Follow Me(11)

I slid my phone into my bag and looked up to see my new boss, Ayala, waiting for me just inside the glass-walled lobby. She looked as glamorous as she had at my interview, wearing a crisp, white sheath, her black hair slicked into a ballerina bun and her lips painted candy-apple red. I nearly shot my arm up to excitedly wave but forced myself to offer a restrained nod and smile instead. Projecting a cool exterior was imperative even though I felt anything but cool. For starters, the temperature was in the upper nineties with what felt like 1,000 percent humidity. The outfit I’d chosen with such care—cropped, wide-leg black pants with a slinky black camisole and a gauzy kimono covered in a cheeky bird print—had felt damp as soon as I stepped outside, and my hair felt enormous.

Moreover, I was a mass of nerves. Here I was, about to fulfill a lifelong dream of working in one of the country’s top museums. What if I couldn’t hack it? Maybe I really did need that graduate degree; maybe without it I was woefully unprepared. What if they realized right away what a fraud I was? I couldn’t return to New York a failure, couldn’t beg Izzy for my old bedroom back. I wished I could dip a hand into my bag for the Xanax I’d stashed there alongside some animal crackers, but Ayala was holding the door open for me, so I didn’t dare. Instead, I swallowed my anxiety, pasted a smile on my face, and channeled the confident, chic woman I pretended to be online.

“Audrey,” Ayala said, her long, neon-green nails pressing into my flesh as she clasped my hand. “So nice to see you again.”

“It’s wonderful to see you, too. I’m so excited to be here.”

“We’re thrilled to have you on board,” she continued, the warmth in her voice melting some of my nerves. “A friend who owns a gallery in New York introduced me to your Instagram account years ago, and I absolutely just fell in love with your voice. It’s so irreverent. When I saw your application, I knew immediately that you were the woman for the job. You don’t take yourself too seriously.”

She paused, frowning slightly, and I glanced down at myself as surreptitiously as I could, wondering what she had seen that was out of order.

“You should know, however, that not everyone agreed. There were those who felt we should go with a more traditional choice. Someone with an advanced degree and proven museum experience.” She placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed, just tightly enough that I squirmed. “I advocated for you, Audrey.”

I swallowed hard and cranked up the wattage on my smile. “I really appreciate that. You won’t regret it. I have some ideas about—”

“I’m dying to hear them,” Ayala said, holding up a hand. “Truly. But first, the official tour.”

? ? ?

AFTER AYALA HAD led me through the permanent collection and the new exhibitions, she stopped in front of a gallery blocked off with plain gray screens. A small black sign was posted to it, reading GALLERY CLOSED.

“I have exciting news,” she said dramatically. “You’ve heard of Irina Venn, I presume?”

“Of course. I was volunteering at MoMA when they hosted Missed Calls—that exhibit of hers with all the deconstructed phones?”

“Yes, yes.” She nodded encouragingly. “What did you think of it?”

“I think she’s fucking brilliant.”

Ayala paused, her head cocked slightly to the side like a cat who’s just spotted a bird, and my stomach plummeted. You moron, I chastised myself. Way to drop an f-bomb in front of your new boss within the first hour on the job. überprofessional. My fingers itched to reach for that Xanax, but I kept them at my side and my face as blasé as possible. Pretend you’ve done nothing wrong. Be as if.

She broke into a sudden, toothy grin. “Then you’re going to love this.”

She swept one section of the screen aside and slipped behind it, beckoning me to follow her.

“Here it is,” she said reverently, cheeks flushed as she gazed around the dimly lit room. “The future home of the newest Irina Venn installation.”

I looked around to see a gallery still under construction, with no signage or labels of any kind. A number of pedestals had been erected in the room, and glass-encased dioramas stood atop several of them. At first glance, it reminded me of the miniature rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago. My family had taken a trip to Chicago when I was in elementary school, and I had been captivated by those rooms’ lush details. Back home, I had “curated” my own collection of miniature rooms by assembling doll furniture in a series of shoeboxes, an “exhibit” that lasted until Maggie demanded to know why her meticulously arranged dollhouse had been ransacked.

“Dollhouses?” I guessed.

“In a sense,” Ayala said, a smile teasing the corners of her mouth. “Come with me.”

She strode to the far end of the gallery and gestured to one of the final dioramas. At her urging, I peered inside. Unlike the pristine rooms in the Art Institute’s collection, this one featured a little bed with rumpled sheets, tiny cosmetics bottles strewn across a miniature vanity, and a doll-sized dress hanging off the back of a diminutive chair.

“It’s—” I started.

Then I noticed the dark red stain on the furry rug, coming from underneath the bed. I tilted my head to get a better view. Beneath the tiny bed, I spotted something pale and . . .

I jumped back, surprised.