Page 19 of June

“Yeah. I mean, sex is great. Well,goodsex is great. I’d like to have that every day, if I could.”

“Me too,” Caroline replied with a little laugh, and when her eyes lowered, Enid knew exactly what she was looking at. “You too?”

Enid held up her hands and said, “Always ready.”Shelaughed this time. “I also just like short nails. I used to have them longer, but I kept breaking them, so I just cut them all down. Although, itiseasier when you–”

“Want to be ready?” Caroline guessed.

Enid nodded and asked, “Want to walk around?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Anything in particular that you’re interested in?” Enid asked as they resumed walking.

“No, and that’s the problem. I need to declare a major before the fall semester. It’s a requirement. I don’t want to just choose a random one, but I also don’t want to pick the wrong one, so I’m here. My friend, Jodie, whom you met at the bar, is running late, but she was going to join me to see if I can find anything interesting. You’re in a graduate program. Are you looking for a job by the end of the summer or something?

“I’m only a year in. I still have another year to go. I’m mainly working this thing to get some credit from a professor, but I thought I’d see if there’s anything here that interests me and maybe make a connection at a company or two, if I could.”

“What do you want to do?” Caroline asked.

“I’m going for my MBA now, but that wasn’t my original plan,” she shared. “I actually had a great job out of my bachelor’s, which I also got here. I moved to Florida for that job and, not long after, I got laid off, so I had to move back. I decided to get my MBA to make things easier, maybe, when it comes to the job search later, but I’m looking for something part-time while I’m in school or an internship or something. I’ll start really looking in about six months from now or so when I’m almost done with the program.”

“I thought the MBA program here was three years. My friend was thinking of going for it.”

“It is, but there’s an advanced one. I’m in that one.”

“So, you’re a smarty?” Caroline asked with a smile.

“I’m all right,” Enid replied.

“What’s all right? What was your GPA in your undergrad?”

“3.9,” she said.

“Damn. Really?” Caroline replied. “I’ve got a 3.5, and I thought that was good.”

“Itisgood,” Enid said. “I’ve always thought school was pretty easy, so I’m just lucky, I guess, but I’ve been working really hard in my program to try to graduate at the top of my class. We only take a hundred students here, and it’s a nationally recognized program, so if I’m at the top of that list, it’ll help me get a better job.”

“Do you want to move back to Florida?”

“No, that was just where the job was, but it was okay. I never planned on staying in Florida forever, though. They had offices in three states, so I thought I would start there and transfer tothe one in Baton Rouge or maybe Charlotte. They said I could after the first couple of years.”

“Sucks that it didn’t work out,” Caroline replied.

“Yes, it did.” Enid looked at all the booths they were passing as they walked. They hadn’t stopped at one of them yet, and she wasn’t sure she had even noticed any of them. “Do you want to sit?” she asked. “There’s a coffee cart at the end of the row.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Caroline said.

Enid bought her a cup of black coffee and she watched Caroline add two of the pink sugar packets to it along with more cream than Enid thought would fit in the little paper cup. Surprisingly, the lid did fit when Caroline placed it back on. Enid had gotten herself a black coffee, too, but she only added one packet of regular sugar and gave it a stir. At first, there weren’t any available tables on the quad, which made sense because the place was packed with people, but as they walked closer, a group at one of the dark-green metal tables got up and left. Enid made a beeline for it, losing Caroline a few feet behind her in the process.

“You’re fast when you need to be,” Caroline remarked, laughing a little as she sat down across from Enid.

“I didn’t want to lose the table,” she replied.

“I guess not. So, what kind of a job do you want after this?”

“I want something in any business at this point. I’d like to start out in management. I’m thinking about accounting, but not being a CPA.”

“You can be an accountant without being a CPA?”

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