Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
HAPPILY EVER BEFORE
Arden
Some days, I look around the office at the men in their perfectly pressed white shirts and wonder if they feel it too. That low-grade panic bubbling just beneath the surface of the glass ceiling they don’t even realize is in place. One day, they’ll just be able to ascend through without any concerns of cracks, leaving it fully intact for those below them. I imagine them staring at their screens, fingers hovering over keyboards that produce profitability rather than poetry, wondering if they are secretly doodling marginalia to remind them of the imaginary friends they abandoned along the way. At some point the only keys they remember are QWERTY not pianos, and the only notes they have are the ones for their powerpoint presentations.
Men don't seem to do tortured soul-searching the way women are expected to, they are too busy constructing their own narratives while we're just trying to survive the ones they’ve written about us.
This isn't bad , I remind myself. It's exactly what I wanted. Or at least, it's what I thought I wanted before wanting became this complicated algorithm of compromise and desperate ambition.
"Arden," The use of my name has me swiveling around in my chair. Pricktor, I mean, Victor appears like my subconscious conjured him.
Despite the Thompson Challenge running in the backgrounds of all our minds, it’s all still business as usual. It’s really quite brilliant, a win-win way the company gets to overwork everyone with the possibility of just a slightly more golden carrot at the end of the race.
"Did you finish the analysis of which areas are under performing?" Right now, I think I’m the under performing area.
"Yes." I flick back to the screen, trying to ignore how he's moved to hover behind my shoulder, his cologne is too sharp this close and we both know it. "There are two departments that are responsible for about 37% loss."
"Excellent." His reflection feels like it’s looking right at me. "I'll have you present your findings and the resulting termination plan for the employees in those domains."
I spin my chair to face him, "Did you say termination? We're firing them?"
He arches an eyebrow, the same look he gives when someone presents a report with a typo. "What did you think the purpose was?"
"I thought we were going to improve productivity? Improve performance?" My voice sounds smaller than I'd like, and I hate that. I force myself to maintain eye contact as I continue, "I didn't know we were terminating..." I look at my screen once more to confirm the numbers, the figures now feeling less like data and more like faces, "terminating one hundred and three jobs!"
Victor adjusts his cuffs that need no adjusting, just like when he points out an unneeded correction on a document just to remind you he can. In this case, it’s a tell that he’s gearing up to deliver something he considers mentor worthy.
"Sometimes things can't be salvaged, it's important to know when to cut your losses. You'll benefit from learning that early," he says flatly.
I have a pit in my stomach, and the way he's still standing there, expecting grateful acknowledgment of his wisdom, only makes it worse.
The city is a living metaphor, historic buildings nestled behind contemporary facades. A physical representation of the internal landscape I'm constantly negotiating. Duality has always been my love language, and this place speaks it fluently. So today, I'm choosing to get lost somewhere that isn't the labyrinth of my own overthinking.
The contemporary pavilion stands like a protective guardian over the historic building behind it, a glass-and-steel preserving something delicate and profound. I'm not going to spend too much time unpacking the painfully obvious parallel to my own emotional architecture. Some metaphors are best left unexamined, like the one you know you shouldn't keep texting but definitely do, especially after your third glass of wine, or an all around shitty work day. Who am I kidding, I already have an email drafted ready to send him, no wine necessary.
I slide my expired college ID across the ticket counter, wearing my most charming I'm-definitely-still-a-student smile. The intern, who looks like he's running on nothing but cold brew and unresolved career anxiety, doesn't bat an eye. Only grunting one word, ‘tour?’ He points to the sign up sheet. ‘I’m good on my own.’
We're in an unspoken pact, he'll give me the discount, I'll pretend I'm not essentially committing museum fraud, and we'll both get on with our day.
The croissant hanging from my mouth is probably not helping my sophisticated-art-patron-vibe, but some days, survival is about choosing your battles. Today, that battle is definitely not with this chocolate-filled pastry that I need for physical and emotional sustenance.
As I move through the glass-enclosed walkway, the modern world starts to dissolve. It's like stepping through a portal with each step taking me further from financial briefs, closer to something that feels more like breathing.
The space opens up like a revelation. A soaring glass ceiling floods the interior with light so pure it could resurrect Renaissance dreams. Ancient Roman sculptures stand like silent witnesses, flowering plants softening the edges of marble and memory. These are Babylonian gardens hidden in the heart of a city that moves too quickly to notice. Fountains murmur their eternal conversations, blending with the hushed voices of fellow time travelers, though they might just consider themselves tourists.
The great rooms with their golden frames are humbling in a way that feels almost cellular. Each room has an intimacy within it to remind you how intentionally curated this space is.
The combination of carbs and canvases has become my go-to coping mechanism for early-twenties ennui, a habit that started that fateful rising sophomore summer. There's magic in places like this, there’s also heartbreak, and tragedy. Maybe that’s why it can strip you of your own. It gives you someplace to feel things rather than your own tortured heart. This is the closest reality I can find to the ones I create while dreaming at my desk, remembering books with protagonists whose lives never escape the pages.
In college I took more than one art history class. The first was for a required credit, the second and third were just because I loved them. Which is why on a good day, I know my way around a museum. On a bad day, I get lost in them. Two guesses which kind of day today is? I take another bite of my contraband croissant. Definitely not meant to be eating here.
I weave through a motley crew of museum-goers. The retirees with their comfortable shoes, the wide eyed tourists, and a handful of college students who look like they're one coffee away from a breakdown. Been there — spoiler alert, it doesn’t end when you graduate. We're a jury of mismatched peers, bound together by nothing more than our shared proximity in this one momentary intersection.
The painting before me seems to glow from within. No doubt why they put her where they did, positioned precisely where the sun can illuminate all the indecent brush strokes. It’s an unwritten rule, the bright thing always centered for everyone to see. She’s massive, though it really isn’t the size that overwhelms you first. It's the light. The way it seems to pulse from within, like somehow her pale body glows in spite of everything going on, even as the fabric of her dress commits the ultimate betrayal and exposes her, leaving me to feel like I’m witnessing something I shouldn’t be.
It’s not just me watching. The tour guide stands at the front radiating a kind of practiced authority that screams ‘ I've memorized every possible fact about this painting.’ His all-black outfit is meant to be museum-docent but is giving much more of an art world rebel vibe. I always thought these jobs were reserved for retired professors, but in the glimpses of him, he doesn’t look much older than me, if at all.
"Before us, we see a luminous woman with billowing red silk as she twists away from a white bull charging into a stormy sea while cupids weeping in the golden sky above." He explains the top level of paint, his voice a perfect blend of warm academic passion and performative drama.
"This masterpiece," he continues, "depicts Jupiter, king of the gods, who spots a gorgeous Phoenician princess, Europa, and decides that his best move is to transform himself into the most beautiful bull anyone's ever seen… We're talking flower garlands, soft fur, the kind of bull that makes you temporarily forget everything you’ve been taught about not approaching strange animals."
There’s a sense of comedy to his explanation, a punch on certain words to emphasize the hilarity of the mythology and keep everyone engaged. Though I suspect his face keeps people engaged enough as is. Through the glimpses and cracks between guests in front of me, I can see him. He carries himself with a rare mix of easy confidence and genuine enthusiasm, like one feeds the other, making even the most obscure facts sound like secrets he’s only sharing with you. It’s how everyone is enraptured by him as he speaks. How he commands a space, where even the security guards nod as he passes with his group. His voice carrying just enough to keep everyone engaged without disturbing the sacred quiet of the gallery spaces.
But as he does, his voice shifts to something more reverent.
"That's exactly what is captured here. This is the pinnacle of Titian's Posies. How he captures both the violence and the ecstasy of divine intervention, while being a representation of one of the most enduring myths of the ancient world. It's a stunning allegory of divine desire, power, and the inevitable clash between mortal innocence and overwhelming forces."
I look up at this painting in front of us as I hang near the back of this tour group.
"Now, for infinite bragging rights, and a free Museum-Geek t-shirt from the gift shop… who can tell me what inspired this piece?"
It’s clear who in the group are the students, though with every answer they lob at him, I watch as he shoots them down in that nice try kind of way.
I miss school sometimes, and just as often as I consider getting bangs, or chopping my hair into a bob, I also wonder if I should just enroll in graduate school. Put myself back in an environment I know I can thrive in, as I always did. School being the one place where overachievers seeking validation can control exactly their own destiny. Rather than the workforce where charm plays a heavy role, and in most cases, not even charm as much as male-comradery. But in school I always knew the answers, and a right answer satisfied something in me that even people can’t.
A scoff escapes me. It’s part eye roll and part involuntary commentary at the idea that out of this group, no one knows the origins of Titian’s Europa. Her luminescence is only as valuable to them as her exposed breast, no one considering more depth in her source than feminine beauty.
His eyes sweep the crowd, laser-focused and intense. And when they land on me, rather than admit I’ve been caught, I shoot my hand up as if it was intentional all along.
But with my hand raised and my gut starving for the small validation of, well, being right and in this case getting some free swag, I’m able to get a clearer view of him. And for all the things I expected him to be, familiar isn’t one of them.
"It’s based on the novel ‘Leucippe and Clitophon’ by Achilles Tatius," I’ve barely let the smug smile broaden across my face as his lips press together and he shakes his head with an apology.
"If there are no other guesses, it is inspired by a scene from Book II in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Now, before we move on, any other questions?"
He’s wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.
My hand shoots back up again horrified at how boldly he dismissed what is clearly the right answer. I’ve stayed on the outskirts of this group, intentionally not trying to immerse myself. But I’m pulled towards the center now. Charged with the challenge of his dismissal and needing to be closer to the pulse of the conversation.
"Yes?" he directs back to me, also taking a step closer.
It’s as he approaches I am able to understand the shape of him, broad in a way his shirt pulls tightly across his chest, and taller with each step. I don’t let the distraction of his soft stubble prevent me from educating him on his inaccuracy. All while scanning his face and trying to place what feels like it exists in an unvisited corner of my brain.
"Ovid was hundreds of years earlier, Leucippe and Clitophon would have been much more influential." I cock my head to the side ever so slightly as he narrows his eyes in response.
"Ah, but you’re talking about influence, I asked what inspired it." Now he is the one that is smug.
"So you’re rejecting my answer based on… a technicality?" I have no doubt the disbelief is all over my face, but his is full of something much more.
"No, I’m saying that influence and inspiration are two different things…I asked about inspiration. This isn’t the Price is Right, I’m not about to give out the most coveted prize of a Museum Geek t-shirt based on the closest guess." He’s weaving through the others, and coming nearer to me where I have also taken a stance.
It’s as though those around us have taken a step back as we each step further into each other and the arrogance of this argument.
"That emotional quickening you feel right now, that is inspiration. You couldn’t keep yourself from answering, even if you were wrong, you were inspired . It wasn’t something you could keep restrained. Whereas influence is my ability to tell this story, and provoke your changed opinion." He’s provoking alright, in more ways than I care to admit, but the look on his face tells me he knows them.
"It seems you think you’ve changed my opinion . " My eyes drop to the waist of his pants where his name tag is clipped and hangs like a badge of honor. He spots my eyeline at his waistband and strategically slips his hand into his pocket, using his forearm to hide his name from view.
"And it seems you think you know something I don't," he says, taking a half step closer. The movement shifts the air between us.
"I clearly know a few things you don’t," I shoot back, tilting my chin up to maintain eye contact, unintimidated by his proximity but absolutely engulfed but the way he’s looking at me.
"That's probably true in most cases, but this isn’t one of them," His voice carries a hint of amusement that makes my fingers itch to wipe the almost smile off his face.
Up close, he's devastatingly attractive. All cheekbones and barely contained intellectual energy. The closer he approaches the better the glimpse of his eyes, which radiate blues similar to the sea on the canvas behind him. And based on how we’ve both seem to have goaded the other into this public display, I can tell it’s not just physical similarity he carries to the sea behind him but depth able to swallow you whole with each response.
While I’m fueled by this interaction, I’m also desperately racking my mind for any indication how I might know him. I’m not sure that I do, unable to pull out a name, but there’s this overwhelming sense that this isn’t the first time I’ve seen him.
"And while we’re at it, The RAPE of Europa," I emphasize, "It's clearly about female resistance, more than some 'enduring interpretation of power and divine intervention.'" In the moments we've stood here the hunger for validation turned into frustration and provocation around his original presentation. Just another man constructing the narrative while the woman in the painting, like all of us, tries to survive the story being written about her.
I can see him inhale and I can feel my lungs do the same like our organs are in a competition all of their own.
"Yes, and while that is a recorded view, there are historical letters between Titian and Philip II that actually document the painting's intended meaning."
"Ah, yes, because a period-specific record mansplaining a woman's experience makes it inherently accurate. Got it ." My reply is heavy in sarcasm and his laugh is unexpected. It’s a sharp, quick sound that makes me want to do the same. I am inspired. "Or," I step closer, our proximity crackling with something that definitely isn't just art historical tension, "he was showing how Europa maintains her autonomy even in the moment of terror, but didn’t think his ‘ Renaissance-bros’ would have gotten it." The air-quotes included selling how I really feel at this point.
"Well," he says, leaning closer so that I can smell a hint of something warm and clean, "since you're such an expert, perhaps you'd like to take over the rest of this tour?" His hand sweeps across the space, encompassing our impromptu audience who've been watching this verbal sparring match with poorly concealed interest.
"Oh," I breathe, "I'm finding your... misinterpretation... far too fascinating to interrupt."
I had forgotten the steps to this dance, more often than not, just finding myself alone in the center of the dancefloor. The tour members fade into background noise, forgotten extras in our own private performance.
We're standing close enough that I can see the glare in his eyes that suggests he's enjoying this far more than he should. And that he can likely note the same in mine, in this light, mirror images of each other.
"I'd think sneaking onto this tour would have been enough," he says through a smile, "but it seems you won't be satisfied until you've dismantled my career and called me a misogynist."
Busted. Completely, utterly busted.
"Next time," he continues, "try not to call attention to yourself by fighting with the guide. We usually frown upon that sort of thing."
"And I usually frown upon inaccuracies," I counter, "so I guess we're even."
He brings his hand to his mouth and drags it slowly up his jawline as he laughs through it. His hand, like the rest of him, looks more and more like it belongs amongst a sculpture, the only adornment, a signet ring on his right pinky. He pulls his hand away from the fullness of laughter on his lips with an offer.
"You can stay, on one condition…"
"I promise not to fight with the guide?" My own voice dripping with insincerity and eyelashes fluttering in mockery.
"Meet me on the bench in the gallery when the tour's done," he says, gesturing his head towards the building as an indication. When I say nothing in immediate reply, mostly out of shock, he lifts his eyebrows ever so slightly.
I nod, in a momentary check, not defeat, because the alternative, walking away from this, is absolutely not an option.
He leans closer, his voice is low, a gravelly whisper meant only for me.
"And Arden.. I want you to fight with the guide."
When he pulls back and winks, I catch a glimpse of ink creeping from his cuffed sleeve. As he positions himself back at the front, he speaks through a different smile now, and something tells me, I’m sporting one to match.
I have no reason to stay to engage with this know-it-all-too-attractive-to-be-a-tour-guide tour guide. And yet, here I am, already googling gathering information like armor. Because despite my best attempts to blend in, okay, maybe not even my worst attempt, he saw me.
It’s only then I realize, he said my name.
He turns his attention back to his group as if nothing out of the ordinary has occurred. ‘Now, if you'll follow me to Botticelli's Lucretia, we can discuss how Renaissance artists handled sequential narrative ? —’
The tour moves on, but I stay behind for a moment, looking up at Europa’s face.
In those few seconds when he leaned close, he offered more than just an albeit incorrect art history lesson. The way he looked into my eyes, it felt like he was reading something deeper, something I've been working to keep carefully hidden.
And Europa help me, I let him.