Chapter 6
Chapter Six
When Lily leaves us alone to digest the whirlwind of exhibition information and spreadsheets, we’re in a chasm of awkward silence so deep that I might have fallen into the molten core of the Earth. Now, I could complain, but that won’t help us get anything done.
I run my hand through my hair, flick my gaze momentarily to the broad windows to look at London’s skyline beneath filtered cloud.
It’s a moment to ground myself, let this new reality wash over me.
Let myself half pretend for a moment I can fake being a boulder in a creek in one of those visualization exercises where water flows around me, babbling brook style, as opposed to raging floods, where the waters keep rising—
Okay, forget visualization.
Instead, I try to scrape up some aspirational leadership skills like I was told I had, back in grade three when I rallied kids for a longer recess break at school. My leadership skills promptly left me after that, even if Stephen says I’m more influential than I think.
We eye each other in awkward silence instead. The strained moment becomes two strained moments. I open my mouth at last to speak, but he beats me to it.
“Late night with your Grindr hookup?” Mr. McLaren asks pointedly. “You look positively wrecked.”
“Us lesser mortals need to use apps to date. I’m guessing you have a girlfriend or whatever and don’t bother with tech, but I’m new in town. So sue me.”
“Touché.” He takes a long pause and takes far longer than necessary to sip his tea rather theatrically. He considers me over his mug, thoughtful. There’s a hint of a smile playing over his lips, the bastard. “I do hear Americans are quite litigious.”
“I’m not an American!” I’m indignant. “I mean, and even if I was, so what? Like I can sue you for being seriously annoying.”
“Where are you from, then?”
“Canada,” I say witheringly. “If you cared to know anything about me, you should probably have figured that out by now. Rather than making assumptions.”
“Well, I’d say you’ve done very little to get to know me. Therefore, we’re even.” His lips twitch and turn into a frown. His eyes are an intriguing shade that I can’t quite figure out in this strange boardroom light. “Wait. No. Actually, we’re not.”
“We’re not?” I stare at Mr. McLaren. Who does he think he is, royalty or what?
He shakes his head. Dark waves move like water, something out of a hair commercial. It’s seriously ridiculous. It makes me upset all over again. “Actually, I’ve got something to say to you about assumptions. And being rude.”
“You’re calling me rude?”
“For the record, on the first day we met, I introduced myself with my forename and my surname and even a short-form name, and yet you insist on calling me Mr. McLaren behind my back. Don’t think I don’t know.
” He gives me a devastatingly cold look.
Vicious, even. “And now you have most of the museum staff calling me that too, when people think I can’t hear them. ”
I open my mouth. Shut it. My face is on fire. And though I’d rather die right now than admit it, he probably has a point. Okay, a very valid point.
Mortified, I slump a little in my chair at the callout. And I’ve got to do a gut check whether I’m embarrassed because I’ve been caught or embarrassed because I’ve been a jerk.
“It… escalated.” I decide to come clean as my conscience twists deep in my pancreas. “I didn’t think it would go so far.”
“I would appreciate it very much if you stopped calling me Mr. McLaren, thanks. Just… Will.” He stares at me, the planes of his face hard and unyielding, his eyes are now a cold silver in this light.
“Okay… Just Will. I would also appreciate it if you didn’t splash me with your car next time it rains.”
He scowls at me. “You don’t know when to stop. And that was an accident.”
“You—Will—” I say sharply, to prove to him that I totally know his name and I can call him that, no problem. “—have an entitlement issue.”
He stares at me, wide-eyed. To be fair, neither one of us can believe my mouth is still going, independent of my better senses. “Are you trying to get sacked?”
“Listen. You waltz around here, making messes and not even bothering to be considerate. There’s a whole building full of people working together in this museum, and you’re leaving crumbs and mugs and paper jams everywhere and generally not being helpful.
You’re being selfish, assuming like we’re all here to pick up after you—”
He flushes. It’s not an unbecoming color, but his eyes flash with danger. For a moment, he has no words. Instead, he makes a sound suspiciously like a huff.
“You’re being terribly presumptuous—” he snaps.
“I think you’re being a dick. Or a—a prat.
” I fold my arms defiantly across my chest, pleased with my word choice being culturally appropriate, but unfortunately, we’re no further ahead in cross-cultural understanding.
Then, I think of the night out with Raj, and the now long-gone fun we had, and his generally wise warnings.
He sets his mug down, jaw set. “Well, I think you’re being a dick.”
“Seriously? You can’t even come up with a better insult than that? That’s so weak,” I challenge him, annoyed but entertained at the same time. “You can’t just copy me. C’mon. Since we’re having it out.”
“May I remind you this is a professional workplace—”
“Are you saying you want me to meet you out back by the dumpsters after school and have a fight?” I ask, incredulous. Maybe I underestimated him.
He stares at me as though I’m truly unhinged. Maybe I am. Why am I provoking him so much?
“They’re called wheelie bins here. And no, I hardly want a fistfight.” Mr. McLaren—Will—sniffs at me in an offhand way, like he doesn’t want to waste a perfectly good wheelie bin on me. “I didn’t want that as a child in school, and I certainly don’t intend to start now.”
“Good.”
Not that I want a fight either. Verbal or otherwise. I mean, when I had been in school, I mostly spent my after-school time with the other odd kids, out in the art room or watching the theatre kids rehearse. It was the best way to avoid the bullies.
We’re back to eyeing one another uncertainly, measuring up each other for size.
He presses his lips flat. I don’t feel any better having confronted him.
It’s not like how I imagined I’d feel, euphoric, like I was the physical manifestation of the poor overriding the rich in a surge of putting order in the world again.
Instead, I feel… kind of bad? What the hell?
Will’s standing by the window, backlit with the impressive London view, with his arms tightly folded across his chest, and I’m mirroring him, right down to the pressed lips.
I don’t even know when we got up. Or if anyone overheard our fight.
What an embarrassing thought. God, we could both get fired.
His cheeks are still flushed, and so apparently are his lips, to a deep red. There’s no harm in looking for a second—and, um, focus.
“I’m sorry for not calling you by your real name,” I offer tentatively into the silence. And I mean it. It’s not a sham apology.
Will works his jaw, visibly makes his shoulders relax, and puts his arms down by his sides. He fidgets with his pockets.
“It wasn’t very kind of me.” I meet his gaze, looking as sorry as I can, trying to be appealing in a way that usually wins people over. “And I can do better.”
Will doesn’t look convinced. “I’m… sorry that you think I’ve been selfish.”
I frown at him. A total fail on the apology front. I should have known better than to fall for this or think he would come clean too.
“Okay, okay. A lot better. I promise I’ll do a better job of being more mindful of others at the museum,” Will says at last. “Admittedly, I’ve been focused on myself.”
At last, I let out a long breath. “’Kay.”
We stare at each other again in the uncomfortable stillness of the room. What else do English people say when calling a truce?
“Let’s shake hands on it,” I try. Is that weird? I don’t know. But I’m committed now and stick out my hand. Don’t think about actually touching the guy. Shake hands and move on. “Let’s just do the work. God knows there’s enough of that to go around.”
“Excellent idea.” He looks relieved. He takes my hand and shakes it, and it’s everything I can do to stay focused. His hand is as hot as his gaze is cool, and his eyes turn out to be a beautiful silvery blue up close. Then he smiles, and he’s really something to look at then.
As my face heats up again, I snatch my hand away and turn back to the laptop that I’ve brought, hurriedly opening it before sitting a safe distance away from him. “Right, let’s get at it. There’s loads to do, like Lily said.”
“Right. Yes. Let’s focus on the work.”
When I glance up fleetingly, he looks as relieved as I am at the idea. He sits down too, finally, and opens his laptop.
“’Kay.” I sit straight in my chair. “We need a plan.”
We look at the printout that Lily left us of all three hundred and twenty-seven exhibits. It’s a thick stack. It’s in tiny font. There’s so much color coding. We don’t even know what the colors mean. Do we need to know? Who can say?
Neither one of us makes a move to touch the stack of paper. Will’s expression is pensive, like he might be having second thoughts about leaving Development for Curatorial.
“What’s three hundred twenty-seven minus seventy-five, anyway?” I wonder aloud, my usual skill with calculations dead on arrival, thanks to the late night and one too many drinks. All I know is that it’s not enough exhibits on-site and a whole lot of work ahead.
Mr. McLaren pulls out his phone and does the math. He looks deflated, drops his hand with the phone to the table. “Two hundred and fifty-two.”
If Will’s looking glum, this is my time to shine.
After all, I might not have great math skills, but I’ve got the museum studies degree and two weeks’ experience here in Curatorial on him, plus my previous volunteer experience in a museum.
And I’m motivated to keep on giving him a wide berth as much as I can.
“Let’s split the list.” Sitting straight in my chair, I nod decisively. “That’s it. Simple. You take half, and I take half. That’s only… one hundred twenty-six exhibits each.” I give him my best smile. “That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?”
“Well, it doesn’t sound good, to be honest. I’m not certain about this approach…”
I give him a warning look. “It’s a great idea, trust me. Lily said she’d email us the latest version of the document. So, then, the question is, do you want the first half or the second half?”
Flipping through the spreadsheet, I start to decode it. Cleverly, there’s a column with the temporary locations that’ve been filled out with the new arrivals. “Anything here already is highlighted in green.”
He rolls his chair closer, leans over, and peers at the paper like a man who has definitely seen too much.
If he’s daunted, I can capitalize on this till my fake confidence becomes real confidence.
“Yellow looks like it’s sourced and needs to still come to the museum.
Pink looks like the stuff to buy or the few things that don’t have any agreements signed or anything.
I think those are ones to check out with Lily.
What do you think? There doesn’t seem to be any other pattern to this that I can tell.
Maybe they’re coded by part of the exhibit. There seems to be themes.”
“First half, then.” Will straightens, too, as I pass over the first half of the spreadsheet pages. “It makes no difference to me.”
I nod. Then I flip through my half with the remaining exhibits.
I’m not gonna lie, it’s in fact overwhelming, if I’m honest. Better not start with an honesty-being-the-best-policy approach with myself right now.
But I can do this. I must have learned something useful in my degree about collections and exhibitions and strategy.
Then curiosity gets the better of me, and I ask, “Have you taken any museums courses?”
Mr. McLaren shakes his head and gives an apologetic smile, full charm, slightly crinkly eyes. “No. I studied economics at uni.”
“Huh.” I gulp. I guess that’s how he ended up over in Development on the money side.
We look at each other for a long moment, which is growing increasingly longer with each passing second. Till I can take in the gold flecks in his silvery blue eyes. That’s neither here nor there right now.
“Well,” I say gamely, a bit too loud in the dead silence. My face is warm. And is his a bit pink too? “There’s no time like the present to learn, is there?”
And that, weird silence surrounds us once more as we gather our things. Except I don’t have a desk to return to. In the end, I decide to stay while Will leaves, looking uncharacteristically harried.
“Hey,” I call out when he reaches the doorway. “Err, Will.”
He pauses then and looks over his shoulder at me, looking torn between leaving and hearing what it is I have to say. It might be my imagination, but I think he swallowed hard.
“I might have a museums textbook kicking around that I can loan you. It’ll give you an idea of some principles about working with collections and things.”
Will blinks in surprise, his eyebrows lifting. “You would do that?”
“Absolutely.”
Because God help me—and us—if I have to give Will museum lessons on a wild deadline. We both need him to learn as much as he can as soon as possible if this isn’t going to be a complete disaster.