And yes, it’s loud, and I’m breathing in exhaust, and I am definitely happy to have a cabin to go back to deep in the quiet woods of Vermont. But being here, right now, makes me feel, if just for a minute, like there truly is space for everybody in the world. Even if you are different. Even if you are boring. Even if you just can’t seem to find your people.
And after my own quick stop at another street vendor—you definitely can’t get falafel like this in Moonlake Village—Imake my way to the last stop on George’s list: the Metropolitan Museum of Art—where I do indeed, as per George’s instructions, proceed to get myself deliberately lost.
I wanderfor a couple hours. Roaming from ancient Egyptian artifacts to medieval armor to Andy Warhol. I’ve been here once before, but I wasa teenager, and I did notfully appreciate the magnitude of the place. And of course, I’ve been to other museums, but not in a few years. I’ve forgotten how they can feel, so peaceful and shrouded in a sort of reverent silence. If the busy street outside gaveme a sense of complexity and excitement, the winding interconnected rooms of the museum bring me a sense of calm and openness, even as I absorb the vast range of human expression.
George is right, too; there is something to the sense of aimlessness, of not being sure what you’d find around the next corner. I do have a map, just in case I get so lost I can’t find my way out. And especially because I don’t want to miss the one place George told me not to skip.
I pause to look at the map now. Gallery 745… hang on, I’m actually very close.
Just a right, and then another right, and then a left, and—I stop in my tracks. I’ve stepped into a room that, unlike most of the museum spaces, is not an arrangement of paintings and sculptures and crafts from a given time period, but instead is, well, like walking through a portal into another space altogether.
I’m alone in a large living room, neat and orderly, but with clear and intentional design right down to the geometric stained glass windows, through which light shinesfrom the museum hall beyond. Except for the metal railing, which limits my ability to step into the room past a certain point, and the museum outside the windows (but only if you look close), I might as well beback in Moonlake Village, surrounded by the quiet and beauty of the natural world.
Or, as it turns out, when I slowly approach the plaque at the end of the enclosed walkway, Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, because that’s where this peaceful sanctuary of a room originated, I now read. They’ve just picked the whole thing up and plunked it here.
Designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, all the way down to the furniture, apparently. And yes, now I see it. I remember learning about the architect, somewhere along the way. But this, being here, is different.
The room is beautiful and spare, full of natural wood and clean shapes, the muted colors of nature. With high ceilings and long, low lines. Windows lining the two longest walls and window seats below them.
I take in thefurniture, the ceiling, the windows, the lamps. The whole place, truly, gorgeously handcrafted.
Which… Yeah. It’s basically a religious experience.
My phone rings in my pocket, breaking the stillness. I pull it out to check the screen—Zoe. I hesitate, reluctant to end the spell, but finally step outside the room and answer.
“Hey.”
“Get yourself dolled up, baby, I’m taking you out tonight!”
I tense a tiny bit before asking, “Whatcha got in mind?”
“Why are you being so quiet? Where are you?”
An older couple squeezes around me, and I scoot to the side.
“I’m… out.” I’m not sure why I don’t tell her about George’s map. Part of me wants to keep today’s adventure to myself.
“Working through my list, huh? Good boy! You’re going to love tonight. Jonathan Alcott is having a little soirée…”
I scrub my face with my free hand. “Zoe, sweetheart, does any part of me strike you as the soirée type?”
“Well,” she falters, just a little, “I think youcouldbe the soirée type if you tried a soirée. Jonathan throws a great soirée…”
“I don’t even know Jonathan.”
“Sure you do, you know, his dad’s J.J. Alcott.”
“The Senator?!”
“Yes. See, exactly, you know him.”
I knowofhim. He’s polished and wealthy, one of those people who move in “circles”. Famous, but mostly for being the out gay son of a maverick politician. J.J. Alcott is a headline-grabbing Texas senator who somehow walks the line of being an old-school conservative with inclusive social values.
Which is good, I guess? Better than being a bigot, anyway. Regardless, I’m quite sure I’d have nothing to say to him and even less to say to his son, who I’m pretty sure I’ve seen interviewed by Anderson Cooper recently.
Yeah, no. I really prefer to stick to regular folks. National television is not my idea of regular folks.
Okay, so I’m living in George Knight’s apartment, but now that I’ve talked to George a little bit, I can’t quite see him as part of an elite class like that. Yes, I’m aware how fucked up that kind of reasoning is. That’s why I’m not going to examine it too closely.
