She got a text from Cory, reminding her about their ramen plans.

Nina: omg sorry I totally forgot, I’ve been messing with that painting some more

She sent another picture of it.

“Nice!” Cory sent back. “And no worries, you still have some time. I just wanted to check before I left work lol.”

The new ramen place didn’t seem much different from the other half-dozen ramen places already at home in Middlewater: dark interior with black wooden booths, Japanese calligraphy decorating the walls, the latest J-pop hits playing over the speakers. Cory and Nina picked the nearest empty booth and studied the menu.

“Wanna split an appetizer?” Nina asked.

“Sure. Takoyaki?”

“Sounds good.” 

“Weren’t we gonna draw together last week?” Cory asked, flipping through the slim menu. “Instead you’ve been painting in your basement by yourself.”

Nina froze. “Oh my god, I completely forgot. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine, I forgot too.” Cory took a sip of their ice water and made a face at the chlorine aftertaste.  “I’m not mad or anything, I just wanted to remind you now. And myself.”

Nina nodded. “Wednesday after work,” she said firmly. “You can come to the art store and then we can go sit somewhere on campus and draw? How does that sound?”

Cory smiled. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

The ramen, they decided, was not as good as the place they usually went to near their old high school, but was better than the place with the manga panels on the walls.

Cory was still exploring their inner mall goth in another band t-shirt and black skinny jeans. "One of my coworkers saw me wearing an MCR shirt on casual Friday and now we're going to go to their next concert together."

"That's awesome!" Nina said. "Glad you're making friends at work."

Cory nodded. "I don't really hang out with any of them outside work, but this one's cool. Could be fun."

Nina told them more about the latest Goldie developments. "She showed my stuff to her artist mom and now they want to introduce me to some curators in Chelsea! Can you imagine?" 

She looked into her opaque tonkotsu broth. "I keep waiting for it to fall apart somehow."

"You said that last time, too," Cory pointed out. "And now she's even helping you with your career. Stop stressing and just go with it. If it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be. If it is, well."

"I mean, I don't even know if I wanna be a gallery artist..."

"You don't have to be a gallery artist. If you wanna sell a few paintings and call it quits, you can do that," Cory pointed out. "Like, the reason you didn't want to do that in college was because it seemed scary, right? But if you have people to help you with that scary stuff, you could make it work."

"Can I, though?" Nina asked. 

Cory let their chopsticks clatter to the table. "You know," they said, resigned, "I'm getting a bit sick of you always getting negative about the same stuff."

"Sorry," Nina said meekly.

Cory shook their head. "Whatever. Look, 90% of making it big is just luck, right? You got lucky this time. Take advantage."

"Right, okay." Nina nodded. "Will do."

Wooly Thinking went public with their union the next week, with over 90% of employees supporting the union. Eloise and her coworkers were handing out buttons to customers and people walking through town to show support while the union leaders started negotiations. She gave Nina a handful to share with her coworkers.

"Should we be wearing this at work?" Roni asked, twisting the button around in their hands.

"If Desiree doesn't like it she can tell us herself," Paul said firmly, fastening it to his button-up shirt.

"Do you think we should try to... You know..." Nina asked. 

Paul shook his head. "We don't have enough employees for that, I already looked into it."

"Oh well," said Nina. "I mean, it's fine." From what she heard, the situation at Wooly Thinking was a lot less tolerable than at For Art's Sake. At least the art store was closed on Easter.

"Even if you don't have any complaints now, a union could still help you in a lot of ways," Paul said, twirling his badge. 

"I know," Nina said. "But it's not so bad here that we like, desperately need one the way some people do."

"Yeah," said Paul, "we're lucky."

Eloise stopped by on her break to chat. "We're almost out of buttons! People are really supporting us. I'm kind of surprised since downtown Middlewater is so... Old-money, but I guess the liberal arts education helps with getting those types on board with labor organization?"

"That's great though," Nina said. "I hope the negotiations and stuff go well."

Eloise's face instantly turned grave, like she was preparing for war. "I hope so too."

Desiree turned out to be surprisingly enthusiastic about the unionization efforts, and suggested everyone make posters in support of Wooly Thinking in their downtime that day. So by close, the windows of For Art's Sake were plastered with hand painted, markered and glittered sheets of bristol board proclaiming "ARTISTS FOR SWEATERS" and "LOCAL WORKERS STAND TOGETHER!"

"Were you looking at Soviet propaganda posters for this one?" Nina asked about the latter. It was a dramatic design in the Middlewater school colors. A sweater-clad central figure that didn't look like anyone in particular raised its blue and gold fist to the sky. Paul drew it.

He nodded. "I thought it'd look cool."

"It does," said Nina. Her own poster felt vaguely childish to make, and to look at, if she was being honest. She wanted to try a new glitter pen they'd gotten in stock recently and went a little overboard with the accessorizing. She couldn't think of a clever slogan either, so it simply said "For Art's Sake stands with the workers of Wooly Thinking" in nice, big, glittery letters. With a drawing of a yarn ball unraveling around the letters.

"I mean, yours is eye-catching," Kate said. "And, more importantly, showcases different products we sell here."

"I thought the important thing was to show solidarity with the workers of Wooly Thinking."

"Second most important thing." Kate winked.

A lot of people stopped in front of the store to take pictures. Later, Cory sent Nina a link to a local news article about the event that had a photo of her poster front and center, sunlight glinting off the glitter and glass.

"Always wanted to have my art make the news," Nina sent back.

Goldie didn't have much to say on the situation besides "exciting!" and "wonderful hand lettering btw". Then she changed the subject to Nina coming up to New York on Sunday.

Goldie: are you sure you can't come up Saturday night 🥺

Nina: after a full day of work? I'm gonna be soooo tired I doubt I'll have the energy to do anything but sleep

Goldie: just sleep? 😕

Goldie: I'll clean my room for u...

Goldie: and I have more cute little outfits to show u...

She sent a selfie taken in her bathroom, of her wearing a peach-colored gauzy babydoll top and pouting into the camera. Nina wasn't sure what she felt looking at that. Want, maybe, but also a strange sort of envy.

Nina: do you just wear that around the house?

Goldie: only if I know you're gonna see it

Nina: you don't have to try so hard

Goldie: so will you come up Saturday night?

Nina: I'll consider it

It was a little horrifying to Nina how quickly her free time had gotten reorganized around a girl she just met. She'd have to ask— tell her parents, she was an adult, she didn't need to ask for permission to go somewhere. She'd have to tell her parents she wanted to go up to New York this weekend. Say it's for her career. Networking. Surely they'll be fine with that.

"Did you meet someone?" Her mother asked immediately upon hearing this information. "Last time you were in the city?"

"I hope he's treating you well," her dad told her.

"Maybe," Nina said, trying to squash the smile that was threatening to spread on her face. There was no concept of singular they in Russian. She'd have to arrange her sentences carefully if she wanted to be discreet. "I'm going up to meet some art people who know galleries and could help me sell my paintings."

"You have paintings? Why haven't we seen them?" Nina's mom demanded. 

"I don't know if you'd like them," Nina said, softly. 

They were eating dinner, schedules miraculously aligning on a weeknight for everyone to enjoy Nina's dad's chicken and rice. Nina pushed clumps of turmeric-yellowed rice around her plate with her fork and felt, as usual, a burning shame about the paintings she was making. About her mother seeing them. Maybe she'd think they looked cool, which might even be worse. Usually her mom had some kind of comment to make on Nina's art that wasn't generally positive.

Nina sighed in resignation. "They're in the basement if you want to take a look."

"You've been using your studio corner again? asked her dad. "Good for you. I'm glad you're painting again."

Nina stared at her plate. "Thanks."