Chapter 8
“This is pretty sick, huh?” says Tyler, his mouth hanging open as he lolls his head back to gaze upward. “Can you even imagine the audacity in starting a painting this big?”
We’re staring up at The Raft of the Medusa, which is totally massive. It’s not as big as an IMAX screen, but it’s probably as big as one of those smaller movie screens that an oldish movie gets shown on a week before it leaves the cineplex.
There are no crowds anywhere else in the Louvre this late at night, not even in front of the other heavy hitters like this one.
“Yeah,” I say, distracted.
I mean, I’m impressed by the painting—the drama, the hugeness, the twisted tangle of bodies writhing on top of the sinking raft.
I try to remember all the things I learned in art history that I’m supposed to be looking for—brushstrokes (there are a lot of them); lighting (all the shadows are pointing in the same direction); perspective (it definitely looks 3-D, even without glasses).
But I’m not really taking it in. The painting is punching me in the eyes with its fists of beauty, but I want to be punched directly in the heart.
I thought the Mona Lisa would do that. But it didn’t.
We keep walking, passing by some of the other major art icons, like the Coronation of Napoleon painting. I can’t get it out of my mind how disappointed I was by the Mona Lisa. And then I start shaming myself for not being more grateful that I’m even here, and it’s a vicious cycle.
If I can’t be awed by the freaking Louvre Museum, maybe a part of me really is dead inside, and I’ve just been streaming every movie I can find to turn off my brain and numb myself.
When we head back into the main lobby right under the glass pyramid, through which we can see the clear night sky, Tyler says, “We still have a little time before they close. Mind if we take a quick peek in the Sully Wing? That’s where my favorite room in the whole museum is, and I didn’t get to see it earlier with the group. ”
I shrug. I guess I owe it to Tyler for coming back here with me. “Sure. Why not?”
The Sully Wing is totally empty. It’s full of those ancient civilization artifacts that people always skip at museums, and a bunch of early religious paintings.
The vibes are impeccable, however. The aroma in the air is kind of perfect—musty and a little bit moldy, like the least-visited corner of an old library.
There’s no one around, but the floorboards make a lot of creaking noises under our sneakers, like we’re on some wooden ship rocking in a storm.
At this time of night, the security people realize that no one wants to steal these pieces, so no one’s patrolling the area.
We could play an epic game of hide-and-seek.
Which is exactly what Tyler and I would be playing if we’d come here back when we were little.
In fact, I remember a time when Tyler’s nanny, Roseline—I remember the spotted, crinkly skin around her eyes so well—took Tyler and me to the Fernbank Natural History Museum in Atlanta.
Tyler and I played hide-and-seek in the children’s wing, and I snuck out into the lobby to hide behind the pedestal that the giant T.
rex skeleton was standing on. I wasn’t aware of how much time was passing—I was just excited that I’d found such a good hiding spot—but when I finally gave up and emerged from behind the statue, I realized I was totally lost. Panic set in and I started wandering around in circles and was about to go ask a museum guard for help when Roseline shouted my name and started racing toward me from where she’d been talking to a museum guard.
Apparently, I’d been gone for more than an hour.
Roseline was so relieved to finally find me that she cried, and when Tyler saw Roseline crying, Tyler started bawling, too.
Then I started bawling, and Roseline took us to Bruster’s for ice cream to make all of us feel better.
Then the thought occurs to me: Was that what Tyler was referring to earlier when he said I have a history of getting lost? Has he remembered that incident all along? But if he did, why is it so important to him to pretend we weren’t friends?
Now, in a very different museum, in a very different time, Tyler pipes up, “Here it is! My favorite room at the Louvre.”
I look up at the sign outside the gallery room and read it out loud: “ ‘Realist French Still Lifes and Landscapes of the Eighteenth Century.’ Yikes. Doesn’t exactly sound like a can’t-miss.”
“Give it a chance, will you?” says Tyler, practically skipping into the room like a kid entering a candy store. “You start on this end, and I’ll start on the other. If you can guess which painting is my favorite, you can choose our next stop of the night, too.”
I roll my eyes. Why is Tyler so confident there will be a next stop? I’m feeling exhausted and after this, I might just want to head back to the hostel and nap on the courtyard cobblestones.
“That sounds like a super fun game,” I say sarcastically. Not even close to as fun as museum hide-and-seek. “I’ll just look for the most pretentious painting in here.”
“That’s one possible strategy,” says Tyler cheerfully.
I glance around the room at the different paintings, and all I see are drab little tablescapes.
Bowls of fruit. Jars. Flowers. Jugs of water for days.
A stale scrap of bread on a platter with a random pigeon picking at it.
More fruit. I doubt any of these is Tyler’s favorite.
And nothing here is pumping my heart full of beauty just yet.
I feel distracted and antsy, my thoughts jumping from Mademoiselle Alvarez finding our empty beds to Mom being super disappointed in me when she learns I’ve been kicked out of school.
I turn to look at Tyler on the other side of the gallery.
Unlike me, he’s totally engaged. You can get a lot closer to these paintings than you can the Mona Lisa, and stroking his chin, he leans forward, almost as if the frames are windows he wants to crawl through.
His brows are furrowed but he looks earnest, totally swept up by the art.
Excellent. Yet another reason for me to be jealous of Tyler Travers.
He probably learned art appreciation from spending countless hours in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City—when he wasn’t lounging on the stairs in front of it next to his gaggle of fellow gorgeous and wealthy prep school kids.
I move on to the next painting.
“Oh, holy mother of Cheezus,” I blurt out in terror. My high-pitched squeal echoes throughout the gallery. I clamp my hands over my mouth.
I look at Tyler, who’s now right next to me, that amused smirk back on his face.
“Do you think you’ve found my favorite painting?” he asks, crossing his arms.
“No!” I say. “Only a serial killer would say this was their favorite painting.”
The painting I’m pointing to also shows random stuff on a table, but this is by far the ugliest: two rotting fishes, a bunch of raw oysters, a bouquet of dried-up green onions, a bunched-up tablecloth, and in the center, what looks like a dead stingray hanging from a hook, its underside cut open with the guts spilling out onto the table.
Weirdest of all, there’s a mangy kitten a few inches away, back arched, fur raised, hissing, as if it’s as freaked out as I am.
Who would paint something so disgusting? I read the plaque below the frame.
La raie “The Ray” (1728) by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699–1779)
I shudder. “This Chardin dude must have been a real joy to be around,” I say sarcastically.
“Why do you say that?” asks Tyler, tilting his head to the side and fixing me with a gaze that looks curious and open.
I scrunch my nose. “Of all the beautiful things in the world, why paint this?” I say, gesturing at the painting as if it’s a pile of dog poop that I’m warning people not to step in.
“Isn’t the whole point of art to help you escape the ugliness of everyday life, not stick your nose in it?
It’s gross. It’s depressing. It’s the exact opposite of what I’m looking for in life. ” I catch myself. “I mean, in art.”
“Huh,” says Tyler, nodding slowly. I feel my cheeks going hot—I didn’t mean to get so worked up about how much I despise the painting.
He calmly turns back to the painting and leans closer to it.
“Everything you say about it is totally valid. I mean, it’s a pretty nasty scene.
Like, you can practically taste how it smells. ”
I look at him from the corner of my eye, suspicious. Is he making fun of me again? It’s so hard to tell with him. But I see that he’s smiling and looking at the painting in an intense way. And suddenly I realize something.
“Let me guess,” I say. “This really is your favorite painting?”
“Ding, ding, ding!” Tyler says, still looking at the canvas. “You win the game.”
I can’t help but grin. I inch slightly closer to the painting, too. In the absolute silence of the museum, I can hear the light sound of Tyler breathing next to me. I focus on the guts of the stingray. I try to see what Tyler sees in them.
“It’s still the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” I say. And yet, just as the words come out of my mouth, I realize that there’s something weirdly hypnotic about the image at the same time. My eyes are practically watering from the fishy stench that’s not actually there.
“Well, Marcel Proust wrote about this painting,” Tyler says.