“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” Jacoby answered with a thoughtful look. “It’s just so sad that their anniversary falls on the same day as your grandmother’s funeral and your grandfather’s funeral and your grandmother’s funeral and then your grandfather’s funeral again. It’s a wonder how you seem to be either celebrating or crying on this particular day every single year.”

Dammit, caught! Before this, I’d mostly had to hand in excuses to individual teachers, not the program director, who could easily look at all my past records, including the excuses.

But I was in for more than a few pennies at this point, so I doubled down. “Yes, we’ve suffered a lot of tragedies on this day. That’s why it’s so important to me to make my parents’ wedding anniversary special.”

The mask of faux sympathy dropped from Jacoby’s face, and he regarded me with a stern look. “I’ve scheduled your thesis presentation for May 25th. Be there or be fine with not receiving your MFA because you did not present your thesis on that exact date with the rest of Group B. Good day, Dawn.”

With that, he went back to typing something on his computer, which I guess meant no more arguing. I’d been dismissed.

FML.

I trudged out of Jacoby Pirelli’s office.

“Yeah, Dawn wears a ring on her wedding finger, and she’ll tell you she’s married if you asked her. But I think she’s lying.”

I stopped walking when I heard the voice coming from around the corner where all the grad student lockers were situated. I recognized the voice immediately. It was Elizabeth Ann Margaret, the only other person in our Experimental Animation program who’d attended undergrad with me.

“I’ve never once seen her husband. Not for any of her big presentations, not for social events—he wasn’t even at her graduation ceremony. We once went over to her place for a group project—get this. She lives in this huge house. I snuck upstairs to look at her room. No men’s clothing that I could find. There weren’t even any pictures on the wall. I’m pretty sure she lives there all alone. It’s so sad.”

Have you ever had a person in your life who always smiled in your face but who you could tell secretly hated your guts? Which was fine because you didn’t like them either? For me, that person was Elizabeth Ann Margaret.

She insisted that everybody call her by all three of her first names and only by all three of her first names. But she never mentioned her last name, which was Loge—as in Kenneth Loge, the hacky children’s television producer who made a fortune in the 90s turning out the kind of soulless, cookie-cutter cut-rate animations you can’t get away with these days.