Fragments of Arcadia: You Are Strong

VIII.

Evangeline was sitting in front of her easel. She had been working on this piece for a while now. The local school in her small town had asked her to do a mural and this was her test piece for the wall of the school. She was proud of it. It was the first time that she had gotten paid for art since graduating college.

"Putting that degree to use," she thought to herself.

She got her phone to take a picture of the piece. She wanted the principal to get a nice look at the piece and make sure everything was perfect before she started gridding the wall of the school. When she picked up her phone, she noticed a message from Grace.

"Hey, remember we're supposed to meet at the mall today around 2"

Sent at 8 a.m.

Seen 12 p.m.

"Just finishing up here, I haven't forgotten."

Evangeline had forgotten, but it was fine. She cleaned her brushes and laid them out flat to dry. She stopped and took a long deep breath. She let the air fill her lungs and used it to push all the stress out of her body with her exhale. Now, it was time to shower.

Evangeline loved to relax in the shower, that was one of her go-tos for calming down, which meant that she tended to take long showers.

And a long one she did take. The mall was only about 10 minutes away so that left her with about an hour left, but her thick hair would take at least 10-20 minutes to get dry. The upside to having long, thick hair is that it looked beautiful when it was taken care of. The downside was how much trouble it was to take care of.

After drying it, she put her hair in a high ponytail and decided on her outfit for the day. A purple wine colored T shirt and a pair of black overalls was the choice for today. Her lipstick was a nice pale mauve on the top lip with the dark black on the bottom lip. She just threw on her black converse and that her look for the day. That was it.

"You know what one of the best things about overalls is?" she asked herself. "Real pockets."

She stuffed her keys, wallet, phone, earbuds, charger and anything else she thought she needed into her pockets excitedly.

There was still about 20 minutes before she needed to leave so texted a picture of the painting to the principal of the school.

"Here's the mural. I'll get grid out the wall so I paint a bigger one on the wall if you like the design."

Sent 1:42 p.m.

Seen 1:50 p.m.

"Looks great, can't wait for you to paint it."

That was the boost her day needed as she was cranking up the car. It was her big project, her first paid gig and she nailed it on the first try. Now she just had to try and figure out when she could fit in enough time to go to a school and start painting. That was for later though. Now, was trying to find parking at the mall.

The town only had one mall and it was pretty much the only place people hung out. It contained a food court, with like four places, an indoor minigolf course, an arcade, four different clothing stores, the 2 pop culture stores every mall has, and a cookie company. It had other things but no one really cared about those. They were just store fillers.

Evangeline couldn't remember the last time she had been with or seen her friends. Everyone just kind of scattered for a while after graduation. Evangeline was too busy constantly job swapping due to her anxiety to really have time for anyone. Now she was at a place that she could feel comfortable that she could work. It made the last year not seem as bad as the one before by comparison. She had a job, income, she was painting, getting paid to paint and now she was seeing friends. Evangeline's face couldn't help but warp into a big, goofy smile at the thought. Everything was working out. She had survived.