“Jane!” A hand snatched Jane’s elbow, startling her from her daydream.
Based on the intensity pinching the woman’s mouth and punctuating her words, this wasn’t her first attempt to get Jane’s attention; Jane had been too enraptured with the whale skeleton to hear her mother’s approach.
“They’re gathering in the theater now, and I don’t want to get poor seats again,” Zelda Sterling—naturalist, artist, and ghostwriter for anyone who paid well enough—said with a firm grip.
By “poor seats,” Mrs. Sterling meant the ones positioned toward the front of the theater, so close that they would have to crane their necks to look straight up at the podium. Those werethe seats that the richest and oldest men scrambled to claim in their game of vying for the attention of whoever was speaking. If Dr. Sterling was here, that’s where he’d want to sit, or at the very least be forced to sit.
Everybody loved Dr. Simon Sterling and his lectures on paleobotany. Colleagues, professors, curators, and students alike were disheartened by the news that he couldn’t be in attendance on account of contracting a horrid cold back home in the States and that they would have to contend with his wife and youngest daughter to attend in his stead.
How would they be able to wrestle with one another over who among them was his most devoted enthusiast when he wasn’t present to hear their praises sweetened by milk and honey?
Jane had tried to ignore how when a man would greet her or her mother, he would look behind or around them in search for the beloved Dr. Sterling once he fulfilled the obligatory nicety of plastering on a too-polite grin for his too-polite greeting. She’d return it with her own vapid flashing of teeth. Couldn’t they be satisfied enough having a conversation with only her?
What was wrong with a scientific conversation with a lady anyway? It wasn’t Jane’s fault that she had a tendency to detail the plum-colored ensemble and well-feathered merry widow hat she happened across in a shop window in the same breath as celebrating Lawrence Lambe’s recent discovery of theCentrosaurusbones in Canada just last year.
Perhaps it was their own fault for being so disinterested in such colorful conversation. A theory Jane kept to herself was that the true reason as to why these men held so many degrees was to compensate for their lack of knowledge regarding the proclivities of the female sex.
Mrs. Sterling took Jane by the elbow and together theyfollowed the trickling of men in suits and their wives in shapely gowns to the museum’s main theater. There weren’t many that Jane recognized among all these most-likely-Cambridge-doctors, at least well-enough to strike up easy small talk, so she kept close to her mother. She did catch some glancing at her dress, however, which was a loud shade of pink with ruffled white lace bunched around her bodice and the opal charm clasped upon her throat, and she smirked, not hesitating in adding a flaunting flow to her stride so that the lace and fine fabric caught prettily in the sunlight. If others didn’t wish to converse with her, then the least they could do was spare her wardrobe an envious look.
From the flowing crowd, a short, stocky man with snow-white mutton chops broke away to walk toward the Sterlings. He was smiling, with his wife at his elbow.
Jane studied the woman’s pale gray dress with a raised brow. The puffed sleeves and stiff bodice recalled images of silhouettes of the previous decade, and Jane speculated that she had nothing newer in her wardrobe to wear. The ensemble was completed by a modest green hat, parasol, and emerald-jeweled choker. Jane cringed, though affectionately, as she had begrudgingly accepted that Mrs. Elizabeth Talbot wasn’t savvy with what was presently fashionable. It was all tacky, to Jane, but there was some character in tackiness.
“Oh, Zelda, Mary! How lovely to see you again!” The man said, his tone bright and aged—and American. His wife smiled as well, nodding her greeting. She was similar to her husband: white-haired, wrinkled, and stocky in build.
Jane winced at the use of her nickname, “Mary.” It was an alias she crafted as a child, when her paleontological aspirations were big and thriving, but had long since outgrown. She smiled, nonetheless.
“Mr. Talbot, Elizabeth, hello!” Mrs. Sterling greeted them with a warm grin. Her hands, outstretched, found those of Mrs. Talbot’s. The cloth of her gloves strained as she imprinted her affections into her old friend’s skin. “It’s been far too long.”
Jane inclined her head in a nod that displayed the details of tinseled feathers and silk roses sewn into her hat when the Talbots offered her their quieter greetings. She last met them at the unveiling of theDiplodocusexhibit in London. The Talbots weren’t necessarily scientists, neither of them holding degrees or possessing any tangible education in the sciences to boast about, but rather passionate patrons of the Smithsonian in Washington.
About once a year, in the late spring when the Sterlings would take holiday in Saratoga Springs, the Sterlings and the Talbots would share a suite for the month-long duration of their stays, and in such a way a bond like that of family had been forged between them. In a way, Jane nearly considered the Talbots as surrogate grandparents, as she didn’t have any more living ones with whom she shared blood and bone.
“Yes, I agree,” Mrs. Talbot said as she took a moment to cup Jane’s chin before returning her attention to Mrs. Sterling.
Jane caught Mr. Talbot looking around, looking over Mrs. Sterling’s shoulders, and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
The number of chins Mr. Talbot possessed doubled as he skewered his lips into an exaggerated frown. It was an expression that would have had Jane in a fit of giggles as a child, but now only a huff of amusement rushed from her nostrils. “I see no sign of Simon. Will he not be present?”
“No, no,” Mrs. Sterling pursed her lips. “He’s ill with an infection, I’m afraid.”
Mrs. Talbot pressed a hand to her chest with a lowtsk. “Oh, how dreadful.”
Mr. Talbot smoothed blunt fingers over his bristly, white mustache. “Yes, that is very unfortunate.”
Mrs. Sterling took both of Mrs. Talbot’s hands and worried her mouth into a pursed line, as if on the verge of tears. Very clearly a mask, one anyone could see as a dramatic ruse, as Dr. Sterling’s “infection” was nothing more than a mere head cold that only brought him mild discomfort and exhaustion. Mrs. Sterling and Jane were alike in that way: stretching the truth just enough to warrant extra attention, but not pity. It seemed to have worked, as Mrs. Talbot stepped closer to her friend with coos of reassurances and well-wishes rushing from her mouth.
As Mrs. Sterling and the Talbots spoke, Jane stood off to the side, listening, smiling, nodding, and laughing whenever the conversation required it. But it didn’t take long for her to grow tired of the same “how are you”s and “what have you been doing”s that were shared whenever they reunited with the Talbots. There was only so much small talk between those who have known each other for decades—and have lived stagnant lives for twice as long—a woman of twenty-four could handle, so she allowed her eyes to wander the room.
Repeatedly her attention was drawn away from the crowd of puff-sleeved bodices, slim skirts, and plainly-colored ditto suits and back toward the fin whale suspended high above, haloed by sunlight and an arched ceiling. It continued to watch her as though it were a predator tempting her back to it with its magnificence. Its gaping ribs were poised to swallow a man standing in its shadow, just as she had been doing moments ago. Even from behind Jane recognized the man’s slumped shoulders, so she kept her steps as quiet as possible as she parted from her companions to approach him.
Excitement made her final few steps clack sharply againstthe marble floor before she pounced on the man, and roared, “A-hah! A new victim to be gobbled up by the big bad whale!”
The two of them cried: her from thrill, him from terror.
It felt as though the world paused as the ambiance of studious conversation hushed into leering silence, and several heads turned to look their way.
Jane supposed that she should have been embarrassed, but she was too focused on trying to breathe amidst her pealing laughter as the man reached for his chest to settle his beating heart.
