Never Just Friends (Spotlight New Adult Book 2) (15 page)

Last week, when I passed the last final exam
ever
in my life, I thought that would be the end of the unnecessary tests. I knew I had it in the bag, was cleared for graduation, and these final weeks would just be paperwork. Packing up. Looking for a graduation outfit, wondering where to take my dad to dinner after the ceremony. Assuming the best case scenario, I thought I would also be shaking the hand of the representative of the UNICEF-funded project team, having been awarded the only internship slot left for an American in their documentary crew.

I was so sure I’d get it. I met the right grade point average. I attended the seminars on malnutrition and media. I did the extra credit work in the three public grade schools throughout two semesters, giving up a spring break for it. No one else who submitted an application did all of that. No one else proved more adept at communicating the message of ending child hunger, at least in this university of Hollywood wannabes.

Department of Communication and Media chair Jordana Salt wasn't a Hollywood wannabe, to be fair. She was an editor-at-large for a major news website, and also a consulting producer for their video division, the same one she used to head until she took off and decided to teach instead. She was a kindred spirit of sorts; an older, slightly more jaded, and more theatrically inclined version of me. When she and I figured that out though, it made her a bit more careful, more self-conscious about ever appearing to favor me in any way. I would have considered her a mentor if she hadn't spent all our time together keeping me at a distance.

But I didn't need a mentor. I already had one.

I was not the only person to get the note. Eight other people were in Salty's office, presumably everyone who had applied for the privilege to work three months in Europe and Asia. I recognized only two of them from the malnutrition seminar, and then there was Kyle Lefferts.

Ugh, Kyle Lefferts. Always the beneficiary of Salty's attempts not to favor me. His college career was quite stellar too, with half his accomplishments earned by trailing me and catching breaks I got disqualified for.

Salty's office was set up like a viewing party at all times: rugs, bean bags, cozy chairs facing an entertainment center. When it was serious meeting time, she would sit in front of the flatscreen and be the focal point of the room.

“You're late, DK,” Kyle said, casually, and sometimes I wondered if he believed we were friends.“We picked topics without you.”

“What?” I couldn't have been late—but that was obviously my fault for not coming in early and preventing shenanigans. “What happened?”

Salty nodded toward the empty seat that she expected me to occupy. “Because of the great interest in the single internship slot, the project team for the documentary asked if a contest could be held instead, with the winner to be chosen by a panel that will include me, the film producer, and the funding agency.”

They had gone over this already, obviously, and it was being recapped for my benefit. The seat was pink plastic, strangely cold under me. “Why are there topics?”

A small straw hat, upside down, was handed to me by some random person to my left.

“I wrote down one topic per internship applicant. Stuff I haven’t seen you cover in your student film projects,” Salty explained,“so you all don’t end up recycling footage.”

First of all, the lazy bum who’d recycle footage to win a spot into a film crew bent on
ending child hunger
should be yelled out of the competition, not coddled by having him pull a “new topic” out of a hat. I peeked in and saw a folded piece of paper inside. “So this is mine?”

***

There were a few more details discussed. Video had to be ten minutes max. Digital. Three weeks to do it, which was practically all the time we had left before graduation. All the video topics were things “of interest within the campus” so no extra resources were needed. Some people asked questions, and I inferred from those what their topics were. Someone needed access to the library’s historical fiction archive. Someone said it was the first time he’d learned that there was an actual person named Addison Hill; he’d thought the school was named after the
hill
you had to drive up if you came in from the city. I waited until everyone else filed out of Salty’s office before even opening my piece of paper, and yes, it said
rugby
.

Salty had moved to her desk and was watching me absorb this information, amused. “Do you know what it is, Daria?”

Well yeah I did. I wasn’t
that
sports-deficient. “I didn’t realize we had a rugby team.”

She nodded. “They’re considered a non-varsity club team and don’t get enough attention. But we do have one.”

Why did I hang back and wait until she was alone? What was I going to say?
Are you done punishing me for being so much like you?

“Anything else, Daria?”

“I…” I sighed. “I didn’t realize there would be a contest.”

Salty knew what I meant. She nodded and sat down. “I couldn’t have just given it to you. You know that.”

“But I did everything I could to earn it. I knew about this since sophomore year. I
specifically
asked what I could do to be the best candidate and I did it. Everything.”

Salty’s eyes darted in a way that reminded me of how a mom would have done it. Which was strange because Salty looked nothing like my mother, was tall and blond and stiff in places where my mom had been smaller, darker, softer.

Or that was a child’s memory talking. My mother passed away when I was very young. The pictures confirmed though that apart from the dark hair, which I'd kept long like she did, and the eyes, I was growing up to look more like my dad and his side of the family. At twenty-two I was already five inches taller than she had been (“almost five one”). I held my own on the jogging path, but that was the extent of my workout. My dad's casting agents said I had “beautiful,”“exotic” eyes but they weren't looking for eyes; I'd get easy money and a job if I dropped a few inches everywhere. They were right about my pretty eyes, and the rest was horseshit.

“Daria,” she said, “you are, no doubt, one of the best students I’ve had.”

This is not going to end well.

“But,” Salty continued, “I also want the others to know that they have a shot at things. I don’t want people to roll over and give up because they know you’re up for something.”

That didn’t stop people like Kyle, who wised up on Salty’s actions early on.

“What are you worried about?” Salty said. “If you’re the best, then you’ll win this. Your summer plans don’t have to change.”

She was right, though.

“I didn’t think I would be
working
right before grad,” was my lame retort.

Salty smiled slyly. “Have you
seen
the rugby players, Daria? You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Never Just Friends

Mina V. Esguerra

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © Mina V. Esguerra, 2014.

All rights reserved.

Contact the author:

[email protected]

minavesguerra.com

Cover designed by Tania Arpa