Mockingbird (A Stepbrother Romance #2)(7)
Mom is busy overseeing the transfer, mostly ignoring me as I try to fade into the background. I know this is important to her, and now is not the time to drop the truth bomb, but I graduated last week and I have to respond to admission letters by the end of June.
You'd think this thing was the Ark of the Covenant from the way the workmen carry it. A crate that looks like it would hold a big laptop, four guys bear the thing like it's made of glass and it will shatter if they drop it. When it's been moved all the way inside and set on a workbench, they finally open it. Inside, in a glass case, is a framed painting about a foot and a half high by a foot wide of a man washing his hands in a little bowl. It might be Pontius Pilate or something, I don't know. I'm pretty sure this is the painting Mom's been talking about with the board of trustees for a year now. She's been calling it "The Lost Vermeer".
It's a nice painting. I prefer Bob Ross.
There's some other stuff on the truck, none of which is treated with the same pomp and circumstance. A pile of junk that goes to the Outsider Art collection, some more paintings, a statue of two naked people, and the ugliest thing I've ever seen, a chunk of black quartz carved in the shape of a skull, wrapped up in a coiled snake made out of jade. Just looking at it makes me uncomfortable. One of the snake's little eyes is made of white stone, marble or alabaster, and the other is a chunk of jade set in jade. Funny, that. I have the same condition, it's called heterochromia iridium. My right eye is brown, my left eye is hazel, but most people have to be very close to look.
After that, another crate of weapons for the armory. The Montclaire Estate houses one of the largest collections of pre-modern arms and armor in North America, all kinds of swords and shields and armor and maces and wicked looking things with hooks and barbs. Now that part of history I always found fascinating, but if you want to study at the undergraduate or graduate level in humanities, be prepared to study and discuss nothing but economics and social mores and chairs. One of mom's friends wrote her dissertation on one kind of Colonial American table.
I'm not knocking anybody's work here, but that's just not me.
The Shop, that's what everybody calls the off-limits areas of the museum, is not a very impressive place. It reminds me of the workshop at my high school, really. Big and well lit but somehow dark at the same time, with a smell of oil and sawdust. I only took a design class that was held in the shop for some reason, but the place always creeped me out. I don't like band saws, they look like they crave fingers.
Mom stares at the painting like it's a lost child. It's sealed in some kind of case within the crate, a block of protective material to keep anything from touching it.
"It's exquisite," she coos, to no one in particular. "Let's get it into the vault."
The vault is the dominating feature of the Shop. It was in a bank, once, but when the bank closed during the Depression the museum bought the thing and had a crane drag it out of the bank, and it was brought here and a big concrete bunker cast around it. It takes two people entering an access code and encryption key to get in… Mom's key opens a little door, and Mom puts in the key code and a second code that's some kind of encryption key, that gets rotated every two weeks. Somebody else has to stand at the far side and do the same thing, too far apart for two people to reach.
I don't know what either code is. I think only Mom and some board members and Anderson know the codes. When she opens the door it hisses as cool, dry air seeps out, curling around my ankles like invisible fingers. The new acquisitions go inside where they rest in prepared places on sturdy shelves, and then the big door slams closed and locks with a heavy, hollow thunk as bolts as big around as my head slide home in equally robust, uh, bolt holes.
After that, the truck leaves, the staff is dismissed, and Mom walks me to her office.
That means a trip outside. It's muggy out here, and dark. The museum grounds are well lit, but that only makes the darkness in the world around us that much deeper, and washes out the stars. I've always felt uneasy being outside in this place, and I've lived here since I was seven. I don't think I'll ever feel at ease on the grounds. We live in the original servant's quarters, long since converted into office and housing for the curator and their family, though Mom has a house down at Rehoboth Beach that her sister has named Fort Alimony, since that's what paid for it. We don't spend much time there.
Mom opens the five locks and lets me in, then closes it and looks at me.
"Isn't it exciting? We'll be displaying a lost Vermeer here. Attendance levels will double, I'm telling you. The board will be thrilled."
Yes, I'm terribly excited.
The house might not be part of the museum, but it feels like one. The antiques and the subtle, masculine air of the leather and dark panelling and rich carpets make me feel like an outsider. Thankfully the rooms upstairs are ours and I don't have to live in a room that looks like the Ghost of Christmas Future will pop in any time to pay me a visit in the middle of the night. (Look, I know that movie is cheesy as hell, but it scared the shit out of me when I was six). For now I follow her to her office, still carrying my messenger bag and its cargo of secret acceptance letters. I got a few rejections and I've already sent cordial thank you letters, but every letter in my bag comes with an offer of at least a half ride scholarship and four of them offer a full ride, so she can't throw it in my face that she's going to be paying for my education. One of the places is even closer than where she wants to send me. I don't see how I can object.