Chapter Four

"Why can't you just order clothes online?" Charlie asks as he jumps out of my car the next morning.

This trip is the result of a long, overcalculated decision Charlie and I made last night. When I talked to Trish after leaving USC, the conversation boiled down to one thing: if I wanted Maeve to respect me as a (temporary) academic, I had to act worthy of respect. Which meant taking responsibility for not preparing for the class and looking the part. The humbling was surprisingly easy to swallow—I had fumbled the first class—but the clothing was surprisingly harder. Yes, I did notice Maeve judging the expensive shoes. Maybe even making the connection that I picked out the expensive outfit instead of reading my emails. Trish agreed—perhaps a more affordable wardrobe would take the heat off me. But that meant going to a mall. As in, a public place, which, depending on how close it was to my house, could be crawling with paparazzi.

So, Charlie and I came up with a solution. We're going to Torrance, otherwise known as the most unremarkable suburb next to the town with the best beaches in LA. It's also dominated by a giant half-outdoor shopping center, and it's our best bet for actually braving a mall while not getting recognized.

"It'll be quicker to just grab everything I need," I say. I smile at him. "Plus, even with you staying at my house, we have a lot of hang time to make up for."

I click the Send button on an email to Maeve and roll back up the sleeve on the Blink-182 crop tee I selected from my normal-person clothing. My collection turned out to contain an embarrassingly high amount of Dodgers merch; one of said Dodgers caps is currently on Charlie's head. Hoodies are my usual regular-person outside clothing, but with it pushing ninety in the first week of September, it's not happening. I'm gonna try not to think about how Maeve and I are going to discuss my syllabus tomorrow after my disastrous first impression.

"And since this is us hanging, try to look a little happier," I say as Charlie holds the door open for me, his Nebraska transplant parents having thoroughly imbued him with Midwest hospitality.

The burst of cool—no, freezing—air in Nordstrom almost makes me regret not wearing a hoodie. But one glance around at the countless makeup stations, gleaming stone floors, and the abundance of white light and I'm sweating again.

Charlie looks over at me and rubs my shoulder. "Breathe, Val. We're not that important compared to the people of Sunnydale's shopping needs."

My breathing softens at Charlie's sweet little Buffy joke (the show was primarily filmed in Torrance). "You're right."

Still, I take Charlie's hand as I aim us into the main area of the mall. My heart jolts as I do it; it's so automatic a gesture to do with him as a friend, but being out in public gives it a whole other connotation. It's like, we are going to be perceived as a man and a woman together, and any tiny sign that we're affectionate or comfortable makes the average person think we're a het couple. All it would take would be me grabbing Charlie's hand like this to make a stranger think we're going to go home and fuck. Both our queer identities erased—just like that. It makes me queasy.

Still, I keep holding his hand until we're out of Nordstrom. Whatever Charlie and my sexualities, we've always been physically affectionate, holding hands through those early days of opening emails from reps to see if we got nothing parts. We fit together naturally, and if he's not bothered, I'm not either.

His gaze slides across the stores lining the three-plus levels of the mall. "Do you think they have your favorite store here?"

"Gonna give it a solid no that they have a Cupid's Closet…"

I realize a second too late that that's the kind of joke I have with Mason Wu, my very gay Goodbye, Richard! director, who likes hijacking press interviews by jokingly asking me what porn I recommend to people.

Charlie lets go of my hand to give me a dismissive wave as he bites back a laugh. "No, Hot Topic, you horny dolt."

As if it's haunting me, at that moment we pass by a Hot Topic a floor above us. Charlie spots it at the same time. "I haven't stepped foot in a Hot Topic since studded belts were a necessity."

Charlie laughs. "You say that as if MCR isn't back together and you couldn't have gone there yesterday."

Which—fine, is correct. But I still get full-body shivers thinking about what kind of a surly Hot Topic asshole I was as a teenager. Sure, I can turn it into a joke I tell friends and cute girls, but I was not pleasant to be around when I frequented that cursed store. I don't want to know what kind of Past Me spirit would possess me if I went back there and put on red jeans, an MCR tee, a studded belt, and wrist warmers.

"It's not gonna happen," I say. We're so close to Zara. So close to getting in and out of this mall. To shed the half-assed attempt at a new endeavor the first class was. I do want to give this job my all, to impress Maeve. I'm not only going to do it, I'm going to pass with flying colors.

"You know what your two favorite stores have in common, though?" he asks, raising his eyebrows as he says it, which worries me.

The Zara sign is in sight. "What?"

"Leather collars."

The joke makes me feel like I've been punted back in time across this very mall and I'm now standing with teenager Charlie. He was the guy in every class we shared together who would, without fear or shame, tell sexual jokes in class right to the teachers. Kids in our school started calling the red-faced squirming that teachers did after one of his jokes Charlie's Principle. As in Mr. Cockburn was afflicted with Charlie's Principle in APES fourth period. Mason can be crass, but I've awakened Charlie, and he's so much worse than she is.

Good thing I've been around him long enough to be immune to Charlie's Principle. "You know I can't wear one of those."

"We find you a designer one and you'd one hundred percent do it. You're too goth not to." Charlie grins. "Sorry, you're getting one for your birthday."

And there it is again. The ubiquity by which Charlie and I talk about designer. I can still remember so clearly the way my mom's face lit up when my dad bought her a single Chanel bag for their ten-year anniversary. Designer used to be rare, aspirational, an indulgence to celebrate accomplishments and milestones. Maybe it means nothing that something special has become routine, but I find myself glancing around the mall searching for those high-end labels. Feeling embarrassment at the looking itself when I don't see them.

We enter Zara right around then, ending the conversation.

Charlie claps his hands together as I scan the store. They're still halfway between seasons, getting rid of summer looks and transitioning into fall. And, considering we're in LA, they know to keep the light linen out. The store is pretty crowded for a weekday, but mostly filled with South Bay moms. Athleta clings to Pilates-sculpted bodies, designer bags from Nordstrom Rack hang off perfectly tan shoulders, AirPods play in their ears as they purse their lips looking at dresses. One dubiously not-in-school youth is searching through graphic tees. Since we're in LA, my first instinct is to guess up-and-coming child actor.

Overall, though, no one's looking at the two blond idiots in the matching backward Dodgers hats. My gaze falls on a pair of lilac ankle pants and a matching blazer. Fluttering fills my chest, that specific chemical hit shopping has always brought me, even back in my Hot Topic days. Relief that I don't hate everything in the store slides in soon after.

"Aren't ankle dress pants the equivalent of capris for the modern age?" Charlie asks.

I resist shooting him a good-natured eye roll. "It's a summer look. Besides, with a great pair of shoes, they really get to speak."

One summer suit, one fall suit, and a couple of blouses in now. Running my hand along the fabric, searching for loose threads, I wonder if Maeve's felt the way I do right now, surrounded by these signs, feeling the texture of this material. Or if it's just another chore for her.

I grab the lilac blazer and pants, drape them over my shoulder, and head to another blazer display. Once I pick out one more set, we'll be done.

I reach for the tweed.

"Isn't tweed too professor?" Charlie comments, pulling his lips in.

So at this point, Charlie and Trish know this look is all manufactured. But I hadn't even considered the fact that anyone else could be perceiving my clothing that way. My first instinct, which is usually the one not doused in anxiety, was that this looked professional. Like something Maeve would wear for its plainness. But maybe I'm past the point where plainness works.

I let my fingertips brush against the scratchy fabric. "Maybe I should just get a neutral one."

Charlie reaches out and grabs a brown blazer with some ruching detail on the sides. "Nah, you don't want to look like your manager or agent. Brown is warm, approachable. Fall."

God, I love Charlie sometimes. A true-blue jock boy who knows about fashion. I missed the rhythm we settle into together. I know it's only been a year since we filmed Oakley together, but it feels like it's been so much longer. "Yeah, you're right. Maybe I'll get a couple of skirts as well."

"And don't you have to get non-designer shoes too?" Charlie asks. "To truly convince the ornery, hot professor you're a regular ole person?"

He knocks my hip as he speaks, nearly knocking me into one of the blazer mannequins. I just manage to catch my footing, leaving my cheeks red as he observes my reaction.

"And shoes, I guess," I mumble. I glance at a couple of pairs of stilettos lining a shelf nearby.

Charlie stands next to me, following my gaze. His mouth turns up. "You know, that heel height isn't a neutral power-bitch look."

I shoot him a quizzical look. "What do you even mean by that?"

"Professors wear flats. If they do wear heels, it's because they're short. Which…"

Which, I'm five foot eight.

Charlie leans into me, wiggling like a puppy. "All I'm saying is I think you're thinking more about how good you'd look in your normal-people outfits and less about being professorial."

Well, fuck, am I? Am I still in Hollywood mode, aiming for the "sexy Halloween" version of professor? I pause to chew on the thought, but it fades. Isn't that the whole point of buying clothes: to look good? That can't be inherently bad. What is he getting at?

I pull off my hat and run my fingers through my hair. "I can wear whatever shoe I want, Charlie. There aren't any rules."

"Then get unsexy loafers."

Charlie picks up a random pair of loafers with the kind of sharp cruelty Rachel Berry's high school torturers had when they doused her in red slushie. I know I wouldn't even have worn them when I was working the receptionist job at my parents' dental office, the job that made me want to claw my eyes out.

A beat of silence passes. "No."

I move to a display of ankle boots, Charlie following me like the frat boy poltergeist he is. There's a simple pair of black leather ankle boots with side elastic goring and three-inch heels that could work. Red lining sends a pang through me. The Joker Donna Louboutin ankle boots I bought myself for my birthday a few years ago look like chic circus tents, and I can't wear them to elevate these basic linen—

"Charlie, am I a vapid prick?" I ask as I grab the Zara boots.

Charlie grabs the boots off me in one hand, the loafers in his other hand. His hands have disappeared into both shoes, making him look like a cartoon character. "Yeah, but you've been this way since you were eighteen."

What he's saying, even though he's definitely insulting me, is pretty funny. I'm overthinking this. My designer clothing wasn't appropriate for the academic workplace, and all I'm doing is complying with an unsaid dress code. Maybe this says something about how disconnected from reality I've gotten, but there's always room to reconnect. And if Maeve thinks I'm unable to teach because I wear heels to work, then that's her misogynistic problem.

"I could say something similar about you," I reply, keeping a straight face, if only to make sure this conversation doesn't get derailed.

I look down at his shoe hands, then back at him. I try—god, I try—but soon I'm laughing with him. He wraps his shoe hands around me, allowing me to catch my breath in his chest. I touch his wrist, giving him a silent thank-you.

When we pull away, he shoves both shoes back into my hands. Charlie then proceeds to pluck a basic pair of white pumps off a stand. "You know what'd really complete this professor look?" He bites on his bottom lip the exact same way he does in modeling shoots. "A long necklace that dips below your cleavage. A little sex appeal to go with killing your next lecture. Maybe Maeve will even fall in love."

My ears go hot as a piece instantly comes to mind. I have a vintage costume necklace from my paternal grandma that wouldn't go against the academic dress code. Maeve couldn't ignore that. I can see it, watching those brown eyes travel down my chest…

"I'm not going to seduce Maeve!" I snap.

I say it a little too loud, causing several necks to whip our way. I freeze like a deer in headlights. But none of them approach.

No, not none of them. The youth browsing the graphic tees squints and starts moving toward Charlie and me. I thought I could cope with this, but my chest tightens like it's about to burst.

To make matters worse, she comes right up to me. My breath catches in my throat.

"I like your shirt," she says. "Where's it from?"

Instead of Are you Valeria Sullivan I saw your last movie your coming-out post was so brave do you date men though.

My muscles loosen, but I still can't grab a breath to speak.

Charlie smiles. "Hot Topic."

My phone goes off with an email notification. As the girl goes away, satisfied, I read it. Maeve's replied to my email.

I have 30 minutes before our next class. My office.

- sent from my iPhone

The worst part of it isn't even the flippant way she's addressing me. It's the fact that I continue to walk through that mall goofing around with Charlie and all the while I can't get the image of Maeve seeing me with that necklace disappearing down my blazer out of my head. It's giving a whole new meaning to fuck Maeve Arko that I'm not willing to think too hard about.

It's definitely more of a "feeling good in my Zara suit" than anything about my teaching, but I'm actually optimistic going in to meet with Maeve before the second week of class. Thirty minutes. There's also a certain change in the air as I enter her office. Unlike Ty, I have no interest in knocking. I'd imagine it's illegal to be touching yourself in your office in a school anyway.

"Morning, Maeve," I say, sliding on my best pleasant-but-not-too-eager smile.

She's got a blouse-skirt getup today. Just a button lower than I was expecting, but the tightening in my gut isn't going to distract me. And—fuck you, Charlie—high heels despite her being about my height. She keeps her expression neutral, hands folded together on the desk between us, even as she gives me a once-over. My heartbeat picks up.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" she asks.

I pull a syllabus still sitting on her desk over to the space between us. She watches my hands as I move. "I don't understand why we switched The Sound of Music for West Side Story, and I'd love it if we could actually go down the list to explain the changes…"

It's like I'm acting. A little distance, hold on to the core emotion the character is feeling. This is my class. Hell, even if it's our class, I'm not going to be treated like a first-year grad student because I haven't been in this grind as long as she has. I wrote a fucking dissertation on twentieth-century music and pop culture. I'm here to impart my expertise to these students, and no way in hell is she going to stand in my way.

Maeve folds her fingers tighter. She has these really delicate hands: slim fingers, nails that come to a perfect stop before they reach her skin, which looks soft—like she moisturizes often. "I figured we were introducing cult classics and specifically working with stage adaptations. West Side Story would be more familiar."

"They're not necessarily adaptations." I point to a spot on the syllabus. "You let me keep Rocketman."

"I think it serves a different purpose and expands on the jukebox musical."

I scan the list again. "Okay, then why have two movies dealing with Oscar bait? I put Tenacious D there on purpose."

"You wanted to show a success and a failure, right? Les Mis wasn't an Oscar darling, but La La Land was. And Tenacious D is barely worthy of being called a movie."

"It's an actual cult classic of the modern age. Do you think Rocky Horror has any value as a film? Of course not. But I'd rather talk about a complete flop that has music that's endured enough to still be on tour. It's a different conversation than establishing two musicals that were made for the Oscars. I live and breathe the Oscars; it's really not that profound. We can study Les Mis, and I can show clips of La La Land to show a contrast in one class."

Maeve takes a deep breath. Her hands unclasp, just enough to lightly slap the wood. "Look, you can combine the two into one Oscars-bait lecture. That's fine. But I refuse to be a part of a class that shows a film that has an entire scene of Jack Black getting an erection. We can show a bad movie if it's at least trying to be a good movie."

I have to stop, even though I have a response to that one on my lips. Maeve Arko, whose dissertation—which I have now read—was about analyzing voyeuristic violence versus liberation as violence in early nineties American art house queer film, actually watched Tenacious D. It sparks something inside me. "You really saw Tenacious D?"

She looks away a moment, blinking rapidly. "I'm not putting it on in my class."

So much for Maeve having an open mind about the movie selection. "I need one ridiculously bad film to work with."

"Isn't Mamma Mia! bad enough?"

I have to win something on this syllabus. Even if she's right about Tenacious D. "Cats. The one from 2019. I want that on the syllabus instead of In the Heights." I pause. "That or Dear Evan Hansen."

Maeve looks up at me like she's gone through a lifetime of not experiencing religious blasphemy—until now. "People pay money to attend this school."

Five minutes until class starts.

"Look, Cats would provide a ton of material for the students to analyze for final papers. I want them to have a wide range of different topics and angles to talk about. If we just do classic adaptations or relatively okay adaptations or Oscar-winning adaptations, the papers are all going to come out the same. We're trying to pick unconventional movies so they can pick different things out. In the Heights was great, but it didn't do anything new filmmaking-wise. Cats tried to fucking take a movie that was only going to be good as an animated film and make it live action to bring in bucks from stars' faces only for it to go completely and utterly wrong. Even Dear Evan Hansen showcases the Icarian results of hoping an out-of-context Tony performance will trump the needs of casting in film. There's so much to dig into with both of them, and the students will be more engaged."

For a moment, Maeve is silent. Her hands have retracted to her lap, out of my view. Her jaw is tensed, but there's a certain unsureness in her eyes. She's still refusing to make eye contact with me. And she's almost tucked in, making me realize I've leaned forward while talking. I scoot backward, my back pressing against the wood of the chair. She reaches out to turn the syllabus to her, a pinch of a frown on her lips.

"We're not doing Cats. Do you want to switch out Mamma Mia! for Rock of Ages to work with the rock musical?"

It's been so long since I've had this searing burn of anger inside of me. It feels like an old feeling dug up from somewhere in the past, when Steven was representing me and explained really obvious themes in movies I was doing when I mentioned a role was difficult to crack. I'm being spoken to like I'm a child instead of an actual published scholar of the genre and someone with years of practical experience in the art we're discussing. I didn't study this shit for nearly ten years to be told I'm doing it wrong by someone with the exact same fucking degree as me.

"Is this my class or not?" I snap. I wait a few seconds, hands clenched in my lap as we wait to see if this wave curls and crashes down on us.

"I don't think you get this," she says, voice even. Like she's heard this exact blowup a million times. "I already wrote out my lectures based on the syllabus I was under the impression you created. Ty and I worked out his section outlines so they'd be ready so he can focus on his full student course load and research. Even if the students don't care what movies they have to find on streaming platforms at a moment's notice, we aren't flexible on the teaching side. We don't have time to change anything."

There's no winning with someone who's already ended the argument. Less than five minutes, and we still have to make the walk to class.

I push out of my seat, my arguments spent. "Fine."

I step out of the room before she can say anything else. The burning has shifted into something with more teeth, an edge of uncertainty to it. But it doesn't do much to stop me.

The declaration of war is very simple. Twenty-three words.

"Hey, guys, there's an adjustment to the syllabus," I say as I start the lecture, just barely avoiding sending a smirk in Maeve's direction. "I will be holding office hours on Wednesdays twelve to two in Professor Arko's office."

The look of utter panic and anger on Maeve's face says she gets it. Game on.