Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Phoebe
At some point in a friendship, you end up sharing stories about when you were not your best self. It can feel risky when you really need your friend to be okay with whatever you’re about to share. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like a risk because the story is a filter; it removes people from your life who aren’t ready to deal with all of you.
Or so the mesmerizing European therapist says on the marriage counseling reality show Francie and I are obsessed with.
Here’s the thing: if I were dating Jay, I would not want to tell him this story. As a friend, I think I do. But since he’s a trustee of this museum, I don’t know if I should.
I would like to believe this story would never come up from anyone else. But there are no guarantees with Catherine Crawford.
“I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to get chosen as a docent at the Sutton when I was working on my undergrad,” I start. “Even though it’s a volunteer position, it’s highly competitive. And when that turned into a paid internship, I was giddy. And when that led to being hired as an assistant curator when I finished my master’s degree, I knew without a doubt I was the luckiest person in the world.”
“I hear all the time about how scarce those jobs are.”
I nod. “Museums are chronically understaffed on the maintenance and facilities side, but curators, conservators, and preservationists? There’s a line ten-deep of people dying to get into those positions, and those of us in the jobs are fighting to keep them like it’s the Battle of Bunker Hill.”
“I know you had many wars to choose from. Thank you for choosing the Revolutionary War.”
“Curators do have to know their audience.” Francie is the only person I have nerdy history banter with. It’s never made me wonder about kissing her, but that’s what I’m thinking about right now with Jay. What would it be like to kiss each smirk off his face when he’s pleased with his own jokes? This is strictly a Jay effect. A bad one. But that’s okay. I know exactly how to kill that vibe.
I take a breath. “I’m telling you all this so you know how much I loved working at the Sutton. It was an honor to be overworked and underpaid.” He smiles like he understands, but how could he? He’s a trust fund kid. “Promotions are rare. They usually only happen if we get a massive donation for a new exhibit or when someone retires. I knew I’d have to wait for a retirement to get promoted, but I felt lucky enough to be on staff at all.”
I wish I could rush through the next part, squishing the words together so I can get it over with. Or maybe mumbling them so low Jay can’t make them out. But I forge ahead. “About a year ago, I started dating the attorney who handles the museum’s legal issues. He works for a big-deal firm. His father is a managing partner and happens to be a board member of the Sutton, which is why he turned the account over to Hayes to do the legal work.”
“Nepo lawyer,” he says. “Cool. ”
“Yes. But Hayes is very good at his job.”
The first time I saw Hayes, he had just taken over the museum account for the firm. He was working out of a small office the museum held for the firm when we called them in to deal with the legality of acquiring or repatriating specific pieces. He’d been the most stereotypical version of an East Coast Ivy boy, and I’d immediately begun building his personality in my head. He’d be polished, funny in a highbrow way, confident, always wearing the highest quality but least flashy suits and shoes. He’d be big on tradition in a comforting, not stifling, way and want to name our children after Founding Fathers in his direct ancestral line.
It took a whole year before Hayes noticed me, and it was because we almost collided when I was stepping out of an elevator he was stepping into. He apologized. I smiled and told him not to worry about it, I’d see him in the office, then walked away as he looked at me in confusion.
Jay doesn’t need the details, but I’ve reviewed them so many times, trying to figure out where I missed the red flags. Probably the fact that it took Hayes a year to notice me was the biggest one.
“We dated for a few months, and I kept waiting for things to get more serious. We went out to restaurants and galleries and all of that, so I knew he wasn’t trying to hide me, but he never suggested I should meet his parents, even though they live in Boston. Around the six-month mark, I asked him what our relationship was. I was spending more time with him than I had to spare, and I wanted to know we were going somewhere.”
This isn’t even the “bad” part, and I already feel way too exposed. It shouldn’t matter what Jay thinks about how uninvested Hayes was in me.
“That all sounds reasonable,” Jay says, as if encouraging me to continue .
Might as well get it over with. “He told me he was the kind of guy who took things slow, but he said lots of nice things about how much he cared about me, that he thought he was falling for me, but it was a new feeling for him, and he was trying to understand it.”
I laugh at this, a short, disbelieving sound at my own na?vete. I’d dated enough to know better, but I’d been too caught up in finally finding my ideal man to wonder why he’d have to try to “understand” his feelings. I had my East Coast Ivy boy with his charming grin, his deep Boston roots, and his tailored suits. It was enough.
“This went on for a couple more months, then he invited me to a social at the Harvard Club for his law school cohort. Even though I’ve worked around fine art and wealthy patrons for years at the Sutton, socializing with them has always been limited to the winter fundraising gala. The Harvard Club was a totally different experience. Do you belong?” I ask Jay.
He nods, almost reluctantly. “It’s too good of a networking opportunity to pass up. I know the kinds of socials you’re talking about.”
“From the second we walked in, I felt like a faker.”
“I bet a lot of the people there do, even some who would surprise you.”
“Do you feel like that? A faker?” I can’t imagine it. Jay is the definition of “at ease.”
He moves his head side to side in a motion that isn’t yes or no. “Not a faker, no. More like I don’t belong because I’m not a doctor, lawyer, or CEO. Maybe it’s a shortcoming I have, but I don’t have much to talk to the other people about. I mostly go to the lounge, where I can run into my old professors.”
That’s a big difference. He felt like he didn’t belong because they didn’t have anything to offer him. At the social with Hayes, the other lawyers and their dates looked right past me because I had nothing to offer them. “It was an awkward night, but I didn’t think too much about it when we left. It’s an annual thing, so we wouldn’t have to do it often.”
“When did it change to not dating at all?”
“A week later. He told me he didn’t think we were a good fit because I was too suburban middle class.”
“He said that?” Jay looks as appalled as if I’d announced Hayes sold organs on the black market.
“Not in those words. He told me that we didn’t have enough things in common. He said down the road, he’d need to think about a partner who could host and entertain his high-powered friends comfortably because there would be a lot of that as he negotiated deals and brought in new clients.” I lean forward. “It turns out it was all because of lobster.”
“Sure, of course,” he says, deadpan. Then his expression switches to disbelief. “ Lobster ?”
“Yeah. They were serving some bacon-wrapped hors d’oeuvres at the Harvard thing. I took one and said it was tasty and asked if it was crab. But it was lobster. And this helped Hayes realize that I lack the background he needed in a partner. He meant a girlfriend or even a wife, but it felt more like business partner. But girlfriend, wife, or business partner, his person would need to know lobster on sight, or he couldn’t bring them around the Harvard Club. Who needs that kind of embarrassment?” I say this in a wry tone, but traces of shame from his words make my face feel hot and my heartbeat sound loud.
Jay’s eyebrows draw together into a single dark line over his straight nose, and he calls Hayes a word that’s an insult to well-behaved donkeys.
I nod again. “Basically.”
“Did you take Foster’s offer to get away from Hayes?”
“Of course not. Like I said, he wasn’t in all the time, and we didn’t work together directly. I figured we’d just be courteous when our paths crossed, and if he needed to be in his museum office, those would be good times to work on non-admin tasks that would take me away from my desk. Awkward but workable.”
“Okay …” Jay says it slowly, like he’s starting to wonder why we’re talking about Hayes at all.
“A month after we broke up, the Sutton had its gala. All staff were required to attend. My roommate Francie works in the archives, and we went as each other’s dates. My boss, Henry Chu, liked me to circulate among our biggest donors because they responded well to me.”
“You mean you sweet-talked them out of gobs of cash?” he asks with a slight smile.
“Shamelessly,” I agree. “All for the cause. So I’m chatting with a couple who loaned an Edward Hopper painting for permanent display, when I spot Hayes with a date. I do my best to ignore him, and it’s going fine until we’re all seated for dinner. His father goes onstage to announce that the Sutton settled a lawsuit with Indonesia over a diamond headpiece, and the museum will retain it on permanent loan. Big applause for his son who resolved the dispute, yay, we’re keeping it.”
“But you’re annoyed because it makes the ex who dumped you the hero of the night?” Jay guesses.
“If only. Turns out, Papa Bradford also wants us to all toast his son to congratulate him on his recent engagement to his college sweetheart.”
“Wait, how long did you say this was after your breakup?”
“A month.”
“Oh, dang. He was cheating?”
“No, but it turned out our breakup coincided with his ex moving back from New York.”
“So, what did you do?”
“I look down at the lobster tail on my plate?— ”
“No,” he says. “They were really serving lobster?”
“Yes, because the universe had my back on this one. I pick up the tail and march over to Hayes and his fiancée, whose table is up near the front.”
Jay’s hand has crept up to cover his mouth, but I plow ahead. “I introduce myself to her as the woman he was dating until a month ago, then I tell Hayes, ‘Just to show you there are no hard feelings, I brought you your favorite.’ And I tuck it into the front pocket of his tux with his stupid pocket square and walk out.”
After a beat of silence, Jay’s hand drops to reveal a grin. “I’m not worthy.”
“It was a boss move,” I acknowledge. “But you, me, and Francie might be the only three people who think so. Several of the museum’s biggest donors were sitting at the table, and they definitely didn’t think so. One of them called Henry to complain about it the next morning, and I got an official reprimand for unprofessional behavior with a report in my personnel file.”
When he only shrugs like the whole situation is entertaining, I tilt my head. “That doesn’t concern you as a trustee of the museum I’ve just been hired to run?”
His smile fades, his forehead wrinkling again. I know this expression now. It’s his thinking face. “If I’d heard this before I’d seen you in action, I might have concerns. Probably not. I’d most likely have heard the story and thought ‘That sounds like an interesting person to get to know.’ But I’ve seen you at work, and my grandfather did exactly what I expected he’d do and hired the right person for the job.”
“That’s not a unanimous opinion. Guess who made that call to my boss?”
He sighs. “Catherine Crawford.”
“She was at the table with Hayes. Apparently, his fiancée is the granddaughter of one of her college friends. Catherine wasn’t happy about it.”
“She took it personally?”
“That’s what the evidence suggests.”
“What evidence? Did she try to get you fired or something?”
“Or something.” I need to tread carefully here. “Two months after the gala, one of our senior curators accepted a position with a London museum. It opened up a chance for promotion. In a museum as big as the Sutton, you move from assistant curator to associate to senior. Then, when you are very old and have fifty PhDs and everyone else has burned out, you might become the chief curator. I’d been working as an associate curator for three years by then, and I had the credentials and experience to be a senior curator. It should have been a lock. The chief curator and deputy director both agreed. They interviewed candidates for another month, but they ultimately offered me the promotion, contingent upon board approval.”
“The board didn’t approve.” It’s not a question. He sees where this is going.
“From my understanding, most of them did. Catherine Crawford argued against it. She didn’t feel like I had the necessary professionalism to handle high-level management. They could have overridden her, but she was adamant and forced them to table the vote until the next meeting. Then she went straight to Henry Chu and talked him into withdrawing the job offer. I thought Henry was in my corner, but directors have to be political, and ultimately he had other qualified candidates to choose from, so he didn’t fight it.”
The days following that decision had been the roughest of my career, because I was sure I’d seen the path forward coming to a dead end. At least as long as Catherine Crawford was on the board .
“How often do positions open up?” Jay asks. “Once she’s gone …”
“Our chief curator is retiring in eighteen months. That will open another senior curator position. But the Sutton is Catherine’s passion, and she’s put a great deal of time and money into helping it thrive—and ensuring she has influence any time she wants to use it. She won’t step down, and I might not like her, but I’m not rooting for her to retire from life .”
I tap the new Smitten Kitten letter. “This is what I mean about a double standard existing. Because I’m a woman, I’m treated as unprofessional and too emotional when I have a justifiable reaction to discovering I’ve been used as a convenience for six months. But Hayes doesn’t suffer any consequence at all. Not for dating someone at a client institution. Not for announcing his engagement without a heads-up when he knew I was at the event.”
Jay studies me for a moment, biting the inside of his cheek like he’s having an internal debate. Finally, he says, “But what if the situation were reversed and Hayes had stuck a lobster tail in your neckline or something? Wouldn’t he be seen as unprofessional at a minimum?”
“It would never have happened because I wouldn’t have brought a date to an event at his workplace after barely dumping him.”
“But if you had, and he’d gone lobster tail on you …”
“I’m not saying that what I did was wise. Justified? Absolutely. But I’d do it differently if I had it to do over again. However, I do think if I were a man, that would have been weighed against all the work I’ve done at the Sutton, and it would have been written off, not held against me.”
“I don’t know Catherine well yet, so I can’t comment.”
“Remember, the rest of the board had no issue with promoting me. She disliked me from the start, and I’m not sure why. All I know is that literally everything I did only reinforced whatever opinion she had of me.”
“What if she changes her mind after working with you more closely on this board? You’ll get a redemption arc.”
That’s what I’m after—but an even bigger arc than he’s imagining. “I don’t know if I’ll ever change her mind. I suggested all kinds of exhibitions and educational programs that she shot down because she thought they were ‘beneath the dignity of the Sutton.’ In her mind, the gala proved I wasn’t up to scratch.”
“You didn’t know she would be on the board when you accepted the job, right? Did she know you were the director?”
“She said she agreed to do it specifically to keep an eye on me.”
“That sucks.” He tugs at his lip, thinking. “Did my grandfather know about any of this? Lobstergate or your friction with Catherine?”
I shake my head. “He knew I was dating Hayes. Foster passed away before we broke up.”
“And the friction with Catherine?”
I consider this. “He heard me get exasperated when she argued against a couple of my proposals, but Foster usually took my side and would laugh when I grumbled about her voting a proposal down. He would say my ideas were fresh, and old people like him and Catherine needed to hear them.”
He does his distant stare again, and I wait a minute, but he doesn’t come out of it. Is he wondering if Foster would still have chosen me if he’d known about the lobster? The longer Jay takes to speak, the more uncomfortable I feel.
When I can’t take it anymore, I break the silence. “I wouldn’t have taken the job if I didn’t think I could do justice to Foster’s vision. We’d talked so much about the work he was doing here to get it ready, and I read through his mission statement and founding documents about a hundred times before I accepted the position.”
Jay focuses on me. “Grandad would still have wanted you for the job. But I’m wondering if you only took it as a stepping stone back to the Sutton.”
There it is.
The question I hoped he would never ask me.