“What’s going on?” I ask as I take it.
Julia tries to smile. “I…I don’t think I want these notes anymore,” she says. “It was always your magic, anyway. Not mine. Good luck, Ivy.”
She makes the fourth person to leave me in less than a day.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Losing every friend you’ve ever made is not the “Complicated” by Avril Lavigne song it’s made out to be inBottoms, one of my favorite sapphic movies. There is nothing complicated or layered about being abjectly despised—it’s just unequivocally awful. Zero out of ten, do not recommend.
This is exactly how I feel on the bus ride to the Legion of Honor museum on Friday after school.
I’ve never been to the Legion of Honor, not even for a school field trip. When the bus first dips into Lincoln Park, where the museum is housed, I’m actually surprised by how expansive all the trees and hills are. Golden Gate Park is a total giant, but all the parks in downtown San Francisco are like tiny dots in comparison. I sort of figured Golden Gate was the one exception. But as we zigzag down the winding road filled with green, I get the uncanny feeling of driving through actual woods. I mean, I can see a sheared golf course in the distance, but still. This is nice. The perfect place to bury a treasure, really.
The bus pulls up in front of the museum. The building looks like an actual palace, with two statues on horses guarding the entrance and an open courtyard behind the front gate. I get off the bus and take out my phone to look at the fuzzy picture from theSan Francisco Chroniclearticle. Maybe if I hold it up at just the right angle over the surrounding park, I’ll figure out exactly where the clock installation was. It can’t be that hard, right? This was the kind of shit yearbook worked on for months.
Yearbook.
My heart flinches.
The moment I begin zooming in on the picture, I realize that, actually, this might be insanely hard. The digital image probably would have turned out a lot clearer if Gabriel had been there to capture it on one of our official cameras. But, I remind myself, the picture was pretty blurry to begin with. Even on the microfilm reader, the clock installation already looked like a giant sepia-toned pizza.
I sit down on a stone bench and pull Julia’s notebook from my backpack. It feels wrong to be taking over the official role of notetaker. But it would feel even worse to leave all her work behind. I turn to a blank page and set my phone down to one side. If I can sketch out every blurry outline I see in the background of this photo, maybe that will help me figure out where the heck this clock once was.
The more I sketch, the more I realize that the clock in the photo isn’t on flat ground. It’s on a hillside, facing out. This is good. Promising, even.
There’s also a shape that looks like a small boulder tothe left. I can see a tall pole at the top of the hill in the background. I’m not sure if the pole is something man-made or just a long, skinny tree in the distance. But either way, it’s good to note. I jot it down in the picture. Only when I look up do I catch sight of the exact same object across the road.
A golf course flag.
The installation was on the golf course! That would make perfect sense, really. The hills would be smooth. The grass would be short.
A niggling thought worms its way into the back of my head. I can hear Gabriel’s voice from Wednesday.
What about everything else from the puzzle?
Whereisall the Pride history here? The Greenwich Steps and Union monument from the scroll at least made some sense. But why would Gilbert Baker have us learn all that, have us solve the clues about Harvey’s birthday party and Naval Station Treasure Island, only to lead us to a golf course?
I check the time and stand up. I need to get inside the museum before it closes. I want to seeThe Three Shadessculpture for myself. Maybe I’ll feel something when I see it in person. Or, better yet, maybe I’ll find some clue in the context, in the placard next to the art or something, that will make everything else make sense.
I turn and walk along the pathway between the two statues on horses. They each raise their swords at me—either in salute or in warning, who can tell?
As I walk, the clear ocean breeze from over the cliffside washes over me. A medley of birds crowded in a nearby treechirps and hops gleefully. I’m hit with that overpowering feeling of love I get when I’m in a new part of the city. Like, if San Francisco were a person, he would be the type to have a totally different outfit for every occasion. Cold, gusty beaches with views of the bridge. Warm, open fields in the middle of downtown. Hills and mountains to hike. Art pieces around every corner. Giant buildings that chip away at the clouds. He could change again and again and again, and I would still love him in every form. There’s just something about his bones, I guess. Whether it’s smack in the middle of the city or tucked away out here in the woods, he’s the same person.
And…I’m leaving him.
At least, that’s what I want to do, isn’t it? The whole point of finding Gilbert Baker’s treasure is to impress the art school in Paris. So I can leave San Francisco and never look back.
Why did I not realize how messed up that whole objective was until now?
I walk through the museum’s courtyard, past a larger-than-life-sized bronze cast of Rodin’sThe Thinker, then make my way to the front doors. The foyer is set apart from the rest of museum, so you can hardly see any of the art past the front room. But the person behind the desk waves me right on through.
“Admission is free after four-thirty,” she explains. She makes a point of turning and looking at the clock behind her. “But the museum closes at 5:15.”
I look at the clock over her head. 4:50.
“Got it,” I say. “Thank you.”
I grab a museum guide, then realize I’m going to need some help if the museum is closing in less than thirty minutes.
