Art, schmart... right? (243 views)

When someone came over, Hallie looked up and saw Bastien approaching, with coffee in his hands. She hadn’t expected him to bring coffee and was impressed – she hadn’t gotten any when she’d left today! She had just forgotten. And anyone who gave her free thing was instantly a winner in her book!

”You brought me coffee?! Oh, you’re paving the road to my heart!” She said, acting like a forlorn girl in love. She then saw his confidence and decided to mimic his introduction with a little eyebrow wiggle, ”Good afternoon, Mr. Tremaux! Thanks for agreeing to come today. I’m completely out of my range! I’m a model, not a scholar!”

Hallie followed him until they entered the little office room, and then took a seat. When he asked for what she had so far she opened her arms.

”You’re looking at it right now! I don’t got jack.” She said. She pulled her notebook out of her bag, revealing the stickers all along the front. She then opened to a page leafed with a piece of paper. The piece of paper detailed the assignment, and the notebook page itself had sloppily written notes littered with doodles of sexy women. ”Sorry ‘bout the mess. But yeah, that’s the assignment. I didn’t even know where to start… I was hoping you could help me.”

Hallie got the coffee together just the way she liked it, her focus on the drink she was mixing in her hands. When Bastien told her models could be scholars too she lifted her eyelids and gave him a smirk.

”I don’t doubt that. But not this model, you know?” She said. She noticed Bastien’s attention for her drawings and snickered to herself. Jees! Had this guy never seen a pair of tits before, or not? His eyes practically bulging out of their sockets was pretty cute, though. Definitely an expression she’d never expect Mr. Student-Teacher to be sporting. He was five years older than her, but Hallie was beginning to think she was the one with more experience in life’s various… pleasures, here.

She decided it would be better to just let him stew on the drawings – especially when he messed up giving her instructions and took an overzealous sip of the coffee.

”Do you want to go and sue Starbucks now?” She asked, snickering at the utterance of a swear followed by an apology. ”I’m around swearing all the time. Don’t worry about it. And we can definitely do… whatever you just said. Something about fucking propaganda?”

She took a sip of her coffee, carefully, looking Bastien in the eyes.

”Me?” Hallie asked, glancing down at her drawings. Oh, so he brought them up first? She was surprised he wasn’t still drooling over them. Though in the long term it’d be a problem since he was supposed to help her, in the short term Hallie was just thinking about ways to entertain herself. She hummed. ”Nope. I just like drawing boobies! The curves of women are so much fun, aren’t they?”

She snorted in an unfeminine manner when he mentioned the Starbucks disaster, taking another sip of her perfectly made coffee.

”Well maybe they should’ve thought about that before they made their hot coffee so ridiculously hot,” She said, ”And the wreaths were all their own doing! I feel no concern at all for Starbucks! I suppose this is why they never hired me as a barista…”

She hummed. ”Oh, but fucking’s extra credit,” she said, wondering if the teacher would be the type to sleep with students for a grade. She decided that was too low a job for the student teacher, so she shrugged it off. ”Anyways. I don’t even know what propaganda to look at! Help me out, Mr. Tremaux!”

”Oh, I bet you know all about pleasure! Do you have a girlfriend, Mr. Tremaux?” Hallie asked, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. It was completely uncouth of her to ask such a question, especially given the context of where they were. She wanted to tease him! Besides, he said that thing about extra credit, right? She wanted to see if he’d bite! But he didn’t seem to be interested in her. Hallie started to zone out as he talked about Uncle Sam, staring at the poster dazedly. She didn’t care about it, not really. Uncle Sam was dead anyways right? He wasn’t even hot! She didn’t see much motivation here. Ugh, would it be too much to ask of Felix to just do this assignment for her? What the hell was pervasive about this? Her boredom showed on her face.

Rosie the Riveter was much more interesting. She blinked, seeing the poster. Then, she grinned.

”I always thought she was a lesbian. Like, a butch lesbian.” Hallie said. Though her tone was joking, she leaned back in her chair and continued, ”I remember this from high school. It was like, the guys were all off at war so the girls were doing stuff themselves, right? So, it’s like, she’s taking over their jobs, pubs, cars, whatever… and then their sex life! And it’s like hey, ladies, you can just go off and do men’s shit ‘cause they’re all off dying! Am I close?”

Hallie grinned when Bastien said he didn’t have a girlfriend. Maybe in that case, the guy would be down to sleep with her to improve her grades! TAs had that kind of power, right? Or was that only teachers? Her face fell when she imagined sleeping with the teacher themselves. Ugh. She’d prefer Bastien.

”Well I mean isn’t she fictional? Soooo she can totally be a dyke. And steal the men’s jobs in bed.” Hallie said. At his suggestion to focus on gender roles, Hallie slid back. She hadn’t thought about that but it did sound… interesting.

”There’s more propaganda like this?” She asked.

Hallie pouted at the cringe that Bastien gave at her theory. Oblivious that her use of a slur had offended him, she just assumed her theory was that bad. When he pulled out some more propaganda, Hallie took them in one hand and examined the photographs. Her fingers were intertwined in her hair, the dark black strands feeling thicker than they should have. She probably needed a shower when she got home. She would be going to a party tonight, so she’d need to make sure she didn’t smell like an actual college student. She had to look like the cool kind, not the stinky kind!

”Oooh! Yeah, it does fit!” She said, totally on board for this essay. Writing an essay on how WW2 propaganda encouraged lesbianism?! Oh she was one hundred percent here for that! She giggled when Bastien gave her another and she ran her finger across the picture. She flashed Bastien a charming smile. ”Y’know, you’re great to come and help me! I’d be soooo shit outta luck if I didn’t have you!”

Hallie smirked.

”I know, right!” She said. But at his comments about a role reversal, that got her mind thinking. Bastien was a teacher’s assistant, but technically a student! So he had never been to a party, probably! That was ridiculously depressing.

”Speaking of role reversals…” She said, leaning across the table, her eyes half lidded, ”Would you want to go to a party with me tonight? It’ll be a thanks for this! Oh! And I will sooooo get a rough draft done tomorrow. I actually work sooooo much better when I’m hungover.”

She took a few notes on the propaganda in her notebooks, writing the serial numbers on the back, before she focused on Bastien again.

”Oh, are you a party virgin? Or have you been to one before?” She wondered if he had. She rested an elbow on the table and her chin in her palm. She couldn’t see Bastien partying at all. Which made her want to see it more! ”Doing homework with a hangover is easy. That’s when I pull the best shit out of my ass”

She hummed slightly, drumming her fingers on the desk before she grabbed her phone and unlocked it, checking a few texts. There was a party tonight, one that she was being invited to by some guy in her basic math class. The guy wasn’t that cute, but he let her copy his homework, so she liked to keep him happy.

”How about tonight? You down? I know it’s last minute but like I know this place that always has the best parties. It’s out on Michael’s street. The host’s Seamus McCormack, if you’ve heard of him. He always puts on pretty good parties, not gonna lie.”