Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Monday morning, I’m a little bleary-eyed as we all stand in the gallery under the full lights for our daily install stand-up meeting.
The old show has been packed up, with the last of the drop-offs scheduled for today and more incoming deliveries timed to the hour.
Today, I’m on-site again, and Will is due to make the final drop-offs.
Lily briefs the team on the exhibition, doing a walk through the gallery with us. She finishes up with our rising problem. “And tomorrow, we will start installing the exhibits for the show.”
Across the circle of the team around Lily, I meet Will’s gaze. He looks away. Coy bastard. When Lily lets everyone dive in on the day’s tasks, I catch him before he slips out the back door to the waiting lorry.
“Hey, hang on a second,” I call after him, hurrying along the loading area and trotting down the steps after him. My advantage is I can take steps faster than he does, and now, after everything, I know why.
Will walks slowly over the cobbles. He pauses next to the lorry. The driver’s inside, waiting.
I trot up next to him, brushing my fingers against his wrist as I search his eyes for any sign of the Will I know and have fallen for. Apparently hard. His jaw is tight.
“Hey,” I try again softly.
So close, I can see his Adam’s apple move as he swallows. “Dylan.”
“I’m getting the distinct feeling you’re avoiding me. And I hate to pull the we need to talk talk here in the middle of everything, but you know.”
His eyes widen as he glances from me to the transport, back to the museum, and finally resting on me again. “Now? Surely this is ill-timed.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know what’s going on exactly, but I miss you like you’ve got my heart in your hands. Because you do. And I need to find a way to reach you, but I don’t know how. All I know is I feel what we have slipping away.”
His head lowers ever so slightly. His voice strains when he speaks. “Please, Dylan. I can’t have this conversation here.”
“Then when?”
“I…” He looks away. “Tomorrow, maybe. After work. It’ll probably be late.”
“Okay,” I concede, letting him go. And I stand there, watching him climb up the side of the lorry into the passenger seat with enviable athleticism, staying till they drive away down the lane.
When I go back in, Lily catches me. “We need to review the exhibits list and plan our strategy for tomorrow and get everything as ready as we can for the first phase of the install tomorrow. Let’s go to the boardroom.”
Dutifully, I accompany Lily. When we settle in with our laptops and the big floor plan on the wall, she gestures at it. The different sections of the floor plan are color coded. She’s labeled them by hand with the different phases for installation. Or maybe our project manager did.
At any rate, my stomach’s dropped to my ankles because Phase One starts with the earliest ’60s and ’70s fashion exhibitions through the ’90s: Mary Quant, Paul Smith, and Vivienne Westwood.
Phase Two will be the architectural models for the ’60s and ’70s buildings of note in London, along with industrial design pieces, and Phase Three is the furniture.
“Is something wrong?” Lily asks me. Despite my best efforts, I can’t quite keep the shock from my face about the plan.
We’re really screwed. I try to think of how to handle this.
I could lie, which won’t bode well. I could tell the truth, which would be worse.
Either way, it’s going to involve throwing both Will and me under the bus if I’m not careful.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I assure her. “Not exactly.”
She frowns slightly, because she’s perceptive like that and my response isn’t exactly a smooth endorsement of confidence of the sort that Will could pull out of a hat with his easy charisma when he’s on.
“Not exactly?” she asks.
Fuck. Here we go.
“Maybe you’d like to start with Phase Two instead?” I try gently.
“Why would I want to start with Phase Two? I want to work from the one side around to the other so we can install the exhibits with minimal movement around them to mitigate risks. We have to start with Phase One.”
I fight the very strong urge to either slump in my chair or rub my face with my hands. Instead, I summon my best posture from my dance training and hold her gaze. “We have a problem, I’m sorry to say.”
Her eyebrows raise, and then she adjusts her glasses, leaning in. “A problem?”
“I’ve—we’ve—been hoping to have better news for you, I’m afraid.”
She waits, staring me down. Ordinarily, Lily isn’t an intimidating woman, but right now, she is, and I’d rather eat my own shoes than try to explain what’s happened. Because hell if I know what’s happened. I focus on the facts as best I know them.
“An exhibit has been misplaced.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “Misplaced?”
“Er, yes. A collection, actually.” I give her a wry look and force myself to not fidget. It takes every scrap of willpower I own.
She lets this sink in. “Which collection?”
Her frown doesn’t bode well. Then again, there’s no reason why this would bode well.
“The Vivienne Westwood collection,” I say quickly, then do my best to explain.
“We picked up the loan as planned earlier in the summer and brought the collection on-site. Except somehow, with all the exhibits coming in, the location wasn’t recorded.
The collection should be logged and secure in the prep room.
And, well, we haven’t been able to find it yet. But we will.”
Her eyes widen. “How long have you known about this? Why didn’t you immediately come to me?”
“We haven’t known long,” I assure her. “We wanted to bring everything out of the storage locations. We’ll check again in case it was set in with the permanent storage locations. But unfortunately, so far, we haven’t been able to find it. It’s a mistake, and we’re both very sorry.”
Lily’s speechless as she gazes at me. I gulp. We contemplate each other in a heavy awkwardness like lead. Or quicksand. Something terrible, definitely. And my leg starts to jiggle till I force myself to stop.
“Which is why,” I try again, meek, “I was suggesting to start with Phase Two.”
“Dylan, this is a very serious situation. I’m going to have to tell the executive and our insurers immediately. This is a special, high-value collection. Security will need to do an audit.”
The worst part isn’t what she’s saying but the pure disappointment across her face. I slump at last.
“I was counting on you both.”
“I know. I’m so sorry. We both are.”
“Just… just go back to work in the gallery. I’ll find you later, and hopefully, you’ll have better news for me then.”
I gulp, nodding at the dismissal. “Yes, of course. Absolutely. I’ll get back to work right away. Anything you need, please ask.”
Lily nods, turning to gaze out the window at the gray Thames beyond. And I retreat to the gallery, feeling like a complete failure. I pause only long enough to text Will.
Lily knows.
It’s a terrible day. There’s no other way to put it.
Sick to my stomach, I do my best to work through the careening thoughts.
What’s worse is that Lily doesn’t come find me, even though I work late with the team, receiving exhibits.
It’s a terrible silence from Will as well. Till he texts at last in the afternoon.
They’ll do an investigation.
And that’s it. I want to scream.
I work twice as hard as usual. Through the day, I catch glimpses of Lily with the members of the museum executive, the director and the VP, at the far end of the gallery.
Everyone’s grim-faced. Lily walks them through the Phase One area while I keep a wide berth over with the incoming exhibits.
My clipboard heaves with the day’s chain-of-custody transfer receipts.
Which I diligently scan and log into the tracker, as is the familiar routine.
Your job’s over. Everything’s over.
I doom spiral with great efficiency. As the day progresses, the head of Security also comes through with her second-in-command, making assessments with Lily, having more conversations I can’t hear. And, frankly, don’t want to hear.
When I leave the museum at 8:00 p.m., I’m wrecked. I would much rather Lily have yelled at me rather than this silence. Same goes for Will.
Lily sends a text in the evening: there’s a meeting tomorrow at 9:00 a.m., and both Will and I are expected to attend.
Needless to say, I get very little sleep.