The Cloisters, page 2
The books took up more space than my clothes. They always had.
“Hazard of the trade,” I said, relieved she had changed the subject.
“Okay,” she said, putting the book down. “I guess you have to finish.”
And I did, squeezing my books into the boxes that would be mailed and zipping my duffel closed. I reached under my bed, feeling around for the cardboard box where I kept my tips. I felt the weight of the money in my lap.
Tomorrow, I would be in New York.
CHAPTER TWO
I’m afraid we can’t accommodate you at the Met this summer,” Michelle de Forte said.
We were sitting in her office, a name tag with my department and Ann Stilwell still affixed to my shirt.
“As you know, you were assigned to work with Karl Gerber.” She spoke in a flat, clipped way that had no discernible origin, yet could only have been cultivated in the best schools. “He is preparing for an upcoming exhibition on Giotto, but he had an opportunity in Bergamo and had to leave unexpectedly.”
I tried to imagine a job in which one could be summoned to Bergamo on a moment’s notice, and then again, to imagine the kind of employer who would allow me to go. On both counts I came up blank.
“It may take him several weeks to finish the work that needs to be done. All that is to say, I’m very sorry, but we no longer have a place for you.”
Michelle de Forte, director of Human Resources at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, had taken me aside as soon as I arrived for orientation that morning, leading me away from the room full of carafes of hot coffee and sugared pastries, and into her office, where I sat in a plastic Eames chair. My backpack, still on my lap. She looked at me across the desk, her eyes lifted above the blue Lucite glasses that had slipped low on her nose. Her finger, narrow and birdlike, tapped out a constant metronome.
If she expected me to say something, I didn’t know what it was. I was, it seemed, a careless oversight in their summer planning. An administrative inconvenience.
“You can see that we are in an unfortunate position, Ann.”
I went to swallow, but my throat was dry. It was all I could do to blink and try not to think of my sublet, of the unopened boxes of books, of the other associates who would be allowed to stay.
“At this point, all our other departmental positions are filled. We don’t need doubling up in Ancient, and frankly, you aren’t qualified to work in our busier fields.”
She wasn’t unkind, just blunt. Matter-of-fact. Adding up her needs against my, now sadly, inadequate presence. The glass walls of her office revealed a trickle of arriving staff members, some with one pant leg rolled up, bike helmets still on, others with battered leather satchels and bright red lips—almost all carrying cups of coffee. I had spent the morning reviewing the few items my closet contained before deciding on something I thought was sensible and professional: a cotton button-up and a gray skirt with tennis shoes. My name tag could have read FLYOVER COUNTRY.
In my head, I calculated the loss of the Met stipend against my tips. I estimated I had enough money to stay in New York through the middle of July, and there was always a chance I could find other work, any work, really. There was no need to share the news with my mother. Now that I had arrived, it would take more than a dismissal from Michelle de Forte to make me leave. The words I understand were forming on my lips, my hands readying to push myself out of the chair, when a knock came from the window behind me.
A man cupped his hands against the glass and peered in at us. His eyes met mine before he pushed his way through the door, stooping to ensure his head didn’t hit the top of the frame.
“Patrick, if you don’t mind waiting. I just need to take care of this.”
I was the this.
Undeterred, Patrick folded himself into the chair next to me. I stole a glance at his profile: a tan face, attractive creases around the eyes and mouth, a beard sprinkled with gray. He was older, but not old, late forties, early fifties. Good-looking, but not obviously so. He extended a hand in my direction, which I shook. It was dry and calloused, pleasant.
“Patrick Roland,” he said, before even looking in Michelle’s direction, “curator at The Cloisters.”
“Ann Stilwell, Renaissance department summer associate.”
“Ah. Very good.” Patrick wore a thin, wry smile. “What kind of Renaissance?”
“Ferrara. Sometimes Milan.”
“Anything in particular?”
“Most recently celestial vaults,” I said, thinking of my work with Lingraf. “Renaissance astrology.”
“The unlikely Renaissance, then.”
The way he looked at me sideways, with half his face but all his attention, made me forget, if only for a moment, that we were sharing the room with someone intent on firing me.
“It takes some bravery to work in a field where the archive is still a necessity,” he said. “Where things are rarely translated. Impressive.”
“Patrick—” Michelle tried again.
“Michelle.” Patrick brought his hands together and faced her fully. “I have bad news.” He leaned forward and passed his phone across the desk. “Michael has quit. No notice. He took a job with a tech company’s arts and culture division. Apparently, he’s already on his way to California. He sent me the email last week, but I didn’t see it until this morning.”
Michelle read what I could only assume was Michael’s resignation letter on Patrick’s phone, occasionally flicking up and down.
“We were already understaffed before this. As you know, we haven’t been able to find a suitable associate curator, and Michael had stepped into that role. Although he was by no means qualified. That left Rachel doing double duty on everything, and I’m worried we’re putting too much on her. We have some extra hands in Education that can help, but it’s simply not enough.”
Michelle passed the phone back to Patrick and settled a stack of papers on her desk.
“I was hoping Karl could come help us for a few weeks until we can get someone,” he said.
Throughout the exchange I had sat quietly, hoping that if I didn’t move, Michelle might forget I was there, forget that she told me to go.
“Karl has gone to Bergamo for the summer, Patrick,” Michelle said. “I’m sorry. We don’t have anyone to spare. The Cloisters will have to make its own provisions. We’ve been quite generous giving you the budget to pay Rachel through the year already. Now if you don’t mind—” She gestured toward me.
Patrick leaned back in his chair and gave me an appraising look.
“Can you send me her?” he asked, hooking a thumb in my direction.
“I cannot,” Michelle said. “Ann was about to leave us for the summer.”
Patrick leaned over the arm of his chair, his torso now so close that I could feel his body heat. It was a beat before I realized I had been holding my breath.
“Do you want to come work for me?” he said. “It wouldn’t be here. It would be at The Cloisters. It’s north, along the highway. Where are you living? Would it be an inconvenience?”
“Morningside Heights,” I said.
“Good. You’re right on the A train and can take it the whole way. Probably less walking than crossing the park, anyway.”
“Patrick,” Michelle broke in, “we don’t have the budget to send you Ann. Rachel is already taking your summer associate budget.”
He held up a finger and pulled out his phone, scrolling through the contacts until he found the number he needed. On the other end, someone picked up.
“Hello. Yes. Herr Gerber. Look, it’s important. May I have your associate—” He looked at me expectantly and snapped his fingers.
“Ann Stilwell,” I said.
“May I have Ann Stilwell for the summer? Who is she? I think she was meant to be your summer associate, Karl, but you left.” He looked to me for confirmation, and I nodded. They switched to German for a few minutes until Patrick laughed and handed the phone to Michelle.
Mostly, she listened. But every few minutes she would say things like, “Only if you’re sure” and “You’ll lose the budget money.” At the end, she was simply nodding and making agreeable sounds. “Okay… Mmhmm… All right.” She handed the phone back to Patrick, who laughed loudly and repeated the word ciao two or three times with a wonderful trill.
“Okay.” He rose from the chair and tapped me on the shoulder. “Come with me, Ann Stilwell.”
“Patrick,” Michelle protested, “the girl hasn’t even agreed!”
He looked at me, a single eyebrow raised.
“Yes, of course,” I said, the words tumbling out of me.
“Good,” he said, brushing at a stray wrinkle in his shirt. “Now, let’s get this over with and get you out of here.”
* * *
While Michelle had been busy explaining to me why I couldn’t stay, the room had filled with summer associates who could. The program had a reputation for selecting only a handful of graduating seniors from the best schools and working swiftly and silently behind the scenes to ensure their future successes. When my acceptance arrived, I had assumed it was a mistake, but by the end of that summer I would learn there were few mistakes in life.
The full-time staff had been pressed into attendance, and even though they did not wear name tags, I recognized a few of them: the young associate curator of Islamic art who had come directly from Penn, the curator of ancient Roman art who was a fixture on the ancient civilizations series produced by PBS. Everyone beautiful and sharp and inaccessible in person. The weight of my backpack hung more awkwardly against my hips when I realized I was the only attendee who still carried one.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” said Patrick. “Get some coffee”—he pointed at the carafes—“then we’ll head up to The Cloisters.” He scanned the room, tall enough to easily note everyone in attendance. “Rachel isn’t here yet. But I’m sure you know a few of the other associates, right?”
I was about to explain that I didn’t when Patrick walked off, throwing an arm around the shoulders of an older man in a worn tweed jacket. I could feel a prickle of sweat working its way down my side; I clamped an arm against my body to arrest its progress.
This was why I had arrived early, of course. So that I wouldn’t need to break into a conversation. When you were the first to arrive, people had no choice but to talk to you. By the time a group gathered, I would have been happily ensconced in a circle of similar early arrivals. Instead, I hooked my thumbs into my backpack straps and looked around the room, trying to pretend I was looking for a friend. Although it was a welcome breakfast, it was not, I realized, a meet and greet. Looking at the circles of associates, the familiar way they spoke to each other, it was clear they had already had opportunities to get to know one another in various ways over the last four years—symposia and lectures that led to dinner parties and boozy late-night musings. I inched myself closer to a group so I could at least hear their conversation.
“I grew up in LA,” one girl was saying, “and it’s not what people think. Everyone assumes it’s all celebrities and juice cleanses and woo. But we have a real arts scene. It’s thriving.”
People in the circle were nodding.
“In fact, last summer, I worked for Gagosian in Beverly Hills and we had both Jenny Saville and Richard Prince give artist talks. But it’s not just big galleries,” she continued, sipping from a hand-blown glass tumbler.
I used the pause to edge my shoulder into the circle and was grateful when the girl to my left took a step back.
“We have experimental spaces and community arts projects too. A friend even runs a food and contemporary art collaborative called Active Cultures.”
Now, I could make out the girl’s name tag: Stephanie Pearce, Contemporary Painting.
“When I was in Marfa last summer—” began another member of the circle. But the sentence died on their lips as Stephanie Pearce turned her attention to the entrance, where Patrick was in close conference with a girl whose hair was such a pale shade of blond, it could only be real. Across the room, the girl looked squarely at me before pinning a strand behind her ear and whispering something to Patrick. Whatever he responded caused her to laugh, and the way her body shook, all flat angles with a hint of softness, made me acutely aware of my own.
When I was younger, I used to imagine what it would be like to be that beautiful. All women do, I think. But breasts never arrived, my face never caught up with my nose. My dark, curly hair was more unruly than romantic, and the uneven freckles that spread across my face and arms were darkly colored from summers spent in the eastern Washington sun. The only thing I had to my credit were a pair of large, wide-set eyes, but they were not enough to make up for all the other plainness I enjoyed.
“Is that Rachel Mondray?” the girl next to me asked. Stephanie Pearce and a few others in the circle nodded.
“I met her during my prospective student weekend at Yale,” said Stephanie. “She just graduated but has already been working at The Cloisters for almost a year. She was hired after spending last summer in Italy at the Carrozza Collection.”
“Really?” asked someone else in the circle.
The Carrozza Collection was a private archive and museum not far from Lago di Como that was invitation only. It was rumored to contain some of the finest examples of Renaissance manuscripts anywhere in the world.
“Apparently the Carrozza offered her a full-time job after graduation, but she turned them down.” Stephanie Pearce looked at me and added, “For Harvard.”
While Stephanie talked, I watched Rachel make her way across the room. There had been rich girls at Whitman, of course. Girls whose parents had private planes and vacation homes in Sun Valley. But I’d never really known those girls, only known about them—rumors of impossible lives I dared not imagine. Rachel didn’t need to be invited to join our circle, but rather materialized within it, naturally.
“I haven’t seen you since spring, Steph,” Rachel said, looking around at everyone. “What did you decide?”
“I ultimately chose Yale.”
“You’ll love it,” said Rachel with such warmth it seemed she meant it.
“I’m going to Columbia,” the girl next to me whispered.
I couldn’t help but envy the people around me, their futures—at least for the next few years—secure in blue-chip graduate programs. Briefly, I worried that someone might ask me about my plans for the following year, but it was clear no one cared. A fact for which I was both grateful and ashamed.
“Ann,” said Rachel, reading my name tag. “Patrick told me we’ll be working together this summer.” She stepped across the circle to give me a hug. Not a limp hug, but a tight one that allowed me to feel how soft she was, how citrusy she smelled, with notes of bergamot and black tea. She was cool to the touch, and again I felt the sweaty areas of my body come to attention, the coarseness of my clothes. When I tried to pull away, she held me for a beat longer, long enough for me to worry that she could feel the anxiety, imprinted hot and slick on my skin.
Everyone in the circle appraised the interaction, the way one might assess the performance of a racehorse under the command of a new jockey.
“It’ll just be the two of us,” she said, finally pulling away. “No one else ever gets up to The Cloisters. But it’s a nice place to be abandoned to.”
“I thought you were Renaissance?” said Stephanie, looking for confirmation at my name tag.
“Yes, but that’s just what we need,” said Rachel. “So Patrick made sure that we scooped Ann right up. Stole her from all of you at the Met.”
I was grateful to not have to explain my situation in greater detail.
“Well, come on then,” Rachel said, reaching out and pinching my arm. “We should go.”
I clasped my hand over the spot, and despite the heat and pain that ran toward my collarbone, I was surprised to find myself enjoying the flush of it all—the attention, the pinch, the fact I wouldn’t be here with Stephanie Pearce. All because I had decided to sit in Michelle’s office just a moment longer, just long enough for Patrick to walk by and knock.
CHAPTER THREE
I don’t think I’ll ever forget what it was like to arrive that June day at The Cloisters. Behind us was the congestion of Museum Mile—that stretch of Fifth Avenue where the Frick, the Met, and the Guggenheim were packed with tour groups and waiting taxis, camp children and first-time visitors, all agog at the marble facades—and ahead of us was the greenery of Fort Tryon Park at the city’s northern edge. When the museum first came into view, I did my best not to tumble into Rachel’s lap as I leaned across the car to get a better look; it never crossed my mind to feign indifference. Here, it was as if we had left the city entirely, taken an unmarked exit and found ourselves under a collaged network of downy maple leaves. The road to The Cloisters curved up a gentle hill, revealing a gray stone wall, overgrown with moss and ivy, that unspooled through a staccato of tree trunks. A square campanile with slender Romanesque windows peeked above the canopy of trees. I had never been to Europe, but I imagined it would look something like this: shady and cobbled and Gothic. The kind of place that reminded you how temporary the human body was, but how enduring stone.
The Cloisters, I knew, had been brought into being—like so many institutions—by John D. Rockefeller Jr. The robber baron’s son had transformed sixty-six isolated acres and a small collection of medieval art into a fully realized medieval monastery. Crumbling remnants of twelfth-century abbeys and priories had been imported throughout the 1930s from Europe and rebuilt under the watchful eye of architect Charles Collens. Buildings that had been left to the ravages of weather and wars were reassembled and polished to a new-world sheen—entire twelfth-century chapels restored, marble colonnades buffed to their original gloss.
I followed Patrick and Rachel up a cobblestone path that snaked around the back of the museum, and under a natural hallway of tumbling holly bushes whose prickly leaves and dark red berries snagged at my hair. Like a true cloister, it was silent save for the sound of our footsteps. We walked until we found ourselves on top of the ramparts, where our progress was blocked by a large stone arch that framed a black metal gate; I half expected an armored guard from the thirteenth century would greet us.
