Archive of Our Own ^beta

"The library will be closing in fifteen minutes," comes over the loudspeaker, and Marie shakes herself, sits up, and stretches. Ten forty-five, then. Avery, Columbia's architecture and fine-arts library, closes at eleven. She's still got a good bit to do for Feminist Theory and Art Practices, and even though her critical theory class doesn't meet until Monday, it's going to take forever to slog through the reading for that. She'd skip it, but Dr. Stauffer seems to have psychic gifts for calling precisely on those who haven't read the material, and even though she could probably skim (or even bypass entirely) some of the book they're discussing for FTAP, she actively likes that class and professor, and the book is interesting.

Ugh, the life of a PhD student.

She smiles, and stretches again. They're paying her to study art. How is that a bad thing?

She gathers up her books and closes her laptop, thinking. She could go home, but she won't get anything done—she can never work in her apartment. Thank God for the twenty-four-hour rooms in Butler, the main library. She'll be in with a lot of undergraduates, but at least she won't make an ass out of herself in critical theory Monday morning.

Outside, she thinks to check her BlackBerry, set on silent when she submerged herself in her reading several hours ago. There are a few emails, mostly group blasts—nothing urgent. Two text messages from the boy, affectionate and undemanding—he's out with his brothers, though, so she doesn't call. Just as he knows when she needs to be undisturbed to do her work, she knows when he needs to be out doing his. A message from Veronica, containing a joke so obscene it has Marie blushing (and snorting with laughter) as she stands on the library steps. (Veronica believes strongly that hours of reading about essentialist body-based feminism require breaks for yo-mama jokes.)

The BlackBerry buzzes in her hand, and she nearly drops it in surprise.

It's Faith. "Yo. Where are you?"

"Avery. Well, the steps of Avery. It just closed."

"Spike and I're going over to Abyssus to harass Harris. You should stop reading about esoteric art shit and come with us."

"I've got all this reading for critical theory; I really can't—"

"Dude. That's your Monday class, right?"

"Right, but—"

"But all postwar critical theory and no seeing your friends makes Marie a dull girl."

"But I have to finish the reading for my feminism class, too, and that's tomorrow."

"K. How much you got left of that?"

"I don't know. Two hours, maybe."

"For real?"

"For real. And I do want to finish it," she adds.

Faith sighs with a downtrodden air. "So you're just going to neglect your friends..."

"I could come when I finish my book for FTAP," Marie acquiesces. "But not until then."

"Okay, fine. We'll compromise. Like the Missouri Compromise—see, I did learn something in college!—but without the Civil War, because that was messy. And not in a good way. How's this: I'll put Spike off a few hours, which is fine, because he has to work on his copyedits anyway, and I'll go patrol for a bit in Central Park, and we'll meet at Abyssus at one thirty, and you'll have done your reading and I'll have staked some evil vamps and Spike'll have maybe finished going over the copyedits."

"That sounds good," Marie says, and she smiles as she hangs up, because she strongly suspects that Faith's "compromise" was her plan all along.