Visiting tourists and prospective students of Middlewater University often described the town itself as "cute," "quaint," "charming." It was smaller than the towns that supported huge state schools, and the downtown area was practically built for strolling along its narrow cobbled streets, peeking into the offbeat yet classy bakeries and coffeeshops and consignment stores. The out of town employees staffing those shops couldn't park near their jobs without paying more than an hour's wages a day for the privilege, though, so many of them, including Nina, elected to park a ten minutes' walk down a side street, where the spots were unmetered.

Nina shoved her cold hands in her pockets and began the long trek from her car to her work.

For Arts' Sake shouldn't have lasted as long on the main street of Middlewater as it had, with the cost of renting University property being what it was. But the owner, eccentric ceramicist Desiree Valuasca, had a close relationship with the University art department and museum. So the store doubled as a gift shop for the art museum across the street.

When Nina came out to the shop floor, her manager Graham was already there, counting in the tills for the day. "Morning, Nina!" he called. "You're starting on register today, hope that's okay?"

Nina nodded. Starting on register meant less chance of having to be on register in the peak hours right before closing. Not that the store was ever truly busy, honestly. They weren't the Starbucks down the street. They sold paintbrushes and overpriced glass bracelets. "Busy" meant more than three customers in the tiny space at once, a number which felt overwhelming in the dimly lit high shelves.

The other floor employees filtered in a little after Nina, not late yet but not as early as Nina tended to be either. Morning, morning, morning. They gathered around the counter like leaves around a storm drain. 

Paul leaned back against the counter with his long arms and confessed, in a low voice, “I’m so tired today.” He was, in fact, so tired every day. They all were. It was retail. 

Kate nodded in sympathy and added, “I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.” She was wearing a sheer vintage-looking top with neon edging that would hopefully be enhanced instead of destroyed by the stray paint splatters that were a hazard of the art supply store. The ruffled collar spilled over the black uniform apron.

They both looked at Nina, waiting for her contribution.

Nina smiled wanly and said, “I’m okay, I think. I’ll take first reg.”

“We thank you for your sacrifice, Nina,” said Paul. 

Graham checked his notepad. “Okay, so while Nina’s on reg, Paul, can you deal with the oil paint shipments we got in last night?” 

“No prob, Bob.” He straightened up. “I’m gonna run to Cather’s for coffee really quick if anyone wants anything?”

Nina and Kate both shook their heads no. 

“Try to be back before 10:15,” Graham said. “Kate, can you do the Museum store sales reports this morning?”

“Sure."

Duties now allotted, the staff scattered to their respective stations, and Nina logged into the point of sale system on the register and put her head between her arms to try and get a nap in before the customers started showing up.

Someone cleared their throat in front of her a minute later. Nina snapped to attention, mouth opening automatically to ask "Are you all set?" before spotting Kate on the other side of the counter, straightening the erasers.

"What was that for?"

Kate grinned. "I heard there's a show opening at the Illustration Society on Friday. A Rose O'Neill retrospective?"

Nina squinted. "Her fantasy illustrations or the kewpie stuff?"

"Both, I think. Here." She pulled a crumpled flyer out of her apron pocket. "Customer gave it to me when you were off yesterday and I remembered you were a fan."

"Thank you," Nina said. She wouldn't call Kate a friend, necessarily, but she would say they got along well. 

She scanned the flyer. "The opening's at 7, and I work until 6 on Friday..."

Kate winced. "I'd cover, but I'm already scheduled for Friday."

Nina did the math in her head. If she left the moment the shop closed and drove to Manhattan, she'd get there around 8:30 at the earliest and have to pay exorbitant amounts of money for parking, to say nothing of the joys and irritations of actually driving in the city. If she drove to the station and took the train, same arrival time, two hour's pay round trip plus five bucks for station parking. She'd have to leave work early to stand a chance at showing up before the canapes were gone. But Fridays were... Potentially busy...

She put her head back down. "This sucks."

Kate made a sympathetic noise. "Ask Graham?" 

"Guess I gotta." She could probably see the exhibition on a regular day off too, but the point of attending an opening was the potential networking. Networking she constantly missed out on by living just slightly too far away from The City. 

"Let me know how it is if you end up going!" Kate finished whatever she was doing with the erasers on the counter and flitted off.

Kate's Thing was paper crafting, big layered diorama scenes she meticulously cut and assembled with her long acrylic nails, somehow. She used her employee discount to stock up on paper and glue. Nina suspected the discount was the primary reason she was working at the store at all. Then again, that was true for everyone on staff. They were all artists of some kind or another.

When Nina interviewed for the job she said she studied illustration at art school, which was true. But she hadn't drawn a thing since graduation. Nothing but half-finished scribbles in her half-price sketchbooks. Being surrounded by art supplies didn't inspire her the way she'd hoped it would, just weighed her down more with the expectation of using those supplies to make something incredible.

Nina kept a tiny sketchbook in her pocket in the event inspiration ever did strike while she was at work. In the year she'd been at the store, the sketchbook had collected a few doodles of flowers and some notes to herself.

Maybe the Rose O'Neill show would give her the inspiration she needed. 

She pushed herself off the counter and was about to go hunt down Graham when a customer appeared at the register with a pile of acrylic paint tubes. 

"Do you have a store membership or a university ID?" Nina asked, scanning the tubes.

"I'm a student," the customer said, passing their plastic ID card to Nina. She scanned it by rote.

Much as Middlewater University loved to brag about its arts programs, while the art history department really was nothing to sneeze at, their fine arts offerings were distinctly lacking. It wasn't their fault, really. The schools in New York and Philadelphia siphoned every art student and professor with ambition out of Central Jersey, and left the art lovers whose parents insisted on them attending a Good School Close to Home to land in Middlewater. Still, the art supply store catered to them all, selling professional and student-grade paints and brushes and stationery bits and bobs for the bullet journal aesthetic blogger crowd.

If Nina was in a better mood, she might make conversation, ask the student about the project they got the paints for, pass along a flyer for the arts council classes they kept at the register as a favor. As it was, she simply said "thank you, have a nice day" and went to go find Graham to find out about leaving early on Friday.

"You really should give more notice for schedule changes like this," said Graham when Nina found him in the back unpacking jars of screenprinting ink.

"I know, but Kate just told me about the exhibition and Rose O'Neill is a huge aesthetic influence for me and it'd be really good for my artistic development—"

"Fine, fine, you can take off early. You can use some of that vacation time you have."

"Thank you so much!"

With that settled, Nina returned to her post at the register feeling more determined than she had in days. She hadn't been to an opening since... Last August, when her former classmate had a showing at a small gallery somewhere upstate. She'd driven an hour and a half to get there, stayed for one, and then drove home before the bitter envy seeped out of her heart and into her polite compliments on the work (which was, well, whatever, honestly, not a significant development from the thesis work that had preceded it, but it's not like the residents of whatever that NYC exurb was called had seen her thesis show so who cared.)

The canapes were pretty good, though. 

Hopefully the Illustration Society didn't skimp on the catering either.

Morning reg was usually pretty slow, with only a few students grabbing last-minute supplies before class and a few random tourists picking up museum postcards. Nina surreptitiously pulled out her phone and checked her job site alerts. 

No responses from any of the positions she'd applied to in the last month. Not even the museum gift shop in Brooklyn. Nina sighed.