Pug Hill - Alison Pace [4]
The waves of repercussion from that ill-fated speech, they started right away. In eleventh grade, I dropped Advanced Placement Topics in European History as soon as I saw the soul-shattering words, forty-minute final presentation, on the last page of the syllabus. And pretty much, it all just snowballed from there. To tell you the truth, at this point, it’s a pretty big snowball. That I work in Paintings Conservation is not exactly a coincidence. Yes, it is the result not only of a lot of training and study and genuine, real interest on my part, but it is also quite closely related to the fact that early on in college I realized how much time an Art History student spent sitting quietly in a darkened room, watching slide shows.
A professor told me once, in a way I believe was meant to deter me, that an MFA in Paintings Conservation was not all hands-on practical application, but actually entailed quite a lot of research, quite a lot of sitting in libraries, chasing down footnotes. It sounded to me at the time very much like an earthly heaven.
One decision slyly led to the next, not unlike the way sand will bury your feet and then your ankles if you stand at the beach, a little ways back from where the waves break. But that might not be the best analogy, because with the sand it’s different. With the sand there’s something reassuring in knowing that you can walk away, in knowing that you won’t actually be buried alive.
The farther away I got from that oral report in Mr. Brogrann’s class, the more determined I was to make sure I never went back. And as the years went on, I felt more and more sure I never would. I made it through high school, college, and graduate school. I had a job as a paintings restorer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a very good job that I actually loved, and that would never require me to make a speech. I’d been a bridesmaid a few times, but all those brides had sisters so I’d never been a maid of honor, a speech-making danger zone if ever there was one. And then, at last, I’d believed that I was safe. I’d somehow managed to lull myself into complacency; I became so certain it would never come up again, that I’d almost forgotten all about it. Until today. Today, regardless of everything I have done over the years to keep this fear at bay, here it is, leering at me like a scary birthday party clown.
The IM symbol, the little yellow man with the blue triangle, starts jumping, up and down, at the bottom of my computer screen. I reach for my mouse and click on the bouncing yellow man. An IM window pops up on my screen.
EVAN2020: You remember that I’m playing squash tonight with Brandon and then we’re having dinner with him and his fiancée after at the club? Like eight?
I quit out of IM without answering. Then I do the only thing I can think of, the only thing I can think of that makes any sense. I leave.
chapter two
There Are No Pugs at Pug Hill
I leave my desk, I leave the museum, I leave Elliot. As soon as I’m outside, I feel guilty for leaving work so abruptly. I worry that maybe I should have said something, that maybe I should consider going back. But I can’t. I walk quickly, south for a while, down Fifth. It’s not as crowded now, in the late afternoon. I’m sweating, but not because it’s hot outside; though it is warm out for February, “warm for February,” in my mind, is just not that warm. I think how maybe the sweat is really just fear, just trying to get out of my body any way it can.