’ll never stop staring.”
Four hundred pairs of eyes were pinned on me and Madison.
I wasn’t any better with crowds than she was. With no place to go in my cramped desk, I held my sketchbook up to my face, trying to hide behind it. Too bad it was so small. It barely covered my face. I tried to think like a toddler. If I can’t see them, they’re not there, right? I peaked over the top of my sketchbook a moment later, in case it had worked.
Nope. Everyone was still there, all of them still staring. I sunk back behind my sketchbook.
“Ladies,” the professor honked in an amused tone, “as much as I’d like to issue you both detention slips and send you to the office, this is a university where we are beyond such things, wouldn’t you two agree? If my lecture isn’t properly stimulating, perhaps you both can sign up for a drama class instead.”
I happened to peak over at Tiffany who sneered with ample superiority at both me and Madison, resting her chin casually on her hand, her middle-finger extended against her cheek in a stealth flip-off.
Bitch.
There were several random chuckles from some of the students, but the professor resumed lecturing as if nothing was amiss. To say that he was unruffled by our antics would be an understatement.
I was impressed.
Did Dr. Dorquemann’s bizarre demeanor belie the most laid-back professor of all time? He had my vote for the Cool Cat of the Year award.
No wonder everyone liked his class.
Amazingly, I actually managed to take notes for the remainder of class.
SAMANTHA
Madison and I made our way to the Student Center. It was crowded as always. We got in line for coffee at the Toasted Roast.
“What the hell happened back in Accounting just now?” I asked.
“Oh, Sam, I almost died in there. Dorquemann? Really? I think we were in the Twilight Zone or a Saturday Night Live skit.”
“I know, right?”
“I think Managerial Accounting is going to be way better than Fundamentals was last quarter,” Madison said. “That class was a snooze-fest by comparison.”
I smiled. “Yeah, but how can you not laugh at Dr. Dorquemann’s voice for ten whole weeks?”
“If you keep drawing cartoons of murdered Tiffany, I don’t stand a chance,” she chuckled.
We made it to the front of the line and ordered our coffee, then sat down outside. The sun peeked between cloud banks intermittently, and the weather was slightly chilly, but not cold. My unzipped hoodie and jeans were more than enough to keep me warm.
Madison wore an SDU sweatshirt and shorts. She was always trying to catch as many rays from the sun as she could, even in winter.
I inhaled the aroma of my brew before taking a sip. “So, Mads, I was thinking about changing my major.”
“To what?”
“Art?” I said with a tinge more reluctance in my voice than I wanted.
“You should totally do it,” Madison said confidently. “Christos was telling me on Tiffany’s yacht the other night how far your drawings had come in a few short months. And based on your murdered Tiffany cartoon, I can see what he’s talking about.”
“You really think so?”
“Totally,” she reassured.
“Thanks, Mads.” Sharing that moment of comedy gold in Accounting with her was exactly why I was reluctant to change majors. “Would you be bummed if it meant no more accounting classes with you?”
Madison smiled. “Why would I be bummed? You’ve got to do what’s right for you.”
“But it’s our only class together.”
“It’s not like we won’t see each other all the time. Don’t worry about it, Sam. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’re sure?”
She squeezed my wrist. “Totally, girlfriend. Besides, my stay in Dorquemann’s Domain will be more productive if you aren’t there busting my guts with your newfound cartoon genius.”
“But aren’t shared experiences like that an important part of the college experience? What if we never see each other?”
“Don’t worry, Sam. We’ll hang plenty outside of class.”
“Promise, Mads?”
“Totally,” she smiled.
I was suddenly on the verge of tearing up because I was so grateful to call Madison my friend. She was so understanding. After my outcast status for the last two years in D.C., being welcomed, valued, and accepted at every turn by my new friends was still a noteworthy experience for me. I still wanted to pinch myself every five minutes to make sure my friends and boyfriend weren’t all just a dream.
“And speaking of classes,” Madison said, “I’ve got Spanish in ten minutes.” She stood up and slung her book bag over her shoulder.
“Oh crap! My history class is on the other end of campus! How do I manage to have classes so fricking far apart?” I grabbed my book bag and we walked out of the Student Center’s outdoor seating area.
“Try taking the campus shuttle,” she suggested as we walked up the steps beside the zig-zag fountain.
“I hate waiting for them. I’d rather walk.”
“So take the underground riot tunnels,” she winked.
We paused at the top of the stairs, on the Central Walkway.
“What are those?” I asked.
“There’s some rumor about tunnels that run under the entire SDU campus like catacombs. Supposedly, they were used in the sixties by the cops when everyone was protesting all the time. But I think Morlocks live down in them now.”
“What are Morlocks?” I asked.
“Didn’t you have to read The Time Machine by H.G. Wells in high school?”
“No, we read A Brave New World.”
“Oh. Well, Morlocks are these horrid troglodyte things. Anyway, have you ever noticed all that steam pumping out through the tall vents near the music building? The ones that look like obelisks?”
“Yeah, I always wondered about that.”
“I’m telling you,” Madison looked around cagily, “it’s the Morlock machines. And they’ll kidnap any unsuspecting young maidens they find and enslave them to work in the bowels of the earth below campus until you die young from hard labor.”
I grimaced. “Who wants to work in a bowel?”
“I know I don’t,” Madison chuckled.
“I think I’ll skip the tunnels. Well, I better run, or I’m going to be late.”
“Bye,” Madison waved as I ran off. “Watch out for Morlocks!”
As I ran, I was on my guard for Morlocks and Tiffany Kingston-Whitehouse, because based on Madison’s description, they were pretty much the same thing. And I always seemed to stumble over Tiffany when I was in a hurry. I’m convinced she was bitch-stalking me. Was she the Morlock Queen? It made sense.
But I was in luck today. I made it to the other end of campus to my history class on time. It wasn’t nearly as packed as Managerial Accounting. But then again, the legendary Dr. Dorquemann wouldn’t be presiding.
I found a seat and pulled out my laptop, determined to do nothing but take notes about fascinating historical topics. I pictured myself recounting the highlights later to my friends while they all listened attentively.
Yeah, right.
Despite my best intentions, history class went over like a Roofinated sleeping potion. I could barely keep my eyes open.
I swear I had no intention of doodling during class yet again. But some alien pod creature must have suckered into my brain through my ear canal while I was carefully avoiding the Morlock tunnels. You were da
mned if you did, and damned if you didn’t.
When the professor finished his lecture, I realized that not only had I not taken notes, but my laptop was asleep. On the plus side, I had drawn more cartoon doodles in my sketchbook.
I did the math:
One sketchbook full of doodles
- One empty laptop
———————————————
= Time to change my major.
At least my Accounting skills were good for something.
I stuffed my laptop in my book bag and marched up the steps of the lecture hall, determined to change my major.
It was time.
Ten minutes later, I was smiling as I walked through the doors of the Registrar’s Office. Despite its DMV vibe and long lines, everything moved quickly and efficiently. I filled out the paper work to officially change my major to Bachelor of Fine Arts. And I dropped Managerial Accounting. My condolences to the great Dr. Dorquemann. I was going to miss him.
When I walked outside, the sun had broken through the overcast clouds that had hung over campus for much of the morning. Brilliant sun rays slid around the clouds, illuminating the cloudscape in shimmering bronze and gold.
Looked like a good omen to me.
Bye-bye, Sam Smith, CPA. Hello, Samantha Smith, world-renowned crayon craftswoman.
Nothing was going to stop me from following through to becoming an artist.
Now I just had to figure out how to break the news to my parents.
Chapter 11
SAMANTHA
Christos met me at my apartment that evening for dinner. His ’68 Camaro rumbled downstairs as he pulled into a visitor’s parking space. When I glanced out the curtains, it was already dark due to the winter hours. I think the evening hour made me feel like we were any other married couple, like I should have a drink waiting for him, or dinner cooking, or whatever.
When he rang my doorbell, I had a fantasy of a little boy and a little girl running up behind me, so the whole family could greet Christos together, the kids shouting “Daddy!” in unison. My heart accelerated at the thought. I took a deep breath and reminded myself it was only a fantasy.
I opened the door and was greeted by a face full of flowers. Not the real kind, but a big oil painting of a bouquet of them. It was gorgeous.
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