Presence (Assertive)
Mantle: Spring
He slinks into the studio from the back, hoping no one will notice him. Nearly twenty minutes late. God I was that kid wasn't I? Heh, listen to me, calling him a kid. He's old enough to drink, probably. Old enough to own a watch anyway. I decide to give him shit on general principle.
"Can I help you?"
It wasn't fair. I used The Voice. I don't usually use The Voice the first day. The other thirty-two eyes in the room pin him to the wall. His attempt to glide in like a silent owl is blown out of the water.
"Uh, I uh, I'm looking for uh, E. Ajarwal..."
I'll willing to bet the email didn't abbreviate. Kid you're poking my buttons already. Nothing wrong with admitting you don't know how to pronounce it.
"That depends, what was the first name?"
He pulls out a crumpled strip of paper from his pocket, likely continuing his earlier struggle to make sense of the letters.
"Ex..., Ex-jesus..." I can't help but smile at that.
"Ex-ah-jee-sis," I correct him. "Exegesis, or just Ex, if you're having trouble. And it's Ag-arwal. The g is hard. And since you missed me saying it before, it's not Professor Agarwal. This isn't a for-credit class and I'm not a professor. I didn't go to a university. Unlike you all I'm staying out of debt."
I grin at them, and there's a distinct line of demarcation for who grins back. The pre-grads return the smile, all beaming naivete. The older students, the ones who know what bill-stress feels like, they nod, but I wouldn't call what's on their face a smile. They'll get more out of what I have to teach anyway.
"I'll expect you to be on time in the future. You missed the ice-breaker, Mister Late, so I'll just ask you; What brings you to take this class, seeing as it's not on anyone's graduation requirements?"
"Oh, like, I'm not a student. I'm you're work-study, Alex Toper."
"Really? Well then I'll be expecting you early to the next class Mr.," I have to stop myself. It's the veins in his glazed over eyes. I very nearly say 'toker'. "Toper."
Part of me feels grateful I could get a work-study for a non-credit class, but seriously, twenty minutes late and you show up stoned on your first day?
This one is going to take work.
The problem with the phrase 'diamond in the rough', I've always thought, is that you have to guess the diamond is there at all. Then again, a diamond is just carbon, with enough pressure applied.
I have always been good at pressure.
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