Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Phoebe
The next day is chaos. Literal and figurative.
Literally, the contractor’s truck pulls into the Martin House right behind me, and I get out to greet him. We scheduled him to start today barring any last-minute objection from the board, and I texted him after the meeting to let him know he was approved. Within minutes his crew is making disturbing and very loud noises on the third floor.
Figuratively, the plan I’ve been forming over the last two weeks is a jumble of confetti inside my brain. No, something not festive. The plan is the sodden remains of a newspaper left on a driveway in the rain.
What does Catherine mean I got the facts but not the spirit? My former boss, Henry Chu, always cautioned me for being the opposite, so full of enthusiasm for an idea that I wasn’t fully considering whether it fit the mission of the Sutton. My point had always been that the mission of the Sutton should become more expansive, incorporating new mediums to reach younger generations, to bridge the gap between the way they experience art and life now to the eras covered in our collections .
He’d smiled and shaken his head and said, “Are you sure you don’t want to be in an art gallery somewhere?”
He was teasing. I’d managed a contemporary art gallery while working on my master’s. It was that practical management experience that had gotten me my full-time position with the Sutton to begin with. The ability to manage tasks beyond conservation and acquisition isn’t explicitly taught in most museum-focused degree programs.
Henry had let me propose about one in five of my ideas to the board. They’d approved one in five of those, but it still meant that in my three years as an associate curator, I curated an exhibition. Considering the Sutton only does two a year in addition to the permanent collection, it’s a big deal, even if they changed a lot from my original proposal.
I’d been more successful in pitching limited-scope programs, like enrichment nights for donors and members, when they got special access to tours or experts or speakers. In fact, I’d gotten more ideas from pitch to reality than any other curator on staff, and it was why I fully expected a promotion.
The one I didn’t get because of Catherine.
I was so very careful to Catherine-proof my presentation last night against criticisms of being too frivolous or lowbrow or whatever usual objections the stuffier Sutton board members had made in more diplomatic terms. If I needed any proof that Catherine’s issue with me was both personal and irrational, I got it when she criticized my plans for the opposite reason she’d always blocked them at the Sutton.
This has to go beyond the Hayes situation. I don’t know what to do about it yet, but I’ll suffocate beneath a truckload of Smitten Kitten dead letters before I let that woman squeeze me out of this job.
Three sonic booms sound from upstairs, and I clap my hands over my ears. My head is throbbing, and I don’t know if the demolition noise is causing it or imitating it.
I cannot think in here, and I’m too riled up replaying the meeting to focus on details, so I work on cleaning up, putting away the folding tables, rearranging the furniture.
When I pass the sofa where I toppled over Jay, I pause. I know more about how strong his thighs feel than anyone who isn’t wildly into him should. Not my fault. Not for getting my hair stuck in a bike, which I still don’t understand how it happened. Not even for playing keep-away with the cookie.
I growl and bat at the sofa cushion where he sat in case any crumbs were left behind. I do not feel better. I’m going to have to come up with a ritual for cleansing the Crawford energy from this room after every board meeting, like maybe choosing one of Foster’s volumes of poetry and reading aloud a stirring narrative poem about vanquishing foes?
Mmm, yes, that sounds like the perfect antidote. Some fierce vanquishing!
Right now, though, I can’t focus enough to find his poetry shelves with the racket above me.
I march to the desk, scoop up my work bag, and march myself out the back door. I will take my very first work-from-home day, and if the contractor or Catherine’s disapproving essence in the library or Jay judge me for it, I don’t care.
Twenty minutes later, I step into The Serendipity, where I hear laughter floating from the direction of the pool but no brain-rattling demolition.
The chaos in my head is quieting. I’ll be far more productive here.
I hold on to that belief for almost a full minute—until I swing by the mailboxes because I have that feeling again. It’s familiar somehow, and I’m trying to figure out why. Then I remember. In elementary school, all the fourth and fifth grade classes got a new pen pal each year. We’d trade letters once a month, and our whole class would buzz a bit when it was letter week, knowing that any day, our teacher would announce the letters had come. Then she’d pass them out and we’d open them, wondering which lucky classmate might have gotten a surprise sticker or Pokémon card, or if our pen pal liked what we might have sent them in our previous letter.
This is the same feeling. Anticipation. When had I begun looking forward to these letters coming?
Sure enough, I spot a familiar white envelope in my box. I lean toward the dial and say softly, “Your timing sucks, but fine. You got me.” I work the combination, but the lock doesn’t open.
“Really?” I whisper-yell. I step back, roll my neck, draw in a lungful of the cool air, and pause. That breath was cookie scented. I sniff and catch the scent of fresh cookies wafting from the kitchen. A blonde head pops around the corner.
A friendly-looking woman asks, “Did you say something?”
“Oh, uh, no. It’s, um …”
She straightens and walks around to lean against the wall at the end of the mailboxes. “I’m Willa from 2J. I’m baking cookies for an event tonight.”
“Phoebe, 3E. Nice to meet you. I appreciate the aromatherapy.”
She grins. “Pop in any time you hear me working and grab a cookie. I always have extra.”
“Thank you. Sorry if I distracted you.”
“You didn’t. Is your mailbox giving you trouble?”
“I think I have it figured out.”
She gives me a knowing look, taps on the mailbox labeled 2J, and says, “You are aged to perfection. You know you want to open for me, don’t you?” Then she works the dial, and it pops open.
I shake my head and give my mailbox a couple of gentle pats. “Art Deco is the best deco.” It opens when I tug the dial .
Willa grins. “It’s not even the weirdest thing this building does. Hit me up for cookies and survival tips any time.”
“I will,” I promise as she returns to the kitchen.
I pull out the envelope. It’s for Smitten Kitten.
Next I pull out my phone and text Jay.
Phoebe
picture of letter
I’d rather die than work in the big house today. Meet me at Serendipi-Tea.
Jay
I will give you my entire trust fund if you get me a large chai and bring it to the cottage.
Phoebe
You have AC?
Jay
And pebble ice
I don’t even answer him on my way out to my car.