Chapter Five

Naturally, my first office hours visitor the next day is Trevor, the guy who seemed to think access to me was included in his tuition. This guy swaggers in—I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. He doesn't even sit down. Just leans over the desk and shakes my hand. The whole thing feels like the hundreds of interactions I've had in my seven years in Hollywood, so I take it with a relaxed smile. I can't wait for Maeve to see how good I am with the student interactions when she takes her space back.

"Trevor Lewis," he says, maintaining uncomfortably intense eye contact.

Now, all my USC knowledge might come from Luna; Luna's partner, Romy; and Steven's old assistant, Wyatt, but this guy seems very business school. I'm curious to see if I'm right.

"Valeria," I say. I'd been going back and forth on it—was my full name too associated with Hollywood?—but ultimately I figure it's professional without being standoffish. Plus, it is pretty. Sometimes I wish I'd picked a stage name so I didn't feel so disconnected from my full name. Time to reinvent it along with myself.

He takes a seat, leaning back in the couch. Major manspreading. "Yeah, I could never get into Goodbye, Richard!, too preachy, but Stroke and Needlepoint are amazing. Effervescent performances."

Translation: Your most popular movie is too feminist for me, and I just described your performances in your most depressing/harrowing movies as vivacious.

"Thanks," I say. "What'd ya need from me?"

He asks how common it is to get famous and if I think it was because of my looks, my talent, or because I knew someone. His enthusiasm wanes as I tell him it was pure luck. As if a guy like him doesn't make his own luck.

Once he leaves, another guy comes in. He's got honey-brown hair instead of blond but is otherwise alarmingly similar to Trevor. I can only hope he'll be a little better.

"I'm Jamie," he says, just as confidently as Trevor before him.

This one takes a seat, then offers to shake my hand.

"I wanna be an actor," Jamie says. "But I don't know if I could do the nude stuff like you did in Needlepoint. I mean, that's like, tits and snatch just…available. I mean, do you think about that? Is it weirder because you're gay? I'm gay too."

Is this guy talking about my nude scenes during professor office hours? My disaster interview with Winston was tamer than this, for god's sake.

"And I just—dude." He's still going, and I pray the color of my face has remained constant. "I think about girls jacking off to me and it's like…it's weird."

I pause, look over at him. His face is expectant, like he asked something completely on topic and reasonable. I'm not going to impress Maeve talking to students about nudity in commercial film. We're not even talking about musicals.

"Someone will inevitably leak your nudes if you get famous enough, so if you believe in the art, might as well get ahead of the curve," I reply. "But you also have every right to do as much or as little nudity as you want."

He squints at me. "Can I not do it if I wanna be on premium cable, though?"

I give a tight smile. I can't even get a premium-cable starring role without the guarantee of simulated sex and/or nudity. And that was before I started only getting the shitty scripts. "Sure."

And, thankfully, that's all he wants. I take a deep breath, drum my fingers on my thigh, trying to telegraph how offended I am by his questions. This is fine, though. I've heard worse. Hell, it's all over my social media. I can handle this, even if I have to clutch one hand around the other one to stop it from shaking. Someone will want to talk about the class. I won't let this escalate to anywhere near where I was at the Winston interview.

My next visitor is a girl named Ginger, who starts by asking how I balanced academia and acting (I didn't) and ends with asking if I'd show her reel to my manager (no). She walks away looking downtrodden even after managing to get an answer to her question about MLA format.

At least one question was about school. It's a start.

The students keep pouring in.

They mostly don't ask about class. Each missed shot feels like I've added a new brick onto my shoulders.

Before I know it, I have only five minutes before Maeve will be in.

I place a hand on my chest, willing my heartbeat to slow down. Not only am I starting to forget what last class's lectures were about, but the past two hours were a trial. I don't feel as panicked as I did that night in Winston's studio, but I still feel like I'm scrambling to return to reality, to remember what I'm supposed to be doing. I try to calm down. There will be more office hours, more chances to impress Maeve. I'll just give her the raw statistics on how many students came in. I can tell Charlie all the stories when I get home.

I glance at the door. No one else. I run a hand through my hair. Whether I'm primping myself for Maeve or calming my nerves, who knows. Then a student walks in. The girl with the Avatar: The Last Airbender sticker. She's tentative, sticking to the doorframe before I offer her a smile. No handshake. She just sets down a small notebook and a pen after she takes a seat.

"So I know Professor Arko has office hours after this, but I was wondering if we could talk about last week's lesson," she says.

"Of course," I say, surprised by the jolt as my heart lifts. "What's your name, sweetie?"

The girl blushes as I blanch about using such a condescending name replacement. "Cory."

"Cory," I repeat. Half for me, half because I read somewhere that it makes people feel like you care about what they're going to say. Which, for the first time today, I do. "What's up?"

She tucks a dark brown hair behind her ear. "So, did we ever come to a consensus about ‘Cabaret' being diegetic or non-diegetic? I mean, are we really supposed to believe that Sally just knows a song to perform that's a metaphor for knowing a fellow showgirl who died? Like, was Elsie real? And if Elsie was real, doesn't that break the film's entire thesis about only having diegetic music?"

I shift in my seat—Maeve's seat, mind racing. It's a good racing, though, like my body feels after a solid workout. "Well, I'll leave that up to your interpretation. Would you have an easier time believing that Sally is finding meaning in ‘Cabaret,' a song that just happens to exist in this universe, or that the filmmakers blundered their vision?"

"I mean, it's— I don't know how they could be so careful and miss that."

I fold my hands together on the desk. "Well, think about it in terms of what emotional beat is happening at that point. When you watch the scene, is Sally straight up talking about her feelings, or does it feel more grounded than that? Do you see Sally as the type of character who is so in touch with her feelings that we'd put a non-diegetic song into the movie?"

Cory rubs her eyebrow. The door opens, but I focus on her. "I guess it could be simpler than that. Sally's just going through an emotional moment singing a song. It starts off as a performance, but you see it shift into Sally singing her feelings out. But you're right, she wouldn't have the words. She's a performer. She borrows from others. Even about something as personal as her friend's death."

As relief floods her face, I find myself smiling. I'm actually doing it, being a professor. It's simultaneously a familiar feeing and a thrilling new one.

I still have no idea what I'm going to do after this class, but for the first time since this class started, I'm starting to feel good being here. Like I'm objectively making an impact on these young filmmakers' lives based entirely on the knowledge I give them, how I help them think through something. Maybe I could actually do this beyond this class.

"There we go," I say. "Is this for the reflection paper?"

"Nah," she says, closing her notebook. "I did that on ‘Tomorrow Belongs to Me.' This is midterm prep."

I raise my eyebrows. "Preparing early." As in, we're only on week two. Granted, I don't remember when the midterm is, so maybe this isn't that outrageous. We hold eye contact a moment, as if neither of us is sure whether this interaction is over. But as pathetic as this sounds, the minutes we spent together have been transformative. Like I've finally realized I'm in this ecosystem I really do love and I want to know everything about everyone in it. "What do you study?"

"Animation," she says.

It's real enthusiasm that comes out of her mouth. And it works better than the strong shot of espresso I took this morning. "That's so cool! What sort of movies would you want to make?"

She shrugs. "I'm not sure yet, but something more Don Bluth than Sony."

I laugh. "I don't think anyone wants to work for Sony."

Despite the fact that Trish insists Sony would be a huge payday. That my three-year-old niblings would love the movies even if the critics didn't. Going back to Hollywood is bad enough; I can't even consider going back for that kind of Hollywood.

"Have you done any voice acting?" Cory asks me.

"Not yet, but there are a couple of projects my team is making me look at. I wouldn't be opposed to an animated role, but who knows."

It's around then that I look past Cory and notice Maeve standing by the doorway. She doesn't look particularly happy, but I'm tempted to say she's neutral as she watches us, hands in her pockets, leaning against the wall. I'd call the pose greaser in a movie if not for the, dare I say, softness in her mouth and eyes.

"Is it time?" I ask. I touch the desk for my phone, but it's not there.

"Yeah, but take your time," Maeve says. Maybe it's Cory's presence, but Maeve's tone is much softer than usual.

Cory picks up her notebook and stands. "I'm done." She looks to me. "Thank you, Professor Sullivan."

The name sends a shiver down my spine.

Cory exits unceremoniously, leaving me to collect my sparse items off Maeve's desk.

"No, you can sit a minute," Maeve says. "No one ever comes right at the beginning."

Something about the way she says it makes me think it's not a suggestion. Time to see if this week's gamble was worth it.

Maeve takes a seat on the couch across from me, crossing her legs like a perfect lady. I get a weird, pervading thought as I wait for her to speak. Is she queer? I know she did a dissertation on queer cinema, but there are always allies who do shit like that. I swore I'd just automatically clocked her as queer, but suddenly I'm not sure why I thought that. Especially not in her look today: blouse, pencil skirt, and heels. She could just be femme, but something is making me uneasy. Like I need her to just bring up her sexuality to ease my nerves. Nerves that…I don't need to think longer about why they're there. What that kind of interest in her implies.

"What's up?" I ask, my voice going a little higher than it has in any other encounter I've had today. Fuck that, whatever gay evolutionary tic it is.

"Did the students stay on topic?" she asks.

She recrosses her legs and I hyperfocus on her face. My gay lizard brain is thinking She could accidentally flash you, and I can't get it to move on from that thought. My stomach knots.

"They…" I pull my lips into a thin line. If I want to get on a better standing with her, the last thing I should do is lie. "They had a lot of strange questions about my acting career and breaking into the industry and work-life balance. A couple of bizarre gay comments, but nothing too bad. Then Cory—"

She bristles. "Tell me no one asked who you're dating."

If I wasn't red before, I'm definitely visibly red now. I eye the door beyond Maeve, wishing I could head that way. This is so deeply embarrassing; even as I told Trish about all the gay questions I'd get, I never told her about the encounters on the street that made me feel so small. And it's not what we need to focus on when my interaction with Cory was so good, when I've had this moment of clarity about teaching. But somehow the words spill out of my mouth.

"Uh, no, not that. Just some kid asking if I feel uncomfortable at the thought of straight dudes jacking it to my naked body in films."

We're in a school office, and now I've made Maeve Arko think about men masturbating and me naked on film. Great. Yes, this is exactly how I need this conversation to go.

Maeve full on scowls. "Give me a name so I can ban them from your office hours."

The heat of the moment simmers off with that comment. Banned from office hours? God, that confirms it. I've failed. She doesn't think I can do it. As if people haven't been sending me lewd comments since Goodbye, Richard! Now they mostly say some variation on man-hating dyke. I can handle some dumb kid pouring his insecurities onto a perceived authority figure. "It's okay. Cory—"

"No, it's not. This is not even in the realm of normal or okay." Her face gets red as she speaks. "How would you feel if I told you one of my students asked me if I'd ever encountered a certain sexual situation? This is a school."

My segue into Cory falls away as I process what Maeve is saying. It's like every biological process in my body has just stopped. My mind goes blank. And then it hits me all at once—no one has ever taken anything I've said this seriously. No one's called it harassment.

Is she right?

"Listen," she says, the color fading from her cheeks, "you can keep your office hours, but that student can only speak to me."

I exhale. "Deal." My heart's still thudding in my chest, I realize. Slow off the comedown, but I can't believe how much lighter my muscles feel in general. "And for the record, it wasn't a complete failure. Cory had some great questions about Cabaret, and we came up with a solid direction for her midterm topic."

"You're a lot more relaxed one-on-one," Maeve observes. "You should bring that to your lecturing. It's not a one-woman show when the classes are under forty students. They need to be engaged to learn. You can cut down your material to the meat if you can avoid the tangents too. They're writing down everything you say, so it's best to not overwhelm them with anything more than a few jokes here and there."

She can't just give a compliment, can she? "Thanks for the feedback," I say, deadpan.

Her posture returns to perfect, jaw tight in further scrutiny. "Why did you want this job?"

I rub my arms, considering my options. Out of every answer to this question I could give, I keep coming back to the truth. The truth sounds absolutely batshit, but we've opened up so far when I've chosen honesty. "I've always loved teaching and entertainment theory. This class was my first opportunity to really show people that I can do it, even after taking years off to be in Hollywood."

I study Maeve's facial expressions the way I'd study a scene partner. Her breath hitches, which causes a slight twitch in her chest. She eyes me, her gaze not quite scanning me so much as barreling into me, like there's more to the words I said. Then she slowly exhales, with an unmistakable snort. The whole thing is topped off by her crossing her arms, looking at me the way I was looking at those ridiculous students an hour ago.

"I see," she finally says. "We have midterms to plan tomorrow. Ty wanted you to come, but I told him you'd be busy."

"I'll be there," I say before she can say no.

She recrosses her legs one more time as I grab my bag and head to the door. She's mocking me. Still, I can't help but watch, acutely aware that she's watching me too.