Piece of Work

by Staci Hart

  Val smiled. “And you’ll crush it instead.”

  I smiled back, believing in myself just because they all believed so much in me. “I’ll crush it instead.”

  That earned me a high five from Val, another side hug from Amelia, and an assured nod from Katherine, which I took all the way to the bank. I might not be what the curators had expected, and I might not have impressed them, but I’d earned my spot at the museum, and I intended to take full advantage. Even though my bosses had already made up their minds that I was going to fail.

  All I had to do was prove them wrong.

  3

  Square Peg

  Rin

  My eyes were already open when my alarm went off.

  Claudius, Amelia’s cat, sat on my chest, purring like a very furry, very fat buzz saw. I’d been lying in bed for the last twenty minutes since he took up residence, running my hand down his spine until fluffs of hair were gathered at the base of his tail.

  I did not want to get out of that bed. I would gladly have stayed there all day and read a book. Hell, I would have settled for flossing Claudius’s teeth if it got me out of walking into Bianca’s office or enduring Dr. Lyons’s scrutiny.

  But, as Katherine had pointed out, I was not a quitter. I didn’t have it in me, even under threat of humiliation and endless hours of self-flagellation, which had begun last night in earnest once the lights were out.

  I sighed, mournfully moving Claudius so I could get up. He didn’t seem any more excited about it than I was, and once deposited on the bed, he stood in protest, stretched his legs, and sauntered off as if he were offended.

  A moment later, I was standing in front of my closet, arms akimbo, wondering what in the world I was going to wear. It wasn’t something I normally considered overmuch—my typical routine was to roll out of bed, put on whatever I’d reached for first, and stumble out the door with an oatmeal cream pie in my hand. But after yesterday, I scanned my wardrobe, which favored colors one would find carpeting a forest, looking for something grown-up. Polished. Career-y.

  After a few minutes, I realized I couldn’t materialize something appropriate to wear, so I did the best I could with what I had, settling on my nice jeans—meaning they were dark wash, didn’t have any holes, weren’t too short, and were fitted—a white tailored shirt, and my favorite sweater, which was a deep emerald with a thick braided knit pattern weaving the length of it. The collared shirt seemed formal, and I almost wore it alone, but the sleeves were short, making me actually look like a schoolgirl, minus the plaid skirt and knee socks. And rather than wearing my sneakers, I dug around in the foot of my closet for my only boots, which I’d gotten at some point in high school. Which was the point I realized I really, really needed to go shopping.

  The thought sent rolling discomfort through me. I could write a research paper without breaking a sweat, but put me in front of a rack of clothes and watch me fold like a lawn chair.

  Inspecting myself in the mirror didn’t do much to make me feel better. Anxiety bubbled in my stomach—I looked wrong. All wrong, from my head to the tips of my out-of-fashion boots. Not looking was so much easier. If I didn’t think about it, I didn’t care, but now that I was, I felt more self-conscious than I had in a long, long time.

  This isn’t you, I told my reflection.

  Well, who am I then? my reflection asked back.

  I had no answer. But I pulled off the old boots anyway, stuffing my feet in my Converse instead. At least that was honest.

  I pulled on my backpack in the silent house, swiping a cream pie from the pantry on my way out.

  We lived in Chelsea in a brownstone that cost more money than I would ever see in my lifetime. It was thanks to Amelia’s dad. He was an inventor who had founded a company in the nineties, creating made-for-TV gadgets that included illustrious gizmos such as the Slap Chop, ShamWow, and Egglettes, and she was the heiress to his empire. Mr. Hall had bought the house after sophomore year as an investment and let all of us live there for next to nothing. It was exquisite; the walls were exposed brick, the windows tall and plentiful. Built at the turn of the century, the details felt old and classic, but it had been completely renovated and modernized while retaining all of the charm.

  I hated the idea of ever leaving it. Not that the time was coming in the foreseeable future, but we all knew that era in our lives was temporary. It was supposed to be at least—if somehow it were permanent, we’d end up a less exciting version of the Golden Girls. And I found myself sad that we’d have no Blanche.

  We’d been inseparable since freshman year, seven years ago. Amelia had been my roommate, and Katherine and Val were our suite mates. It had taken two weeks for Amelia to utter a word, her silence finally broken on the night Val gathered us in her room, set a bottle of Boone’s Farm on the table between us, and turned on Mean Girls. She’d slapped a sticky mustache on the TV screen and told us we had to drink every time someone wore it. And the rest was history.

  Over the years, we’d insulated ourselves so much, we’d become a self-sufficient unit, giving and receiving everything we needed to be happy. Which gave us an excuse never to leave that unit. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen anyone outside of school or study groups other than my best friends. And none of us had dated since we graduated with our bachelor’s. Not that we didn’t want to—it was a regular topic of conversation—but there was no real opportunity.

  Amelia worked from home as a book blogger, and even if she didn’t, there was no way she could have a conversation with a strange man without potentially having a coronary—or at the very least, swooning to the point of fainting. Katherine worked at the New York Public Library in Midtown, which did not bring her a fresh cut of eligible men on a consistent basis. Her aloof demeanor didn’t exactly invite many suitors either—she was intimidating and frank and humorless to those who didn’t know her. Val had the best shot of all of us, playing in an orchestra on Broadway, but the other musicians were too old, too weird, or too serious to attract to her flitty, bold personality.

  And as for me, well, I’d gone on a few dates freshman and sophomore year, back when guys were less discerning. The offers had slowed, then stopped. And I wanted to be sadder about that than I was, but I couldn’t find it in me. The thought of a man asking me out was almost too much to bear consideration. How could I say no? How could I say yes? How could I weather an entire night with a stranger? What would we even talk about? Because all I could ever successfully talk to strangers about was art, and the only people who were interested in art were in academia.

  I crinkled up the cellophane wrapper of my breakfast, dropping it in a trash can before swinging my backpack around in search of my book, a paperback of A Darker Shade of Magic.

  Amelia’s office was decorated with wall-to-wall bookshelves, heavy with books. She’d been blogging for years, and over those years, she’d collected the most enviable paperback collection I’d ever seen, delivered in the form of advanced copies from publishers, thank-you gifts for her reviews or promotion, or freebies she’d received to photograph for Instagram. It had become our library, and even though I sometimes read on my Kindle, there was something about holding a paperback, carrying it with me, feeling the weight of it in my palm or my backpack, that reminded me of its presence, its realness.

  I moved my bookmark deeper into the pages so I could read while I walked to the subway station, holding it just below my eyeline so my peripheral vision could stop me from running into things. It worked—for the most part. I managed to only slam shoulders with one stranger, bump my hip on the handrail of the stairs into the tunnel, and step in a melted green mess of what I hoped was a smoothie casualty and not something more nefarious.

  By the time I climbed the steps of The Met, I was so deep in the book in my hand, my mind humming with the story, full of magic and world-jumping, adventure and romance. And with every footfall, I vowed to keep my fears and insecurities in check.

  Which was, predictably, in vain. />
  Bianca sat at her desk, fingers drumming her keyboard, the noise determined and mildly aggressive. Her gaze shifted to touch on me, hitting me like a ninja star between the eyes before returning to her screen.

  My chin dipped, my eyes angling for the ground as I made my way to my small desk in the corner. Within seconds of my butt hitting the chair, she closed her laptop.

  “Today I need you to work on research.” No greeting was offered. She was sorting through a stack of files on her desk with her back to me. “I sent you an email with the information Dr. Lyons needs. You’ll find all the resources you require in the Lehman Library. Take the staff elevator with your key card to the fourth floor, go down the hallway, take your first right and your second left. Your card will get you in.”

  Fourth floor, down the hall, first right, second left, I repeated the instructions in my head as I stood and slung on my backpack, grateful that I could spend the day surrounded by books and away from the stifling presence of Bianca.

  She turned to me, her face flat and impatient. “Got that?”

  “I…I’m sorry. Yes. Got it.”

  “Good,” she said as she turned away again, closing the conversation.

  Fourth floor, down the hall, first right, second left.

  I walked out of her office, turning to head deeper into the building, trying to remember where I’d been told the staff elevators were.

  You should have asked her, Rin.

  Why? I asked myself. So she could look at me like I was an incompetent burden?

  Better than not delivering exactly what she wants, when she wants it.

  I turned a corner to a dead end and sighed, backtracking to the main hallway, following it through until it reached an open space with tall windows. Couches faced each other in a rectangle, and the scent of coffee and old books hung in the air from the packed bookshelves lining the walls. I spotted the elevator doors beyond a low bookshelf and a couple of community desks, and my hope was renewed—not only for finding my mark, but for spotting a place I could potentially work on my own, with windows that overlooked Central Park and no Bianca Nixon.

  The elevator doors opened, and leaning against the rail with his eyes on a stack of papers in his hand was the devil himself.

  He was all strong, hard lines, from his dark brows, drawn to form a gentle crease in their center, to his angular cheekbones and jaw. His lips were bracketed by tense lines, nearly scowling, as if he existed in a constant state of scrutiny and distrust, a study in reticent brooding. And the intensity of his presence was so powerful, it seemed to shimmer around him, drawing in the light, the air, the sound.

  I hadn’t realized I’d been standing stupidly outside the elevator doors until they began to close, and he glanced up with a flash of annoyance as he reached to stop the doors with his big hand. When he realized it was me who had inconvenienced him, the annoyance turned into simmering discontent.

  “S-sorry,” I muttered, willing my feet to carry me into the steel box, though only far enough in to push the button for the fourth floor. I hugged that corner like it might deliver me from evil. As we rode up, he said nothing, though I could feel the burn of his gaze; the back of my neck pricked with a feverish tingling, the rest of me ice cold. And I was glad I never wore my hair up, certain the skin under the sheet of black was cherry red.

  Fourth floor, down the hall, first left, second right, I chanted in my mind in a useless attempt to distract myself.

  I moved for the door the second it started opening, the preemptive step forcing me to wait for an awkward moment before I could squeeze through. The second I was free of his presence, the air began to clear, and with a snap of the closing doors, the moment was broken, and Dr. Lyons was gone. My pulse thumped, my body metabolizing the adrenaline sparked by my fight-or-flight reflex, the reflex that told me to run, to hide, to escape. That he was dangerous, though logically, I knew that to be untrue. He was an intellectual, a museum curator, not a barbarian or Viking. There was no real danger.

  My hypothalamus hadn’t gotten the memo.

  Down the hall, first left, second right.

  I turned where she’d told me, cataloging every detail in search of my unseen destination, but the second right led me down a corridor of doors with numbers but no nameplates. A double-door service closet sat uselessly at the end.

  “Shit,” I breathed, turning around to wander the way I’d come, retracing my steps from the elevator, only to end up at the damnable service closet again with its mocking scuffed doors that were most definitely not the library.

  I could navigate the halls of The Met in my sleep, but the virtually empty, closed-off parts of the museum were a labyrinthian maze set up to ridicule me.

  Back I went, standing in front of the elevator doors in the silent, empty hallway. The thought crossed my mind to message Bianca for clarification, but my heart shrank away from the notion. I’d rather wander around for an hour than admit that I had no idea where I was going.

  First left, second right. Wait—first right, second left?

  Had my brain completely misfired in proximity to Dr. Lyons? He was like an EMP on legs, fritzing out everything in a radius around him by sheer force of his energy.

  Hope sprang as I took that blessed second left, bringing me to double doors that didn’t have mops and vacuums behind them—they held books.

  I swiped my entry card, and a happy beep was followed by a click and a welcoming green light, granting me access to the library. It was small, empty of people and out of the way, though the collection looked to contain thousands of reference books on shelves. They stood sentinel around a long table and chairs, a desk with a computer nestled between shelves. I took a seat at the table, setting my backpack in the chair next to me so I could rifle through it for my laptop.

  Once in my email, I read over Bianca’s message, then read it over again, and a third time for solidarity. Dr. Lyons was looking for cited references about the Medici family, particularly Cosimo, whose business acumen and investment in the arts were widely regarded to have contributed to the birth of the Renaissance. But Bianca’s instructions were vague, requesting only cursory information, which led me to assume Dr. Lyons was looking for broad-stroke, citable information about the man himself.

  This was my element. My wheelhouse. My domain.

  They wanted research, and I was up to the task. Confidence sparked in my chest as I turned to the computer to search the library for texts I could use. Over the next hour, I collected tomes, splitting them open all around me to the sections I needed, my fingers flying over my keyboard as I researched, annotated, documented, and categorized, determined to excel, to present exactly what they both needed. I imagined them praising me, daydreamed about earning their respect.

  And in that dreamy stream of possibility, my day flew by me in a blur, a whoosh, and a sigh of satisfaction.

  Court

  “Veneziano’s Catherine is on schedule to arrive tomorrow,” Bianca continued from across my desk, scanning the calendar on her laptop. “I forwarded you the itinerary for Florence, but Bartolino’s office is still giving me the runaround. I haven’t been able to nail down a time.”

  Frustration licked at my ribs. “I’ll call them myself tomorrow. What else?”

  “The intern is working on what you need for the Medici piece. Who knows when she’ll be finished. I haven’t seen her all day.” The statement sounded something akin to relief.

  “Look at you, giving up control.”

  She eyed me. “It’s not like I had a choice. But you’re right—we can use the help. There’s enough for all of us to do.” She reached into her leather attaché, her hand reappearing with a folder in hand. “Here are the materials to help you prepare for the lecture you’re handling next week as well as the topic list for the exhibition tours.” Her lips flattened as I took the folder. “The board is asking for a finalized floor plan for the exhibition. I’m not sure how much longer we can hold them off.”

  My jaw clenched, e
yes tightening. “I’ll handle them.”

  “Court, have you thought about what will happen if you can’t get David?”

  “Of course I’ve thought about it,” I clipped. “But I’ll get it.”

  She sighed. “Worst-case scenario, we feature Venus. She’ll still draw a crowd and earn out for the museum.”

  “I’ll get it, Bianca.”

  Her lips pursed, and she nodded in deferment. “I don’t doubt you,” she said.

  I knew she meant it. The unspoken undercurrent of the statement was that the situation wasn’t in my control, which I refused to believe.

  My eyes moved to the doorway where the intern stood, and the sight of her looking almost confident was a surprise, especially after an awkward thirty seconds with her in the elevator earlier. There, she’d trembled like a caged rabbit. Here, she almost looked composed, her long black hair brushed back instead of in her face where she could hide. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes alight, her lips smiling. And she stood straight, her shoulders sloped only slightly, her back bent out of habit, it would seem, rather than the desire to curl in on herself and disappear.

  The vision was transformative. And I wondered what the catalyst was.

  “I-I’m sorry to interrupt,” she started, her voice almost too low to hear.

  “Come in,” I commanded.

  She took two steps into the room and adjusted her backpack strap, offering a small smile. “I sent over my research from today on Medici. Should I send more? The library closed, so I…” She trailed off and shrugged one shoulder. “I went ahead and sent what I had.”

  Bianca didn’t respond, just pulled up her email and opened the document. Her eyes narrowed as she scanned it.

  The girl—Van de Meer. Hyo-rin. I didn’t know what to call her other than the intern—began to ramble, spurred by her climbing nerves, her face a barometer of her emotions—uncertainty, worry, hope, “I wasn’t sure what exactly you were looking for, so I went through a brief history of Cosimo, compiling ways he influenced the Renaissance, artists he sponsored, museums and libraries he opened, contributions he made. You had asked for—”