Practice the power of positive thinking, her mother always said. Like things happened just because you wanted them to. She’d figured out how well that worked with the whole pony/Christmas thing. Five years in a row and she’d not gotten so much as a saddle blanket.
But some situations there just wasn’t a whole lot else you could do. Cross your fingers? Knock on wood? Light a candle? And just hope for the best.
Please do not let the new roommate suck. Please do not let the new roommate suck. Please do not let the new roommate suck…
She’d arrived on campus as soon as it was allowed, to make sure to get the choice spot and to stake her claim. Made sure to have all her things put neatly away to try to set a good example. She’d set up a study spot and had books open and waiting there to exhibit that school was serious business. And that she was serious about school. Last semester’s roommate had been… less than serious. Unless Marty’s major had been Party. She felt a little bad about being happy Marty had excelled at her chosen major so well that she’d flunked out… but hopefully the new semester would not involve finding her roommate sleeping off a bender in the bathtub.
Please do not let the new roommate suck. Please do not let the new roommate suck. Please do not let the new roommate suck…
There was hope, at least… how much of a party animal could somebody named Ruth Rubin be? Talk about a dork name! She wanted to hope for a fellow comics geek really bad, but it seemed like that was getting a bit too specific. If you were going to practice positive thinking, you probably ought to keep it as broad as possible and not get too picky.
Just please do not let the new roommate suck…
Then a noise in the hall told her it was show time. Ack! Should she sit on the bed? Sit at the desk? Nuts… she should have worked out her own arrangement when she’d been arranging the room.
There was a short, sharp rap at the door and the key rattled at almost the exact same time. An announcement, at least, so the new girl had some manners at least. But no real hesitation in coming on in either. So pretty confident.
In the end, she ended up just standing in the middle of the room, holding a book and her breath.
At least the new girl didn’t seem to notice, since she was busy wrestling a suitcase, some bags, and some sort of framed picture through the door.
Well, she thought… so far, so good… she didn’t have two heads or look like an alien invader.
‘Hi!’ she blurted, trying for cool and collected, and managing only perky and excited. ‘I’m Audra! You must be Ruth!’
Inside she grimaced at her own smoothness, but the new girl just grinned widely and was just as perky and excited right back.
‘Hi!’ she said in her turn, quickly scoping out the territory and dumping the bags she was carrying on the bed that would be hers. ‘Yeah… I’m Ruth, but please… call me Ruthie. The ‘ie’ part helps tone down the dork factor. My Mom was a huge comic book fan and had a thing for the double initials.’
In her head there was a line chart that read ‘suck level’ at the bottom and it bumped one point to the good. Assuming, of course, that the mother having a comic book thing didn’t equate with the daughter hating them for some nebulous reason of rebellion, like children tended to do sometimes.
The suitcase and the picture were still being wrestled with, so she thought she’d try to bump her own meter a notch up the good side, just in case the new girl… uh… just in case Ruthie had her own ‘please don’t suck’ thing going on.
‘Here,’ she said, reaching out for the framed piece. ‘Let me help.’
Besides… she was curious to see what it was. She was an art major, after all, and you could tell a lot about a person by the art they liked.
‘Thanks!’ Ruthie said, and let her take the picture out from under her arm so she could devote both hands to man-handling the suitcase up on the foot of the bed.
The picture proved to be a sketch of a dog. An extremely detailed sketch of the most adorable dog ever. It was an exquisite piece. It was like… the soul of what a dog should be. She felt like she knew what kind of personality and character the animal had just from looking at it. She knew without even having to ask that Ruthie hadn’t done the picture… if she could draw like that, she wouldn’t currently be bothering with school, she’d be attending gallery openings in exotic locations. Somebody who could draw like that didn’t need art school. But she could tell it was an original, not a print. Her eyes sought the piece’s signature… and she almost dropped it where she stood.
‘Holy shit!’ she blurted, eyes wide. ‘This… this is a Maxwell!’
She sort of felt, more than saw Ruthie turn around to look at her, since she couldn’t take her eyes off the artwork in her hands. But she heard the giggle.
‘You recognize it?’ Ruthie asked, sounding kind of surprised. ‘Most people never notice.’
‘I did a report on him last semester,’ she said, trying to get her head around the idea. ‘He’s incredible. And his work… I mean… do you…. Do you have any idea what this is worth?!’
The laugh finally made her tear her eyes away from the picture to look up at her new roommate.
She kind of couldn’t help herself. When her mouth next opened, words just popped out. ‘Are you crazy? This is worth thousands! And you’re just hanging it in a dorm room? And… is your family rich or something?’
The grimace managed to make it past the inside that time. So much for cool and collected.
Thankfully, Ruthie just laughed again. ‘Nobody ever realizes what it is. Or they don’t think it’s real.’
She blinked back down at the thing, kind of wanting to set it down for fear of doing something to it, and kind of wanting to maybe not put it down at all. Ever. ‘But… this is an art school. How can art students not know a masterpiece when they see one?’
‘People aren’t very observant,’ Ruthie said, turning away with a shrug to start her unpacking. ‘And no… we’re not rich. Mr. Duo lives down the street from us. He did that for me as a graduation present.’
She was very glad that Ruthie was bent over her suitcase and didn’t actually see her jaw drop open or her eyes bug out like one of those cartoon characters.
Was it too soon to suggest going home with the new roomie for the holidays?
‘Hey doofus,’ a new, somewhat deep voice said, ‘you could have come back down to show me the way.’
She tore her eyes away from the study of a master’s work (again) to look up and find the hottest guy she’d seen in ages standing in the doorway with a microwave box in his arms.
‘I thought you were bright enough to read the numbers on the doors, dork.’ Ruthie replied with a smirk and stopped just short of sticking her tongue out. ‘Don’t be a Neanderthal… say something polite to my new roommate, Audra.’
‘Something polite,’ he said dutifully, but he was smiling and he was really, really cute, so she decided that they weren’t making fun of her.
‘This would be my brother Robert,’ Ruthie said, turning away from her suitcase to do the introduction thing properly. And… was that a stack of Angry Beavers comics in her hand?
‘Robert Rubin?’ she heard herself say, and the incredulity in her own voice made her die a little inside. Way to make a good first impression.
But the guy just laughed, and Ruthie laughed right along with him. ‘I told you Mom had a thing for the double initials, didn’t I?’
‘Bobby,’ the guy said, and there was no irritation there at all, so maybe her foot wasn’t quite so far down her own throat as it had seemed. ‘I escaped the dreaded Lois Lane syndrome by going by Bobby. Pleased to meet you.’
She had the feeling that, had his hands not been full of microwave, he’d have stuck one out to be shaken. Cute as a boy band member and manners? And a sense of humor? And they lived down the street from Duo freaking Maxwell? And a second glance proved those were Angry Beavers comics!
‘So,’ she smiled, looking from one of them to the other. ‘How do you guys usually spend the holidays?’
Maybe there was something to this whole stupid positive thinking thing after all.
Please don’t let him have a girlfriend. Please don’t let him have a girlfriend. Please…