“Doesn’t the Institute have those … what are those things,” Marc grumbled, shoving his face back into his pillow. “You know, the little … radio things. For people who can’t read placards.”
“The audio guides?” Regan said, pressing a hand to her temple. Her head spiritedly condemned her poor decisions with a decisive throb. “I’m not a walking audio guide, Marc, I’m a docent. Astonishingly, people might notice if I’m not there.”
THE NARRATOR, A MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN WITH A BRISK INTOLERANCE FOR NONSENSE: Charlotte Regan has a degree in Art History and would likely say that she has dabbled in art herself, which is in many ways an understatement. She graduated college at the top of her class, which had been no surprise to anyone once upon a time; except maybe her mother, who considered the top of a liberal arts program to be the equivalent of being, say, the winner of a dog show. Among the things Charlotte Regan was not was her older sister Madeline, who’d finished at the top of medical school, but that is of course not relevant to the subject at hand. Presently, Charlotte Regan is a docent at the Art Institute of Chicago, a coveted role at one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. Charlotte’s mother would say it’s a glorified volunteer position rather than a job, but that, again, is not relevant at this time.
While many things made Regan #blessed,
THE NARRATOR, DISAPPROVINGLY: She is being sarcastic.
primary among them was her hair, which was characteristically perfect, and her skin, which was generally resistant to the consequences of her lifestyle. Genetically speaking, she was built for waking up late and rushing out the door. A swipe of mascara would do the trick, and maybe a rose-tinted lip stain for the high bones of her cheeks, just to make her look slightly less dead. She pulled out one of her black sheath dresses and a pair of black ballet flats, twisting the Claddagh ring on her finger. Then she reached for the earrings she’d stolen from her sister’s room after college graduation: the little teardrop garnets that made her ears look like they were slowly weeping blood.
She paused to eye her reflection with something of a honed ambivalence. The dark circles were getting notably worse. Luckily her mother had given her the East Asian genes for eternal youth and her father had given her a trust fund that made people think twice about rejecting her, so it didn’t really matter whether she slept or not. Regan pinned her nametag to her chest, pricking her thumb only once in the process, and stopped to eye the finished product.
“Hi,” she said to the mirror, practicing a smile. “I’m Charlotte Regan, and I’ll be your guide to the Art Institute today.”
“What?” Marc asked groggily.
“Nothing,” she said over her shoulder.
They’d fucked last night to moderately successful results, though Marc never got particularly hard when he’d done that much cocaine. But at least she’d gone home with him. At least she’d gone home at all. There had been a moment when she might have opted not to; when a stranger standing in the corner near the back of the room might have been the more interesting choice, whereupon she might have hazarded a little sashay his way. All it would have taken was a breathy laugh, a sly Take me home, Stranger, and then wouldn’t it have been so easy? There were a million spidery webs of possibility in which Regan had not come home, had not slept with her boyfriend, had not woken up in time for work, had not woken up at all.
She wondered what she was doing out there in all those mirror-shards of lives unlived. Maybe there was a version of her who had woken up at six and gone jogging on the lake path, though she doubted it.
Still, it was nice to consider. It meant she possessed creativity still.
This version of herself, Regan calculated, had fifteen minutes to get to the Art Institute, and if she believed in impossibilities she would have believed it to be impossible. Fortunately or unfortunately, she believed in everything and nothing.
She fingered the bloody tears of her earrings and pivoted sharply, eyeing Marc’s shape beneath the sheets.
“Maybe we should break up,” she said.
“Regan, it’s seven in the morning,” Marc replied, voice muffled.
“It’s almost two-thirty, dipshit.”
He lifted his head, squinting. “What day is it?”
“Thursday.”
“Mm.” He burrowed his face in his pillow again. “Okay, sure, Regan.”
“We could always just, I don’t know. See other people?” she suggested.
He rolled over with a sigh, propping himself up with his elbows.