exhibition. I have to prepare for the Qing ceramics we’re borrowing for your exhibition. I have to write up condition reports. The list goes on.”
Every object that comes from the outside, on loan for an exhibition, needs a condition report. “I know, and I wouldn’t be in a hurry, but Arthur walked in while P.P. and I were looking at it.”
Tyler groaned. “A knot?”
“A total knot.”
“Okay. I’ll try to carve out some time tomorrow. I need to go into the city at the end of the week, and when I’m at the Asian I’ll look at their Cambodian sculptures. I’m having lunch with one of their conservators. I’ll ask if he knows of any research that’s been done on Cambodian stone.”
“Thanks so much, Tyler. I really appreciate it.” I’d been looking at the carving of her hair. Now I placed her back on the table and gazed at her face, the full lips, the slightly flared nostrils, and the eyes. She was looking straight at me, and I had the eerie feeling that she was trying to tell me something. Did she want to be reunited with her body, or did she want whoever had carved her to carve her a new body? Don’t worry, I mentally told her. I’ll figure it out.
I sank into her, absorbing her. I ran my gloved finger along her lotus eyelid. She was perfect, and I felt my heart open to her perfection. I felt that frisson of excitement at such beauty and at the mystery before me.
I realized Tyler was watching me and said without looking up, “I won’t. Oh, and by the way, if it is the authentic piece, until recently it had been reattached to the body, so you might look for evidence of adhesive on the break.”
“I saw that look,” he said. “And now you’re blushing.”
“What are you talking about?” I set down the head and snapped the gloves off my fingers, the sound like a series of slingshots.
“Don’t make her any promises, Jenna.”
I laughed, pretending I hadn’t been caught in the act, “What could I possibly promise?”
Tyler’s mouth opened, closed, and he pulled a cardboard box from beneath the table and arranged the head, cocooning it in foam. Then he neatly folded the towel, laid it on the head, and got paper from his desk to write a label. “The receipt. Don’t forget the receipt.”
I waved as I slid through the door.
My cell phone rang as I headed toward Breeze’s office. My mother. I groaned, debated for an instant, and stuck the phone back in my pocket. Not now.
I DON’T need the distraction of the Cambodian head, I thought as I finally settled back at my desk to read through the galleys for the Qing exhibition catalogue. It wasn’t much longer than a brochure, but its production had been a headache. The exhibition had a tight installation schedule because of a Western art show of medieval decorative arts that Arthur had shoehorned into our already overloaded exhibition schedule. He often lost sight of the fact that we were a small museum in a small town with a small staff. Brian, the Western art curator, and I had fought to maintain the schedule we’d carefully crafted, but lost the battle to Arthur’s aggressive self-promotion and Caleb New’s laissez-faire directorial style.
Water under the bridge, I thought. I had to finish my edits today and get them in the overnight mail tomorrow if the catalogue was going to be printed in time for the exhibition opening. As if the exhibition schedule wasn’t tight enough, we’d had a kerfuffle about the printing due to an equipment breakdown, which the Hong Kong printer hadn’t immediately revealed. When they finally did inform us, we had to scramble to find another printer, so the final galleys had come back to me late. I sighed. The general public thinks a curator’s life involves gazing at art, when in reality a museum is akin to a theater company, the next performance always just a week away. To further complicate matters, a museum staff is always slightly out of step. Artists and scholars who run a business—well, need I say more?
I checked the time and was shocked to see that it was already four. I’d hoped to have a leisurely bike ride home, then a popcorn dinner at the movies. A packaged cup of soup from my bottom desk drawer would have to suffice while I spent the evening at my desk. Riffling through the remaining pages I needed to edit, I realized I would be in the office until at least ten, and I cursed myself for riding my bike that morning instead of driving.
Pulling out a page, I saw that the illustration in the upper right-hand corner, which I’d already pointed out to the printer was problematic, was still too red. He’d argued that it looked better that way. I groaned.
3
“Don’t talk about it.” P.P. grumpily cut me off. I hadn’t spoken with him since our discussion in the conservation lab the previous week. We’d just arrived at Fort Mason and the yearly art fair opening, a benefit gala for a San Francisco museum. Dealers from all over the world, collectors, sightseers, and artsy types were rushing through the rain to pour inside the doors.
“What don’t you want to talk about?” Brian asked as he shook out his umbrella. I touched his arm, unable to resist the feel of his taupe cashmere jacket. Brian was not only one of the handsomest, best-dressed men I knew, he was also one of my closest friends. Which was a blessing, as we worked together as the only two curators at the Searles. His responsibility, Western art, was as broad as mine. His specialty was nineteenth-century European. Brian, P.P., and I shared an enthusiasm for art beyond your average enthusiasm. We could discuss a single work for hours.
“The head,” I said.
“Ah, the head. It looked lovely to me, but you know me, I’m a flat-work person. Give me a print, a painting, none of this three-dimensional stuff. I hate looking at rounded backs of things.”
I knew he was joking, but scowled at him anyway. Our tastes were completely opposite, which served us well in our work. I showed him the Asian flat work that came my way, and he consulted me about Western sculpture. We’d both learned a great deal through this arrangement over the past four years, enough that he was now organizing an exhibition of nineteenth-century French sculpture and I was planning to begin work on an exhibition of Balinese painting.
“Don’t talk,” said P.P.
“Right.” Brian pretended to zip his lip. “Maybe we can find a body here that needs a head.”
P.P. huffed and marched ahead of us. “You’re bad,” I said, disappointed that the three of us wouldn’t be viewing together. “He’s upset about this.” I checked my faux-fur coat at the coat check. Brian went wide-eyed when he saw my top, but I ignored his look.
“Just trying to lighten his mood.” He peered around me at my back. “Wow. Is your ‘year of no men’ over, or are you trying to give old men heart attacks so they leave their collections to the museum?” He looked around us. “There are quite a few candidates here, if that’s your intention. We know your history with old men.”
I accepted the glass of champagne that a waiter offered, and tried to shrug off Brian’s comments, but I must have looked pained. My relationship with an older man hadn’t ended well. The previous year’s foray into relationships hadn’t either. After back-to-back hot-and-heavy romances and the crashing end of the second, I had sworn not to be involved with a man for a year. I was discovering a year was a long time.
“Sorry, Jenna. That was uncalled for.”
If you can’t
