Starry Night

  “I was talking to Oliver,” I said.

  “What?” Too loud. “Where is he?” She turned around and was in danger of sloshing her drink on my skirt. This skirt—I am telling you.

  “He’s with Nolan and Reagan looking at Hatshepsut.”

  “Bummer.” She swigged her champagne. “You did see him give me that meaningful look, didn’t you, Wren … earlier today … at your house?” She sounded sort of sloshed.

  “Yes, I totally did, but wait, Reagan is going to go for Nolan. I can feel it.”

  “You think? Nooo. She seems so bored by the thought of him,” said Vati, suddenly sober.

  “You weren’t in the car with us.”

  “No, I wasn’t. I listened to Charlie talk your mother’s ear off about the summer bird-watching internship he wants. Does he think your mom can help him or something? What connections does she have to Central Park? Your parents’ deal is all art, right?” And she swung the champagne flute up and around, indicating that “the art deal” was the museum.

  “No, she can’t help him—gosh, Vati, watch it with that glass—he tells my mom everything, sort of.” She swigged from her glass. I lifted my eyebrows at her. “Where is Farah?” I said, searching for her in the sea of fabulousness funneling through the large archway. I couldn’t see my parents or Farah or Charlie or Charlie’s parents (who were invited guests because their company was catering) or Reagan or Oliver or Nolan.

  “No idea.”

  “Maybe she’s with Charlie.” And then I remembered the stains.

  “Look at this!” I held up my skirt for her to see.

  “Spaz.”

  “I am a spaz, but it was really Charlie’s fault with his duck rolls.”

  “It doesn’t show if the folds go this way.” She fiddled with my skirt for a second. “Is your mother going to freak?” And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Reagan walking in the crowd going into the show, not with Nolan but with Oliver.

  16

  The Temple of Dendur is in a gigantic room with long, rectangular pools of shimmering water meant to look like the Nile in Egypt. The temple itself looms in a background strikingly lit from underneath, making the warm sandstone look even more ancient and mysterious. That night glittering dinner tables, crowded with silver and glass, glowed in the candlelight of many small votives. The tables closest to the temple were the golden ticket tables, the ones where the museum’s biggest benefactors, famous people, the artists, the mayor, and my parents would sit. Down a few steps there was another level, with more tables alongside the pools. On that level a string quartet was playing. White roses and hydrangeas were at the center of each table, and place cards made of heavy white card stock with the guests’ names written in jet-black calligraphy were centered at the tops of all the place settings, just above the dessert spoons. One entire wall on the far side of the temple is a window. Through it you can see Central Park. I think it’s one of the most famous windows in the world. It must be fifty feet long and thirty feet high. There are a lot of movies shot right in front of it. Thousands of kids have gaped through its thick glass on school trips, people have proposed in front of it, tourists from all over the world have taken pictures of it.

  “Wren, I have been looking for you, darling!” It was my father, who was talking to three other art-worldy people when I entered the room with Vati.

  “Hi, Dad.” I gave him a hug. I hadn’t talked to him since breakfast.

  “My goodness, you look radiant! Look at Mom’s dress! It fits you as if it were made for you. Vati, don’t you look pretty too. You girls are growing up way too fast for my comfort. Here, come meet these fine people.” Dad talks like that normally because he is a gentleman, but it gets amped up a bit at these kinds of parties.

  “This is Mr. and Mrs. Siegal. I think, Wren, you might remember their house upstate? We went there when you were very young. You destroyed the hay bales in their barn,” he said, and winked at Mr. Siegal.

  “Oh yeah, sorry! Well, hello! I’m Wren.” I am really good at shaking hands and looking into people’s eyes. I’ve been trained like a dog. It look me years, but I got it.

  “Hi, I’m Padmavati.” Vati waved, but gave them a huge charming smile, which counts. They enthusiastically shook our hands and smiled at us and one another, the way adults do when teenagers are obviously making an effort.

  “And this, Wren, is Dev Brocklebank.” He said that with emphasis because Mr. Brocklebank runs the van Gogh program in Saint-Rémy, France, that I was applying to for my junior year abroad. He’s not an artist or anything, but I think he is the head of their board. He’s like the Oz of the place, a banker pushing the buttons behind a big art curtain.

  “Oh my gosh, hi!” Not cool, not cool, too much. But I still shook his hand heartily and looked smack-dab into his eyes.

  “Wren, hello. What a pleasure it is to meet you.” He had a heavy French accent.

  “I’m applying to your program!” Again, way too much, I reined it in by introducing Vati. “This is Vati.”

  “Hi!” Another wave from Vati.

  “Well, that is marvelous. Your father has told me you are very talented.”

  “Oh yes! I mean, I hope so. I, well, I don’t know if I am or not, maybe not, but I’ve already started my application.” Truth: I had been studying the website for this school since I was thirteen. And I have been plotting the work for my application with Mrs. Rousseau, my art teacher, for a solid year. Only one girl from our school has ever gotten in, Elizabeth Wilson. She is a legend of the art room. She graduated three years ago and went on to the Rhode Island School of Design. A drawing of hers is still up on the wall, like it’s a part of the permanent Hatcher collection. The Saint-Rémy school only takes ten of the best high school students from all over the country each year. It’s almost unimaginable to get in, but you have to try. Or I had to try. I don’t have much to be proud of except for my art, not really, and van Gogh painted the irises there; all the field paintings—the ones with the peasants bent over working all that gorgeous wheat; those curvy cypress tress with about twenty shades of green in each one of them—the very famous one of his bedroom in the asylum, the one with the bed with the red blanket? Do you know it? It looks so cozy in there even though it is an insane asylum. And he painted The Starry Night in Saint-Rémy.

  “When Wren puts her mind to something, not much can get in her way, right, Vati?” Dad winked at me.

  “That is true, Mr. Noorlander. Totally.”

  “You girls should find your table, and we should find ours, yah?” Like an army taking orders from its general, all of us dispersed.

  “Have fun, Turtles!” Dad said, as he skipped up the three shallow stairs to the higher level of the room where the guests, and my mother, were waiting.

  “Oh my god. That makes me want to go home and start my self-portrait this instant,” I said, like the wind had been knocked out of me.

  “Huh?” Padmavati was pressing her fingers to her head, checking that her cool braid was still in place.

  “The hardest part of the application for that school is you have to do a self-portrait. I bet lots of people are good at them.” An image of art students all over the country looking deep into the mirror at themselves flashed in my head. “But I’m scared.”

  “Why? You are such a good artist.”

  “No, it’s not really about that.” I noticed that in fact a strand of hair had fallen out of the braid, but Vati was missing it with her weird pressing. I tried to tuck it into a hidden bobby pin behind her ear, which is easier said than done. “It’s more about, well, revealing who you are.” I gave the bobby pin a shove.

  “Ouch!”

  “Sorry, but it won’t stay in.” I struggled until she became still, closed her eyes, and let me properly anchor the pin into her hair.

  “You have to look way into yourself to do a good one. It’s not just being able to draw what you look like, it’s way deeper. It’s like van Gogh’s self-portraits are revelations of who he wa
s as a man, it’s not just anatomy. There, that looks good.”

  “Oh man.” She fingered her braid again to feel the adjustment.

  “Yeah … What if I look deep inside and I don’t like what I see? I might not.” Even though this was kind of an important conversation, I could feel myself wanting to look around the room for Nolan.

  “No way. No way, Wren. You are going to do a great job and you will like what you see in there.” She pointed to my heart. “And so will that French guy. I see who you are all around you—your aura. You just can’t see it, but everyone else does.”

  “Thanks, Vatter.”

  “Do you think Oliver liked my dress?” she said in a sad-girl way.

  “I’m sure he did.”

  “Is it stupid that it’s Farah’s mom’s? Maybe I just should have worn one of my own. I should have worn a sari—my mother said she would have one made. Maybe that would have been nicer.”

  “Maybe. Gosh, I want a sari too, but whatever, Vati. I’m wearing my mom’s dress, you’re wearing Farah’s mom’s dress. It’s that kind of night. Now come on.” I took her hand. “Let’s go eat. Everyone will be at the table.”

  17

  Charlie and Vati were at my table and Reagan, Oliver, and Farah were seated at another scrub table next to ours. Both the tables were so far out of the spotlight they were practically in the American Wing. We were not only on the lower level of the room, but hidden behind the temple, so if you were seated where my parents were you wouldn’t even be able to see us. We were at the kiddie/random people tables, which was what I was expecting. But what I was not expecting to see as Padmavati and I circled the table to find our own names was a white folded card right next to mine with the name Nolan Shop.

  * * *

  “Hi,” I said helplessly, standing three feet away from the table, too terrified to move closer to the golden bamboo chair next to his.

  “Hey,” he said happily, and pulled the chair out so I had no choice but to move forward and take my seat. Luckily, I was getting a handle on the full skirt and managed to sweep it around my legs gracefully, fitting myself between the table and the chair. When he leaned forward to usher me in, between my naked shoulder and his face was a force field. If force fields had colors, that one would be pearly and sparkly.

  “I switched the place cards,” he said, pushing me in. I took in a breath and held it.

  “I was sitting next to some dude named Earl.” I looked up and across the table to see Earl-the-intern from my father’s office next to Padmavati, who had begun to use her dinner party manners and was clearly in the “What do you do?” conversation with Earl.

  “I wanted to sit next to you, so I switched them,” Nolan said.

  The volume of the string quartet and the roar of three hundred people talking got turned way down by God or someone so the words “I switched them” could penetrate into my soul. The only place to look was down, into a bowl of butternut squash soup with a swirl of cream on the top and a fried sage leaf floating in the middle.

  “I think you’re not supposed to move place cards,” I said.

  Nolan looked at me without a shred of regret. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “But to hell with that, right?”

  “Right.” I looked around the table to see if anyone else was tuning in to this. Nope. It felt like three years in slow motion for my ass to hit the seat, but when it did, Charlie was on the other side of me talking to an Asian woman I didn’t recognize but I figured also had a low-level job at the museum or why would she be sitting with us?

  “This smells good.” Nolan gave me a huge I’m-blowing-your-mind smile and gently blew on a spoonful of soup before he ate it up.

  18

  “I’m a flexitarian.”

  “You are? What’s that?” I asked, just before putting a fork jammed with beef fillet, mashed potatoes, and green sauce in my mouth.

  “I would rather eat things that didn’t have a mother or father, so I do that at home and at school and stuff. But if I go to someone’s house and they are serving ribs, or like this steak tonight, I’ll just eat it, because I don’t want to be difficult.” He crunched into his fennel-raisin semolina roll.

  “Are you against it in like a moral way? Or for health reasons?” I said with my mouth still a little full.

  “No, no judgment. I just saw this movie at school that would turn any thinking person into a vegan, so I’m mindful of what I put in my body, but I don’t want to be rude so…”

  “Oh.” I swallowed and thought for a second about two cows standing in the field watching me chew on their kid.

  “So, Reagan said you are in a band?”

  “Yeah, you guys should come see us sometime. We’re playing the Harvest Festival up at Columbia soon, like next week I think. Can I ask you something?”

  “Uh-huh.” I held my breath, in anticipation of I had no idea what. I could feel myself breaking out in a tiny sweat.

  “Who are you?”

  Now, this might sound weird, but Nolan’s “who are you” did not come out badly. That question sounds a little asshole-ish or pretentious and Dr. Phil-ish, like, “Who are you?” but it was more like he was asking because he was enchanted with me, so that was wild—and nobody had ever asked me who I was before, so I was way into it.

  “Um, well, I—”

  “Like, what kind of name is Wren?” he interrupted.

  “Oh, my aunt named me.”

  “How come?” He took a drink of water but still looked at me, waiting for the story.

  “So, after I was born…”

  “What hospital?”

  “Columbia Presbyterian. We were all born there.”

  “Okay.”

  “Where were you born?”

  “Columbia Presbyterian.”

  “What!” Kismet … “Wow. When’s your birthday?” I asked.

  “May 10. When’s yours?”

  “September 25,” I said. We sat there looking at each other for longer than it’s normal to without talking.

  “So, your name?” I am not exaggerating when I tell you that he was looking at me like I was a luna moth emerging from a cocoon or like I was the only living girl in New York City. Has anyone ever done that to you? Nobody had ever done that to me, ever.

  “So my mother was holding me in the hospital bed, and she said to my aunt that compared to holding Oliver, who apparently was the size of a baby hippo, she said I felt like a…” His elbow was on the table and he was resting his chin and cheek on his hand. He had a silver ring on his pinky that I had not noticed before. “… tiny bird. And my aunt said, ‘Like a wren.’” He smiled. “So that was what they called me. I think I was supposed to be named Lillian, after my grandmother, but…”

  “At first, I thought your brother said he had a sister named Gwen.”

  “Nope, Wren.”

  “I am so going to write a song about a girl named Wren.”

  “You are?” I started fiddling with the salt and pepper shakers on the table.

  “Yeah, man.” He sat up, picked up his fork, nailed the last piece of beef, and put it in his mouth. “Who do you know named Wren?” Chew chew chew. “It’s out of a fairy tale.” Chew chew. “In fact, you”—he pointed his fork at me—“look like a fairy tale.” He put the fork back in his teeth upside down. “Like Rapunzel.”

  Charlie elbowed me, jolting me out of the spell that was being cast on me.

  “Hello? How good is this?” Charlie was holding up a roasted parsnip. I didn’t think he had heard Nolan call me a fairy tale.

  “Yeah, it’s good, Charlie,” I said without even looking at him or my own parsnips. I’m not even sure I had tasted them yet.

  “Wren! It’s a parsnip fry, have you even tried it? Are you even listening to me?” I looked at the parsnip Charlie was holding in my personal space. I had the instinct to whack that fry out of his hand and into the wishing pool at the other end of the room.

  “It is good, man,” Nolan leaned in and said sincerely. “Your fathe
r is a great chef. Your dad’s the chef, right?”

  “Yes, thank you, he is.” Charlie took a bite of the root vegetable. “I get really proud of him at things like this. He started out as a school cook.”

  “That’s impressive, man. See—you have to pay your dues.” They were now talking over me, so I leaned back and watched Nolan be totally awesome to Charlie.

  “Oh, yeah! Well, if you want, I mean if you are finished, I can go find them. I think they are sitting up there—or I can show you the kitchen! I can go back there anytime I want,” Charlie said.

  “Thanks, I totally want to do that. I have never been backstage at one of these things, and maybe there is more of that carrot soup around!” He lifted his eyes at Charlie like maybe he could hook him up. It totally worked.

  “Butternut squash … there probably is,” Charlie said sheepishly.

  “Cool. But first I’m going to”—he pushed his chair out, took my hand, and pulled me up—“take Wren on a stroll.”

  I let Nolan pull me, looking at Charlie for approval. I felt a little guilty leaving him at the table, but despite that I lifted away like a balloon being released from a little boy’s hand.

  “Wanna take me somewhere, Wren?” Nolan asked.

  “Oh sure, I mean, yeah.”

  “Oh okay, well, after then,” Charlie said. “You can see the kitchen and maybe we can get a sneak peak at these insane lace cookies they are serving with coffee.”

  I looked to where I thought Farah was sitting at the other table, but her chair was empty. Had she gone to the bathroom? It was all a blur. I couldn’t focus on where anyone was. I had been in a twilight zone of boy-ness all through dinner and now everything was distorted. Even the Temple of Dendur, a place I thought I knew by heart, was as foreign as, well, an ancient Egyptian temple.

  Nolan started walking toward the American Wing, pulling me like I was one of those kid toys, like a duck on wheels that you can drag, but he paused right before we got close to the guards. “Can you take me somewhere in here?” He pointed his finger in the air and spun it around, meaning the museum. “Someplace you like? You said this was your second home.”