The Cloisters(20)

“Oh, I knew that would be perfect,” she said when I slid into the car next to her. The compliment felt as natural as the fabric of the dress on my skin.

We drove north, or rather inched, along the crowded parkway, Rachel tapping out something on her phone, me watching the high-rises slowly give way to the leafy exits of the exurbs, until the driver hugged the curve of an exit, and then the easy back-and-forth of quieter streets. Rachel said nothing through it all, and I, not wanting to appear too eager, too desperate, kept quiet. Finally, as we pulled up a long gravel driveway, Rachel slipped her phone back into her bag and said, “We’re here.”

The house came into view—an orderly collection of gray flagstones and leaded glass windows, separated by crosshatched metal into a tiny patchwork of frames. The circular driveway was flanked by balsam firs and beech trees; the front door, a Gothic arch framed by manicured boxwood. In so many ways, it reminded me of The Cloisters—the color of the stone, the faux-Gothic aesthetic, the way the driveway built anticipation, teasing the driver with the slow reveal of a stone chimney here, an aged copper weathervane there. I wondered if John would wait for us the entire time, just sitting in the car, a sandwich packed away in the trunk, like he did every week.

No one met us at the door. Rachel simply let herself into the oval foyer, anchored by a stone staircase. To our left was the library, and as Rachel led me through, I did my best to commit the details to memory. It was my first glimpse inside an academic home: there were framed manuscript pages and an encaustic triptych on display, a table covered with oddly shaped white dice, shelves filled with leather-bound books. It was a richly and carefully curated collection, one that extended well beyond Patrick’s salary at The Cloisters, I was sure. I wanted to linger, to touch the thick fabric of the couches, feel the cool mahogany of the tables, but Rachel had already crossed the space, as if it were commonplace, and was waiting for me at a pair of French doors, thrown open onto the summer evening.

From the flagstone patio off the library, views stretched down to where the Tappan Zee bridged Rockland and Westchester Counties across the Hudson. The air was hazy and thick with the constant hum of insects. Beneath a striped awning, Patrick and a woman sat holding drinks sweaty from the humidity. Her small frame barely filled the chair, but her dress, a vibrant coral with woven gold accents, made her presence outsized. With only four attendees, it was too small a number to be considered a salon; it was more an intimate dinner party.

For whatever reason—likely our surroundings, the library, the glass windows oily with age—I expected someone to come take our drink order, so I was surprised to see Patrick get up and walk into a door at the far end of the patio—the kitchen, I would learn—and fix our drinks himself.

“Negronis,” he explained, handing me a heavy, etched crystal highball.

The woman sitting in the chair, I learned, was Aruna Mehta. Punjabi by way of Oxford. She and Patrick had been graduate students together—almost twenty years of friendship, she said. Aruna wore her glossy hair piled elegantly on her head, a pair of reading glasses around her neck. Rachel kissed her on both cheeks before sitting down. Even if it was a casual greeting, the intimacy of the gesture and Rachel’s confidence at executing it surprised me. No faculty had ever invited me to enjoy such familiarity.

“Your first time?” Aruna said to me, gesturing at the view.

“It is,” I said. “It’s incredible.”

“Thank you,” said Patrick, lifting a glass. “I take no credit for it.”

“You can take credit for its masterful restoration.” Aruna touched her glass to ours. “Cheers.”

“That I can.” Patrick smiled.

“Most curators don’t live like this,” said Aruna, leaning in my direction with faux confidentiality. Her closeness felt like a lifeline. “Patrick is alone in that distinction. As he is in many others.”

Patrick laughed, and I noticed for the first time that he had shallow dimples beneath a layer of stubble. I wondered why he didn’t have anyone here with him in this house—a wife, a family, even a housekeeper. There had to be dozens of rooms.

“Aruna, stop,” Patrick said, no trace of warning in his voice.

“Rachel knows.” Aruna winked.

It was a reminder of how on the outside of things I was. Perhaps a purposeful reminder of how many times Rachel had drunk Negronis on Patrick’s patio, how she may have known what the house looked like before the restoration. How she had known Aruna, she’d told me, from her years at Yale. And while I had spent my time as an undergraduate being overlooked by the faculty who mattered, she had already been identified as something special, one to watch. I reminded myself that was why I had come to New York in the first place, to remake myself into someone like Rachel. Someone people took seriously, someone I could take seriously.

“You’ve heard about the thing at the Morgan?” said Aruna. “This year they’ve proposed the topic will be the history of the Renaissance occult.”

“Yes,” said Patrick. “I suggested they have Rachel moderate the panel on tarot.”

Rachel leaned toward me and whispered in my ear, “They said no.”

“I’ll be presenting instead,” Patrick added.

“So interesting that after so many years of claiming it’s a subject not worth examining, they decide to run this at the same time you’re working on an exhibition about divination. Isn’t it, Patrick?” Aruna bit off the end of her orange rind and chewed it thoughtfully.