Imaginary Museums

by Nicolette Polek

  While making out, Susan tears her white linen pants and, when she returns home, runs into her mother, who grounds her and makes her unavailable to play the part of the bride.

  Meanwhile, Jacob drives to all of Lilith’s favorite spots, since she’s not answering her phone. He drives out to the dunes, where Lilith’s father lives in a small house with no Wi-Fi. Jacob drives to the yarn store and the ballet studio and the park with all the eucalyptus trees.

  Here, Jacob approaches the Croatian Heritage Hall in a gray suit, carrying white roses, ready to pronounce his love for Lilith in front of his family, his friends, and his therapist. Jacob, forty-five minutes away from the Croatian Heritage Hall, buys his first pack of cigarettes in three years, and hits his steering wheel with his hand while trying not to cry.

  Jacob, unable to reach, or find, Lilith, begins feeling overwhelmingly anxious, and takes a generous amount of Klonopin from the glove compartment. He drives until he sees something, then parks. After staring out the window for a few minutes, he gets out of his car and walks slowly through the cloister gardens of St. Olaf’s.

  He tries to focus on the lemon trees of the priest’s garden, the stained-glass windows, and the encroaching fog that wisps around the top of the fountain, making the whole scene appear “just like velvet,” which he mumbles under his breath.

  The bride is still missing, so Lilith’s uncle agrees to put on the wedding dress.

  Lilith’s grandparents sway contently in the reception hall as the balalaika orchestra plays heartfelt renditions of Croatian love songs. The balalaika orchestra gets into a bad bus accident, severely injuring the conductor and the soloist’s page-turner, who are unable to make it to the wedding.

  Lilith, who is staring into her mimosa, says, “I simply couldn’t care less,” and calls the caterer from a pay phone to halt the brioche baking, the asparagus steaming, the quail egg pickling, and the roasting of the rabbit.

  Lilith’s uncle, unlike everyone else, has a strong dedication to his role, and wanders around the streets in a veil, approaching men in varying shapes and sizes, while experimenting with different emotional gestures.

  The understudies trail home with the tolling of the wedding bells. Lilith’s uncle protests when the last-minute boys’ choir goes back to playing basketball in the park. The makeshift taco truck and the Father leave. Lilith bursts through the doors of the chapel with her dress half-zipped, an apology half-rehearsed.

  American

  INTERIORS

  A House for Living

  The mathematician moves into a glass condominium with fourteen doors and has nightmares about the rooms behind them switching places. Sometimes she opens them to find a rival mathematician sitting on a long velvet couch. The rival has a retentive memory and a svelte build, while the mathematician has neither.

  The mathematician redesigns her staircase so that some steps are very tall and some very short. She supposes this will help exercise her heart, but grows accustomed to the patterns rather quickly and starts tripping down traditional staircases at work. Whenever this happens, the rival always happens to be walking by, eating radishes.

  She redesigns her light switches, trash cans, faucets, and ceiling fan. She learns about carpentry and electricity. She drills doorknobs high on all her doors, so that she must stretch throughout the day to reach them. She begins to think things like “great virtues come to those who are challenged.” She puts the volume on her phone on the lowest setting, so that she must always listen closely.

  Perhaps if the mathematician infuses every mundane activity with stimulus, she could unlock the graying parts of her brain.

  She calculates that all these adjustments combined could add eight years to her life, which is the amount of time it takes to build a public school, or for a message in a bottle to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

  She loses her balance at the grocery store, and topples into a man wearing a trench coat. She invites him over for dinner and wears a low-cut blouse, but he finds her gymnastic palace quite disturbing, and looks at the mathematician blankly when she speaks. The rival rides by on a motorcycle and sees him escaping through her slender bathroom window, his sweater snagging on a thorny locust tree.

  One morning she touches her head, which throbs, and finds a murky residue. On the pillow beside her is a gray lump, translucent like a cube of gelatin. The mathematician prods it and notices an odor similar to talcum powder. Beneath it is a small stain that is impossible to wash out. Perplexed, she keeps the lump in a glass jar in the refrigerator.

  Months pass and she observes it, trying to determine if it has moved or changed.

  Sometimes it appears swollen, wetter, even sadder. She’ll close the refrigerator door having forgotten what she was hungry for, and go to the computer to calculate something untenable.

  The mathematician’s sleep and appetite decline. She ignores phone calls from the rival, and loses the motivation to contend with her rigorously designed home. On some days she finds herself having a vision. In it, she’s watching her house burn from a parking lot.

  On other days, she finds herself carrying the jar out into the yard and setting it before her, the lump gleaming, like something alive.

  The Dance

  Esme and Ismer have a game they play at dinner. Esme looks at the table and memorizes everything—the silverware, the position of the steak, the saltshaker, and when she closes her eyes Ismer moves something, slightly. To the left, to the right, into his lap. Tonight Ismer switches their wine. Esme notices a lipstick stain on his glass.

  After dinner they flop onto opposite ends of the couch, looking at their ventless fireplace, both thinking, separately, about what they will do that evening. For the entire day Ismer had been thinking of going dancing, ever since he overheard his colleague talking about salsa classes as a way to overcome anxiety. Ismer pictures Esme moving her body around under a dim light with her eyes slightly closed, smiling softly to some sort of rhythmic music.

  They’ve been together for seven years and have never gone dancing. In college, Ismer went out, and Esme stayed in. Recently, Ismer goes out, and Esme stays in. Ismer isn’t a rabid extrovert or wild pleasure seeker in any sense, but the idea of going dancing for the sake of it—especially with Esme—seemed exciting, perhaps even reckless, something they could think of next week, in fond remembrance of a night when they let loose.

  “Do you want to go dancing?” Ismer asks.

  Esme shifts her weight on the couch. She is pleased that Ismer asked, but feels vulnerable answering. For a few weeks, Ismer’s late-night office work has been distancing, and Esme feels like they needed something. But the question is out of the ordinary. Why does he want to go dancing—for her benefit? Does he think she’s bored at home? The last thing she wants is to feel pitied, or like he’s “taking her out” to be aired. She does want to go dancing, though.

  “Is that what you want?” she asks. “I would if you want to.” She sits up, her tone lifts, but she makes sure that her preference isn’t clear from her voice alone.

  Ismer thinks of Esme in the past as a reference point. She’s declined going swimming in the river, sliding down banisters, role-playing—specifically his wounded-civil-war-soldier-and-nurse fantasy—driving without maps, and cigarettes. He thinks of her gentle disposition, her attentiveness to safety and to him.

  If he says “yes” she might be put in a position to accommodate him. He wants to prevent a compromise. Does he love her? Of course he does. Because of her he can be the most perfect version of himself: considerate, safe, and responsible with each decision and its impact. If she isn’t certain about dancing, it is not worth pursuing.

  “I would only be doing it if you wanted to,” he says.

  It is as though the lexis of their feelings is a separate creature within the house. Like a fat cat that holds all their secrets and stolen glances. Howling, obese, and grumpy, the keeper of their true feelings, bursting with things that want to be said.

  Esme slumps. Isme
r doesn’t really want to go dancing, she thinks, and if we go it won’t be fun for the both of us. Ismer thinks I’m a drip, she thinks. Though dancing would be entirely out of her routine, it was something she had recently wanted to do. In fact, she had been waiting for Ismer to suggest it.

  If she were to say yes, and persist, as she wants to, she would feel foolish. She knows nothing about dancing, and therefore if Ismer isn’t enthused at the prospect, who is she to say otherwise? Like the time they made breakfast smoothies and couldn’t impose upon each other the different sets of fruits they separately enjoy, sticking them in some dumb strawberry-banana limbo.

  Esme fills the empty rooms of Ismer with a sense of wonderment. He wants to value the things she values. He wants to do the things she wants to do. He wants to buy her a scrap of fabric, a ruby ring, a token of endearment that solders them together.

  “No, I think we want to stay home,” Esme says sheepishly, watching Ismer closely.

  “All right,” Ismer says. He gets up and takes a deck of cards from the coffee table, gesturing toward it to ask if she wants to play a game.

  “Yes, sure, let’s play gin,” Esme says.

  She doesn’t want to play cards. They play gin every night.

  Esme wonders if, eventually, while appearing to be gracious to each other, they will end up spending weeks, or months, or maybe even many years, inside their house, in separate rooms, looking out from separate windows and desiring a thing, a person, or a place that is very far away.

  Ismer is pleased. He did well, he thinks. He suggested something that his wife enjoys, and therefore he can too. That’s the best he can do. The wind comes in from the open window and gently shivers the deck of cards. The both of them go back to being floppy on the couch.

  That night they go to bed silently, feeling some form of contentment. Ismer watches Esme sleep, and swoons at the way her hair moves when she exhales a dream. A dream in which she is dancing.

  The Nearby Place

  A girl is pushing an old man down the hallway, and they pass many windows out of which the old man cannot see.

  The place she’s taking him, she says, is bright and at a perfect temperature and humidity level. There will be towels and a toothbrush and a bowl of the candied dates he especially likes. There are newly added massage chairs and a cabinet filled with hand warmers, markers, and AA batteries, and when he gets there, he can write whatever he likes on his name tag.

  A woman approaches them and hands the old man a clipboard with forms to fill out. She says that the place “is entirely covered in a bluish light,” that there are trees to sit under if he wants to be alone and small animals that will protect him. There is a black porcelain swimming pool filled with many beautiful people who are excited to meet him, and he will be given elegant gray stockings to wear.

  Where he is being taken, wires are obsolete, and at night there is a hidden table for him to eat cookies and gaze upon the moon. The man gives the woman back the clipboard, and she blows him a kiss before disappearing behind a door.

  The girl and the old man stop in a small restaurant and split a strawberry pie. “We’re almost there,” she says, and the waitress tells the old man that he will be able to see the whole place at once, and in the distance, there will be a house from which his mother looks out at him fondly.

  After they finish eating, the girl pushes him faster down the hallways, turning left and right, so the windows pass quickly when the old man stretches his neck toward them. She tells him that he deserves to live in this place, that this is the place just for him.

  The hallways slowly start to dim. The trip to where the old man is being taken has been long, so the girl pauses to use the restroom, leaving him behind. Many people are walking down the hallway, in a hurry to get to their homes, and must move around the old man, causing them to occasionally bump into each other.

  One person drops her coffee and file folder. As she picks up her things, the old man tells her where he is going, to which she says, “I know a few people there, and they are all very happy.” She has a dog with her, who makes a cheerful sound when hearing about the place. The old man wants to pet the dog’s head, but the person leaves.

  A couple, who the old man does not recognize, moves the old man to the side of the hallway, puts him in an elevator, then wheels him into a small room. When he tries to tell them where he is going, they furrow their brows and tell the old man that the place does not exist. They turn off the light and close the door, so the people no longer have to walk around him.

  The room is empty and clean. There is a crack from under the door, which is how the light gets in.

  He waits there, and folds his hands in his lap.

  He waits there, remembering the things that the girl told him, imagining the tropical trees.

  He thinks about the many seagulls to count as he goes to sleep.

  Almost a hundred seagulls, she’d said.

  Invitation

  When the couple arrived at the open house, the landlord wrapped her arms around them. She smelled like a big warm coconut. In Slovakia, the couple had owned a pub that had burned down. They wanted to start over, in a clean home with a yard for a dog to run circles in.

  They followed the landlord, through the overgrown lawn, to the side door. The windows of the upstairs, where the landlord lived, were shattered. The couple smiled at each other before walking down the small flight of stairs into the basement.

  The apartment was winding. Tiny rooms multiplied in front of them. The kitchen was a brown cave of small wooden shelves. The layout felt strange, but intuitive.

  The landlord continued through the rooms, becoming wildly excited each time she opened a door. The couple felt enthralled by the landlord, perhaps due to the way she held eye contact. She seemed invested in them, unlike the other Americans they’d met. There was mold in the bathroom, a dead smell in the air.

  The landlord spoke loudly, and the couple started to match her excitement. They found themselves looking forgivingly at a din of cobwebs and a cramped hallway. There was a broken air purifier and the couple compassionately smiled at it, too.

  The landlord opened a trapdoor in the bathroom, and descended a shiny white ladder, which led to what she suggested would be the couple’s bedroom. The room had soundproofed walls, two white cots, and a large poster of a redheaded woman holding a sniper weapon.

  It feels very safe here, said the wife.

  A corner of our own, said the husband.

  I can really see you living here, said the landlord. She touched the couple’s shoulders like an angel. It’ll be hard to find a better deal for the area. She moved closer to the couple, touching their faces. You know, I feel homesick too.

  Before the couple left, the landlord showed them pictures of her parents. She also showed the couple a home video of herself as a young girl. In it, she picked strawberries and smashed them into a sheep’s coat. She told the couple about the time she vacationed at a hot springs in Hungary. The hot springs were so hot, she said. Hot hot, she said, smiling. The landlord walked the couple to the car, with an expression that looked both weepy and magnetic.

  The couple drove away, letting the shriveled lawns pass. They returned to the motel room and sat together eating premade macaroni, looking out the window at an empty lot. They held hands, thinking of their invitation from the very nice landlord, her home, and America.

  Doorstop

  My mother has a two-pound doorstop that she uses in the summer. It’s a souvenir copy of the original kilogram. She got it on a tour of the Department of Measurements in Sèvres, France, where the original kilogram is kept in a triple-locked vault in the basement.

  Three people have the key to the vault, so they can polish it by hand, and compare it to other sister copies, which they do every few years. In 2009, the block was shrinking. In 2013, growing. This, in Sèvres, of all places. A village where people are notoriously and comically, according to my mother, unable to adapt to change.

  In se
venth grade, my best friend moved away to go to a special math high school. I spent the ensuing week despairing, and my mother threatened to send me to that little French village, where the people were so anxious for the kilogram block, she said, that they sat forever in tears, frigid and stupid. Maybe then I’d learn.

  I am in my thirties now, living at home again. My brother is dying, and I broke up with my boyfriend. My mother is afraid to answer the phone when it rings, has always been, so I answer. But first, I prop open the door with the doorstop, let the wind in.

  Imaginary Museums

  Annie was encouraged to take a painting class after the divorce. Annie painted scenes of herself in empty Arctic landscapes, with long, difficult shadows. These paintings became part of a series she called Painting Class.

  She didn’t know why she was still in that small town, where the only people she knew were her ex-husband and his mean, obese mother.

  One day, Annie’s painting instructor recommended that she visit the Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Museum in New York City. “The AC unit is an anthropological lens for community,” he said in his intense, ancient way. “Before air-conditioning, whole neighborhoods had to sleep together by the river.”

  Annie pictured falling asleep with the people in her painting class. She saw herself rolling around, bumping softly into their bodies, feeling the sand for something she had lost.

  “Now we stay inside, shrinking in closed rooms,” said the painting instructor. He was looking out the window now, touching it lightly with his hand, like a dog. He had perversely thick hair and a big belt buckle.

  “The whole museum feels isolating and distant, like your work,” said the instructor.