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Dane called them art. I called them messing around. But mostly because I wasn’t sure what they were or what I was doing.
Because slowly what had begun as exhibits about Countess Báthory and the biology of carnivorous plants became more personal. History turned to story and I thought about all the different ways to narrate a life.
I made one for Sofia that showed her journey to Riven through different songs that had been important to her through the years. I made one for my mom about our street in New Brunswick via the stray dogs and cats that had appeared at different times in my childhood.
I wasn’t sure what I was making, no. But I loved the way it felt. The drive to slice open a life or a topic at different nodes and spread them out for others to see.
It was the satisfaction it gave me to break things apart and see how to think about them differently that had finally driven me back to the museum three months ago, just before closing, looking for Sue.
“Felix!” she said when she saw me. “Hey, kiddo. How’s everything?”
“Take me on your rounds and I’ll tell you?” I offered.
We walked through the dim, hushed museum and I filled her in on my life. She told me about her wife and how much she appreciated that Dane had given her niece a job at the bar.
“So, question,” I said, nervous that if the answer was no, I didn’t know what the next step would be. “I, uh. It’s basically my dream to make exhibits for a museum, like these. Well,” I revised. We were in the Birds of New York exhibit that always upset me a little bit. “Not exactly like these. But yeah. So I know they’re like impossible jobs to get.”
I’d spent the time since my Halloween pledge to quit Buggy’s looking online for any jobs in the museum business and found nothing. First I’d gotten discouraged, then resigned, then I’d decided to come here and talk with Sue when I caught Dane running reverent fingers over my dioramas.
I went on, “And probably no one wants some random person who doesn’t even have a college degree in…whatever you’d get a degree in to make museum exhibits. But you’re the only lead I have, and I would start out doing anything, really. So I guess I was wondering if you have any…influence? Knowledge? Information? Ugh, I don’t know.”
I slumped against the glass case, birds of New York silently judging me through cotton-stuffed eyes. Sue swatted me away from the glass irritably. She stared at me too, eyes narrowed a little.
“You figured it out, then, huh?”
I nodded.
“Yeah. Probably can’t happen, but at least I know what I want. That’s good. Right?”
“Absolutely. I don’t have any influence over who gets hired, but I know a lot of people here. Been here a while. Let me see if I can poke around. Gather any intel. Okay?”
I threw my arms around her and she patted my back awkwardly.
Two weeks later, she texted and told me to come to the museum. She wouldn’t say anything except where to meet her. I bit my lip and didn’t tell Dane where I was going. I didn’t want to get either of our hopes up.
I was nearly bouncing up and down when I met Sue, and she gave me a firm pat on the back and told me not to embarrass her. We walked through a door to a private corridor of the museum that held offices. She knocked on a door, pushed it open, and introduced me to a woman named Ann. Then she winked at me and went outside.
Ann was in charge of coordinating programming with schools that brought students on field trips, much like the one I’d taken all those years ago in New Brunswick.
“Sue tells me you’re looking to start anywhere,” she said once we’d sat down.
“Yeah,” I said. “I mean, uh, you know. Within reason.” Visions of cleaning up vomit and scrubbing gum off statues swam in my head.
She smirked.
“Would you be interested in shadowing someone in my department as they set up the activities for the kids and take them through the museum? You wouldn’t be paid, but you’d learn a bit about what goes on, and if you enjoy it and it seems like a promising fit, we can chat.”
The terms were vague and the money was nonexistent. I wouldn’t be able to quit Buggy’s yet, but I didn’t care. I’d wanted to figure out what I enjoyed doing, and this was a path to that.
“Yes,” I said immediately.
Ann raised an eyebrow.
“No questions for me?”
“Uh…” My mind was a complete and total blank. “Not at the moment,” I said, which was something Dane said when he wanted to buy himself time to revisit an issue later. It sounded dignified when he said it. It sounded ridiculous coming from me.
