Dreamology(43)

“I kind of love him,” I say, watching his tweed-covered body disappear at the top of the stairs. Then I turn to Max. “And I can’t believe you arranged all this.”

Max shrugs bashfully. “I know how you feel about museums,” he says. “It’s the perfect place to reenact our dream at the Met.”

We’ve just arrived in a room on the second floor, as gorgeous and ornate as the last, but with one major difference. On one of the lavishly papered walls, lining either side of a fireplace, are two large gold frames that appear to be framing nothing at all.

“This seems like an odd choice,” I say, pointing at the empty frames. It’s more something I’d expect to find in Sophie’s parents’ apartment, alongside a giant sculpture of a hamburger.

But Max looks thrilled. “These must be left over from the heist. In the nineties, a bunch of guys posing as police officers showed up to the gates of the museum after hours, saying they were responding to an emergency call from inside, and a guard broke protocol and let them in. The next morning the guard who was supposed to relieve the two from the night before found them duct-taped together in the basement . . . and a bunch of priceless works were missing.”

“Did they ever catch them?” I ask.

“The Boston Globe occasionally posts a rumor or two . . . something spotted in a small gallery in Europe or in a private collection at a residence, but nothing official has ever turned up.”

We make our way back downstairs and come to a small sitting room on the first floor. It’s covered in sunny yellow wallpaper and paintings of portraits and landscapes, guarded by a very large Eastern European man wearing an earpiece and a blazer, who doesn’t acknowledge us in the slightest.

“This is where the work I’m looking for should be,” Max says, scanning the walls. “There.”

I follow his gaze to a canvas in the far corner of the room by the window, a painting that is at first glance not at all what I expected. It’s smaller than the others and painted in various shades of gray. Not the bright turquoise tutus and deep pink backdrops of Degas’s ballerinas, or Monet’s colorful lilies. But as I move closer, I see the gray is peppered with small flecks of fiery orange, as though appearing through a mist. NOCTURNE, JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER, the plaque reads. Somehow calming and slightly mysterious, it’s one of the most beautiful paintings I’ve ever seen. Forget Petermann’s surrealist works. As I stare into Nocturne’s depths, all I can think is that this is what a manifestation of a dream really looks like. I see why Max chose it, and I love him even more for doing so.

“Are you ready?” I turn to Max, and find him already gazing at me with a funny, almost wary expression, like we are thinking the same thing.

All I can manage in response is a nod. I can’t believe we are doing this.

“Let me just change,” Max says. “I’ll be right back.”

I remove my wool coat and place it under a carved wooden table in the corner that probably cost more than our car, revealing a long, plum-colored ball gown I found in my grandmother’s closet. It’s not exactly Beyoncé material, but it does bring out my complexion. Then I open to the entry about the Met dream and scan its pages as though running lines one last time before going onstage.

I hear a noise and turn back, finding Max standing by in the doorway, looking terrified. And also completely perfect in an elegant tux.

“You look . . . beautiful,” he admits.

“Then what’s wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing,” Max says with a sigh. “Just read the journal, Alice.”

I open my notebook and start from the beginning of the dream, describing the sparkling champagne, the fancy dress, and the elegant crowd, until I get to, “And that’s where Max finds me, standing in front of the Degas ballerinas, in the Impressionist section.”

I swallow at the next part, but press onward. “And this is where you say—”

“I know what I say,” Max interrupts, his voice low, his eyes gentle. “You know, I can dance, too.” He slips an arm around my waist. How I have missed this arm.

“Right, good.” I flip a page. “And my whole body—let’s just skip that part.” I glance up at Max’s face, which is way too close, and find him barely containing a smirk. It’s like he’s enjoying the fact that this is torturing me.

“And I say, ‘Prove it.’ And now you . . .”

Without hesitating, Max gives me a twirl. As I spin, I swear I see twinkle lights flying past, like little fireflies zooming around me. But when I steady myself again, it’s just the glow of the candelabras.

“Good, good,” I manage after the twirl, smoothing my skirt down in the back to make sure it hasn’t flown up. So I’m already off balance when Max pulls me tightly to him, and I smell his neck and close my eyes for a second.

“And now you say . . .” Max’s voice comes from far away, and I open my eyes again.

“You look good in a tux,” I barely whisper, having sort of given up. I want to nuzzle my nose just below his ear.

“Thanks. It’s the one Beyoncé wore to the Grammys.” He says the line like he’s tired, like he’s given up, too, and I can feel his heart hammering in his rib cage. This time we don’t laugh. We just stand there, because we both know what’s next, and it obviously can’t come next, we know that, because he has a girlfriend, and also because this is real life and not a dream, and because it would mean something more than maybe we are ready for. I swear from somewhere I can hear the hum of low chatter and symphony music, which makes negative sense since we are at a high-security museum after hours and the only people here are us and Emmet upstairs in a nineteenth-century tub and the security guard, who must think we are complete and utter mental patients.