Sunlight burned against Anderson's skin as he fumbled with a jingling key-ring, hands shaking like an alcoholic too early in the morning. He cursed and squinted his eyes to better read the worn text stamped into the metal heads of the keys. There were too many keys for too many locks for a place that had no business being so secure. When the keys shook out of his hands and clattered against the metal frame, Anderson kicked his foot against the sturdy, barred door. He was so late, and had so much cleaning he had to do; he knew who closed last night and what kind of mess he was walking into.
“Clo-pens are evil,” he mumbled as he bent to grab the fallen keys, “and the Devil made my schedule.” After another long moment of shuffling through the brass key-ring Anderson flipped the lock and shouldered the heavy door open. Bags of empty bottles and plastic cups sat against the wall nearest to the door, tied closed but bulging. He pulled the door shut behind him with his foot and sighed, knowing damn well he could have thrown those bags away last night. But the siren-call of a warm bed and a warm body always seemed to give him more trouble than it was worth.
Anderson was sure the regulars would notice that his clothes were the same as the night before, but why should he care what lonely alcoholics thought of him. Sure, the nicer he looked, the better they tipped, but Sunday afternoons weren't for those with heavy pockets. The only unfamiliar faces he would see today would be the green ones of college kids nursing hangovers, and everyone knows they don't have enough money to eat, let alone tip. For his last shift here, he thought, it's gonna drag on forever.
He tucked the fly-away strands of what remained of last night's braid behind his ears and hefted the bags just barely off the floor so that he could waddle them out to the dumpster. He knew the cleaning was going to take him more time than he had to spare, but it was his own fault, so all he could do was get it done. By the time he unlocked the front door and flipped on the sign, he was covered in sweat and lime pulp. Cutting fruit wedges with a dull knife was messy.
“Andy,” called an older man as he walked through the door, grey at the temples and with a small shake to his hands, “pour me one last light before you go!” He smiled and slapped the bar with two open palms as he sat. Anderson rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, placing a plastic cup of golden beer and thin coaster in front of the man before he was fully settled on the plush stool.
“I'll be pouring you 'one last light' for the next four hours, Geoff. I'll put the one o'clock on for you, but only if you sit still and behave yourself.” Geoff grinned against the rim of his cup and Anderson knew he was going to be fielding questions he did not want to answer for the rest of the day.
“I'm serious, Geoffrey,” Anderson said with his finger on the power button of an old remote, “a peep and the T.V. is gone.” Geoff raised his free hand in surrender, then dragged his fingers across his lips in a vow of silence. Anderson turned from him to the register, opening a tab under the name 'Shit-Lock', affectionately. As more people filtered into the bar, Anderson poured droughts and mixed shots, restocking the small under-counter fridge he had neglected from the night before.
Anderson sighed as he glanced towards the digital clock shining bright red over the bar, praying for the last hour of his shift to fly past him. As he turned back to face the customers leaning up against the counter, a dark-haired woman with thick white highlights bounced from the back room behind the bar, launching herself onto Anderson's shoulders. Anderson swore loudly, tossing his shoulders back in an attempt to throw her off.
“Elisa! Jesus Christ! This bottle is seventy fucking dollars!” Anderson slammed the glass bottle he was holding down onto the metal door of the ice bin and swung his elbows into Elisa's sides. She laughed and pulled her arms from around Anderson's neck, dropping back to the ground. Anderson wheeled around, face incredulous, but when he saw Elisa he frowned deeply. Her face was split with a shining grin and a bright blue cardboard party hat squished the top of her thick curls. She shook her head and the tinsel topping the hat twinkled in the low light behind the bar. A second, glitter-covered hat sat in her extended hand.
Elisa looked at Anderson with her large, glossy eyes. He could tell by the red vignette that she just finished crying. She was one of his closest friends, and though her darkly flushed cheeks seemed like a natural expression of her cheery attitude, he knew that she likely spent time in the back room slapping herself into a smile.
“Anderson, my love,” Elisa crooned with a sweet tilt to her shoulders, “it's your last day. Come on, don't make me look like an idiot.” Anderson scoffed but grabbed the hat from her hand.
“You don't need my help with that.” With a smile, Anderson snapped the thin strap of the party hat under his chin, letting it sit askew on his head. Elisa was early for her closing shift and Anderson was thankful to have her by his side while he tried to catch up with a larger, louder, Sunday crowd than he expected. She slid next to him naturally, the two of them weaving seamlessly past each other in the cramped space. Her charm with customers and easy smile was the best crowd control they had, giving Anderson the time he needed to catch up on drinks for the people who were staring him down from across the slick bar-top.
Anderson was exhausted by the time his shift ended, but he was grateful that it passed quicker than he expected. However, while restocking the ice-bin for Elisa before he left, he finally felt the sadness that he knew was coming. His shoulders were heavy, both from the ice and the guilt. Though Elisa was the one who ultimately convinced him to quit so that he could resume pursuing his degree, she was also the one who vouched for him and saved him through his first disastrous shifts. He knew she would kill him if he changed his mind now, but tears still burned in his eyes as he slid the ice-box closed.
“I'm not gonna cry,” Anderson said as he grabbed the cash from his drawer to count, “So don't come back here. Because I won't be crying. At all.” He rushed past Elisa to the back office, holding the cash drawer over his face. He settled at the worn back-office desk, the top covered in ink and old receipts from customers who walked out on their tabs. Anderson, usually quick with counting change, struggled as fat tears dripped from his lashes onto the dingy bills. Nostalgia is deadly, but he couldn't stop himself from tracing the deep gouges in the desk from where he, and many others, slammed pens into the surface from frustration. He plucked the few stiff receipts that he had to pay and tossed them, knowing that he would never get that money back.
Anderson pocketed his tips, dropped the rest of the drawer in the safe so that it could go into tomorrow's till, and dabbed the tears from his eyes so that he could maintain some dignity as he walked back behind the bar. Elisa grabbed him as soon as he opened the door and pushed him out from behind the counter.
“Hey! What are-”
“Okay everyone! On one!” Elisa, her warm arms holding Anderson in place as the swarm of patrons circled them, counted down loudly from three. On one, every person, drunk and sober alike, sang the first few lines from a song that always made Anderson teary. As they sang of meeting again some sunny day, somewhat disjointed and very off-key, Anderson failed to stop his smile. Maybe he did care what a bunch of alcoholics thought of him. At least a little.
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It had been years since Anderson had to navigate the first day of school. And being nearly thirty made him feel even more out of place than he did his freshman year. But, he knew that he only had to power through this awkwardness one last time before he could finally walk away with his degree. Just two more major credits, undergrad research, a foreign language, and one last elective. Then he could finally prove to his parents, and to himself, that he could do anything without them.
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“Just a few months,” he muttered as he counted the room numbers, hoping that the school's layout had not changed much in his absence. Anxiety rippled through him as other students passed by, many also carrying small slips of paper with scribbled room numbers and schedules. Summer heat still clung to the early August afternoon, and Anderson could feel sweat already dripping down his back. The combined weight of his bookbag and tightness of his chest binder made him breathless, and his nerves made every rolling bead of sweat feel like buckets of water. Room 213. Advanced Inorganic Chemistry. Dr. Kenton-Kaur. He quickly opened the door and darted into the lecture room. He still had plenty of time before the class was set to begin, but he wanted to secure a good seat before anyone else. There are no assigned seats in college, but humans are creatures of habit, and the seat you take the first day will likely be your home for the rest of the semester.
The air in the room was brisk compared to the cramped hallway, and Anderson sighed gratefully as he sat in a wooden fold-down chair. The cool, varnished wood was a balm to the backs of his bare thighs. His shorts, perhaps a bit shorter than would be proper, had ridden even further up his thick legs in his rush to the lecture. He pulled them down the best he could while seated, but the small seat was too cramped to make any progress.
A teacher's assistant, a young man with dark cropped hair and all but one button on his dress shirt undone, slowly weaved through the isles, passing out thick packets of paper to new arrivals. He handed the stapled stack to Anderson with a smile.
“Name please?” Anderson dreaded this part, but at least the teacher wasn't taking roll out loud with the whole class. He picked at the edges of the packet, looking up at the tired but kind face of the man standing above him.
“Anderson Lough. L-O-U-G-H.” The T.A. scanned a sheet attached to a clear plastic clipboard. He furred his dark brows and looked back down to Anderson.
“I'm seeing a Pene-”
“I prefer Anderson,” he said in a quick whisper, “but yeah, that's me.” With a nod, the T.A. scribbled something on the sheet and then pointed at the stack in Anderson's hand with his pen.
“The syllabus is online too, but Dr. Kenton-Kaur prefers for everyone to have a paper copy as well. We'll go over everything that's in it when she gets here.” Anderson nodded and thanked the man as he continued on to other students who filtered into the room. Okay, he thought, that could've gone way worse. He pulled out the thick binder he pre-labeled for the class and flipped it to the first page.
Anderson quickly jotted down the test and quiz schedule from the back of the syllabus. His handwriting was small and neat, fitting nicely in the tight lines of the paper. His first quiz in just this class would be the next Monday, only a week away. He knew it was going to be rough from the start, but that didn't slow the growth of his anxiety with every exam he added to the sheet.
A short woman shouldered her way through one of the front doors of the lecture hall, one arm clutching thick books to her chest while the other dragged a thin rolling cart behind her. A light green scarf hung delicately over her head and around her face, falling just over her shoulders. She smiled as the teacher's assistant ran to grab the door and cart for her, pushing her way further into the room.
“Hello everyone!” Her voice was strong and loud, strengthened by many years of speaking to large, open rooms filled with tired young adults.
“I am Dr. Kenton-Kaur. This is Chem 402, Advanced Inorganic Chemistry. Please make sure you're in the right room,” she said as she placed her book on the large front table. The young T.A. pulled the cart into the corner of the room and opened the top, revealing a laptop and a bouquet of wires. He grabbed a few of the wires and began to plug them into a media box embedded in the wall while Dr. Kenton-Kaur continued.
“Your first day is very important, and you don't want to waste it in a class you're not paying for.” She walked to the cart, clicked a few buttons as the T.A. buzzed around her, and flipped a switch on the wall near her. A large screen whirred down from the ceiling, slowly covering the empty whiteboard. She clicked a few more buttons on her computer and the screen lit up with a small click.
Even though he knew he was in the right place, Anderson still felt a small jolt of worry that he was somewhere he wasn't supposed to be. He was surrounded by so many younger people, people who likely knew one another from previous classes. Class sizes really thinned out this far into a major, and he could tell by the small clumps of students around him that he was going to have a tough time finding a study group that wasn't completely full. Still, he thought, he was too close to stop now. Head down, Andy, and sprint to the finish.
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Jewelry and Metalwork for non-Art Majors. Anderson was the most excited about this class; a late Friday morning lab with no outside work, and he gets to keep anything that he makes. The lab fee was higher than he expected, but he did not spend the last nine years saving every penny he could spare just so he could pull back now. He looked around the large room in wonder, eyes bouncing between metal cabinets and well-worn wooden tables.
Everything was covered in gouges, burns, and obvious wear patterns. Anderson ran a finger over the rounded edge of the workbench, nail catching on small ticks in the wood. The teacher, an older man with light eyes and thick hair on the backs of his hands, ambled around the large room, stopping by each student to introduce himself. Anderson smiled at him as he walked past an empty stool to stand by him.
“Richard Campton,” said the teacher, thrusting his thick hand towards Anderson. Anderson grabbed it firmly and shook from the shoulder, hoping to show his enthusiasm without coming off too strong. He was excited, but he knew that sometimes he was too much too fast and he did not want to spend the rest of the semester recovering from a terrible introduction.
“Anderson Lough. Pumped to be here,” Anderson cringed at his own voice, but pushed a smile through to cover it, “What should I call you, sir?”
“Richard is fine, but if you feel like you need more formality you can call me Mr. Richard.” He chuckled warmly, and his round cheeks pushed up under his eyes. An old cherub, Anderson thought, almost cute. Richard shook Anderson's hand once more, this time from his shoulder as well, and walked off to greet another student. Anderson's smile persisted as he turned his body back towards the table.
This week had dragged on for him. These high level classes started at full throttle and Anderson was shocked at how much he had forgotten over the years. He always excelled in academic settings and knew that it wouldn't take long for him to fall back into step, but the whiplash was almost too much for him. He had dozens of quizzes and tests to add to his schedule, textbooks and essay bluebooks to purchase, and he knew that he was going to have to dig through years of hoarded paper to find his old notes. But the worst was that he had to declare his undergraduate thesis.
Anderson's pursuit of a chemistry degree was based on his childhood love of alchemy. He had refused to let his parents know; they never would have let him choose chemistry if they didn't think it would lead to a career locked away in a lab somewhere. Instead, he chose a minor in history with a focus on ancient sciences so that he could bury himself in what he truly loved while also using his skills with numbers and math to complete a degree his parents would be willing to pay for.
He didn't have to worry about that now, he thought with a bitter sneer, but he was too far along in the major to change without having to start over. He would just have to bear it. He knew he could; he still loved the science, could memorize any formula or compound, and he could draw Methanol at least six different ways. But if he was going to spend months bound to the library, he wanted it to be on something fulfilling.
“Okay everyone!” Richard's voice was deep and loud, and bounced off the hard walls of the room. The students jolted, some jerking back on their stools and knocking their knees on the underside of the table. Anderson turned to the front of the room with wide eyes, both startled and excited. He folded his hands and rested them on the table in front of him as he gave his teacher his full attention. He would cry to Elisa about his thesis later. For now all he wanted to think about were the cool tools he would get to use, and how many ways he could set a gem in a ring.
His hands itched to create. Anderson spent so many years using his hands to make shots and craft cocktails, and the few days between his last shift and the start of the semester were making them restless. His fingers tapped against the table and he kicked his heels against the metal legs of his stool. He was excited, and also relieved that his first week back to school was almost over. He would have to spend a chunk of his weekend searching for his notes and cramming for his first quizzes, but he could spend the next few hours thinking of gemstones, metals, and dangerous tools.