Isn't it obvious? Art

I don't have much space in my schedule for electives, but when I do, I know what I fill it up with: art. And also creative writing that one time. But mostly art. In fact, if it wasn't for the stupid way my college handles prerequisites I could be an art minor. Still, I was happy just participating. Well, except for one reason. A bitch on two legs names Marilyn.

Marilyn was probably the richest person at the university, and she let everyone know it. Her mom was this artsy fartsy postmodern artist who is a bit of a minor celebrity. She made bank off her art, selling it for tens of thousands of dollars. Then she retired early, met a nice stock broker, and pumped out exactly one kid. And what an evil kid it was.

Marilyn was clearly just biding her time before her connections in the art world ensured the nepobaby would get what she wanted. She sought to follow in her mother's footsteps and presumably that gave her a chip on her shoulder that she decided to take out on everyone else. Especially me. The poor little scholarship kid who shouldn't even be in art as an engineer. Bullies aren't super a thing in college (we're all adults after all) but when they are they're Marilyn.

"Ms. Friedman, please do you best to be on time in the future." My professor, Dr. Storm said. "You've already missed most of the lesson."

"I'm so sorry Dr. Storm." I pleaded. "It won't happen again."

"Hey Em, maybe you should cut down on your lunch. Your schedule—and your waistline—will thank you." She brought her hands in front of her and had them draw an invisible arc around her stomach, implying a big belly. Her and the art cronies that flocked around her laughed. I just grimaced and waved her off.

After class was over and I was packing up Marilyn came up to my station to taunt me more.

"You know Em, if you can't make your assignments in time, I think you should rethink this whole 'art' thing. You're not gonna need it in your pencil pusher job working on bridges or whatever." I just rolled my eyes.

"You know what Marilyn, you might be right." I said. Her eyes bulged when I said that. "Let's do a wager. We both will pull out an art piece by a famous artist on our phones. The other will guess the artist. Whoever gets it wrong loses. If we both are right we continue until someone is wrong. If I lose, I'll drop out of this art class and never take an art class again."

"And if Iose?" Marilyn said, hopeful.

"You have to take your rich bitch money, and buy the fakest looking biggest breast implants you can get. I mean you get triple Z implants. And they have to LOOK fake too. As soon as possible." I said. Her and her cronies mouths were a gap. I pressed on. "And not just for you, but all your little friends you have around you right now too. You all need to get them." I pointed at them and drew a circle looping them together.

"Huh," She coughed. "What are you some perv?"

"Will you take the deal or not?" I said.

"Anything to get a creep like you out of our class." She spat out.

We both pulled out our phones and started to find our images. Marilyn went first. She held up a portrait. It was a trick. The is like, one of the first results you get when you look up "Picasso's least famous paintings." It's a portrait of an art dealer from the time period. It's not as abstract as his other work so people don't know it.

"Picasso," I said.

"Damnit," She said. "I'll get you next round."

"Sure you will," I said. "My turn." I raised my phone to her and waited.

"Hmmmm," She stared and stared. She took a long time.

"You got this Marilyn!" One of her friends from behind her said.

"Shhhh! I know I have this." She spat back. "It's some sort of talentless hack who wouldn't know good taste if it bit them. I'll guess, Herbert?" I couldn't help but laugh. The coin seemed to have a sense of humor.

"Marilyn, that's YOUR mother." I said "It's her most famous piece. I was giving you an easy one." I lied. In reality I wanted exactly this to happen.

"That's so unfair you perv!" Marilyn stomped her foot.

"Yeah, yeah," I said as I put the last of my art supplies in my bag. "Now I have to go, and you have a phone call to make for a consultation. Ciao." I twiddled my fingers bye at them like a wave, grabbed my bag, and left.

Author's Note: Another shorter one today because I got other stories to work on and this seems like a good ending point. I don't know if people have noticed this but whenever I need a last name I just grab a wrestler, typically from AEW. Friedman, Storm, Odate (Iyo Sky), etc. It's a joke I made in a different story that I carried over to here.

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