The Cartographers(2)
They were an artist’s perfect study of opposites. Nell was young, short even in heels, and in desperate need of some sun, topped off with a mop of mousy brown hair and tiny enough to completely disappear into an oversize cardigan, leaving only her glasses behind; and even though tall, bearded, warmly tanned Humphrey had to be in his sixties at least, everything was still huge about him—his voice, his build, his energy—and also his patience with her.
“So, what do you have for me today?” Humphrey was asking, leaning over Nell’s desk.
“The Fra Mauro,” she said. She spun it around and held it up by its corners. “I fixed the frame so the crackle will look perfectly accurate now, even under the matte finish and a layer of glass.”
Next to her mouse on the desk, her mobile phone lit up suddenly as a call came through. The glow caught her eye—a job, perhaps?—but she resisted looking in front of Humphrey just in case. That was always her first, most hopeful thought when she got a call at work. But she hadn’t applied for anything lately, not that she could remember, although after the first few hundred attempts, the applications all started to run together. The cartography field was small, and it always ended the same way. Once a potential employer realized who she was, and that none other than the elder Dr. Young himself had banished her from the industry all those years ago, she always stalled out at the next stage in the process.
“It’s good,” Humphrey nodded thoughtfully.
For a moment, Nell started to smile.
But then he said what he always did. “But we need it to look older.” He curled his meaty hands into claws as if to indicate—something. A crumpled pirate treasure map, or ancient sand running through his fingers, or trash. “Like much older. Gimme another hundred years, plus storm damage or something. I want it to look like it went on a dangerous voyage, then was smuggled to us in a sunken treasure chest.” He laughed. “You know?”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Nell argued. Her phone lit up and buzzed again, a second call, but she continued to ignore it. “First of all, the Fra Mauro map was drawn on vellum, which lasts much longer than paper, and second of all, it wasn’t a pirate map. It was created by a monk in the personal offices of his monastery, and stored there for the entirety of its existence until it moved to the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, making it one of the best-preserved specimens we have from the fifteenth century—”
“Nell, Nell, Nellllll.” Humphrey sighed over her, gesticulating dramatically. “Historical accuracy, due respect to the original work, the code of conservation, a cartographer’s honor. Spare me for once. It’s not even nine o’clock in the morning yet. This isn’t the Smithsonian. Our customers don’t want perfectly accurate reproductions. They want old, mysterious, antique-looking things.” He plopped the draft down on her desk, where she watched it halfway unfurl and come to a rest against her keyboard. He spread it out a little more, and caressed its minimally tarnished, historically accurate surface. “It’s more romantic that way.”
The phone screen went dark again, for the third or fourth time, and stayed that way at last. Whoever had been trying to reach her must have finally settled for voicemail.
Nell sighed, deflated. Humphrey was right, and she hated it.
“I get it,” she finally said.
“Look, I get it, too,” Humphrey replied, his voice gentler now. Even with her refusing to ever talk about the past, he’d been able to glean over the years just how passionate Nell had been about the work she used to do and the maps she used to curate. “I know this is not your dream career.”
“Humphrey, I’m sorry,” Nell started. Most of the time, Humphrey found their blue-collar boss versus uptight academic back-and-forth entertaining, but she knew she should be more grateful. After the Junk Box Incident, Humphrey was the only employer even just barely associated with the cartography industry that would take her in. Classic was hardly map work, but it was better than nothing at all. “Like you said, it’s not even nine a.m.—”
“Hey, all forgiven.” He rapped his knuckles on her desk, and then fished a twenty-dollar bill out of his wallet. “How about some coffee? My treat. You want one of those fancy caramel-mocha-swirly-whipped-cappuccino things?”
Nell forced a smile at his generosity. She was his head design technician, but the office was small. She was also the head accountant. She knew how tight money was, and how badly the office was falling apart. “Just black with some cream.”
Humphrey smiled back and pressed the bill into her palm. “See you soon, then.”
“You are insufferable,” she laughed, reaching for her purse with her other hand.
“Those stairs are insufferable!” he called after her over the slam of the office door.
Outside, the air was brisk and biting. Nell wrapped her cardigan tighter around her and set off, shivering. There was an artsy coffee shop across the street that would serve the kind of adjective-laden drink Humphrey had described, but she turned right and headed down the sidewalk for the bodega on the corner, where they bought their morning coffee most days. The owner was an old woman from Bangladesh, and Nell liked that no matter the weather or day, for as long as she’d known her, Farah always wore orange. There was at least some item of clothing on her that was bursting with that bright citrus hue. It made the whole shop warmer, somehow.