I couldn’t go on like this. She was in my city, within my grasp. I had to do something.

CHAPTER EIGHT AUDREY

Capturing the scope of the Hirshhorn’s monumental building—an elevated, concrete wheel rising among the other, more sedate museums on the Mall—was impossible from my phone. After a few failed attempts, I settled for snapping a picture of the distinctive sculpture by the entrance: a black ’92 Dodge Spirit being crushed by a boulder with a painted-on face. I tagged the location, added an animated heart, and uploaded the image to my Stories.

I slid my phone into my bag and looked up to see my new boss, Ayala, waiting for me just inside the glass-walled lobby. She looked as glamorous as she had at my interview, wearing a crisp white sheath, her black hair slicked into a ballerina bun and her lips painted candy-apple red. I nearly shot my arm up to excitedly wave but forced myself to offer a restrained nod and smile instead. Projecting a cool exterior was imperative even though I felt anything but cool. For starters, the temperature was in the upper nineties with what felt like 1,000 percent humidity. The outfit I’d chosen with such care—cropped, wide-leg black pants with a slinky black camisole and a gauzy kimono covered in a cheeky bird print—had felt damp as soon as I stepped outside, and my hair felt enormous.

Moreover, I was a mass of nerves. Here I was, about to fulfill a lifelong dream of working in one of the country’s top museums. What if I couldn’t hack it? Maybe I really did need that graduate degree; maybe without it I was woefully unprepared. What if they realized right away what a fraud I was? I couldn’t return to New York a failure, couldn’t beg Izzy for my old bedroom back. I wished I could dip a hand into my bag for the Xanax I’d stashed there alongside some animal crackers, but Ayala was holding the door open for me, so I didn’t dare. Instead, I swallowed my anxiety, pasted a smile on my face, and channeled the confident, chic woman I pretended to be online.

“Audrey,” Ayala said, her long, neon-green nails pressing into my flesh as she clasped my hand. “So nice to see you again.”

“It’s wonderful to see you, too. I’m so excited to be here.”

“We’re thrilled to have you on board,” she continued, the warmth in her voice melting some of my nerves. “A friend who owns a gallery in New York introduced me to your Instagram account years ago, and I absolutely just fell in love with your voice. It’s so irreverent. When I saw your application, I knew immediately that you were the woman for the job. You don’t take yourself too seriously.”

She paused, frowning slightly, and I glanced down at myself as surreptitiously as I could, wondering what she had seen that was out of order.

“You should know, however, that not everyone agreed. There were those who felt we should go with a more traditional choice. Someone with an advanced degree and proven museum experience.” She placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed, just tightly enough that I squirmed. “I advocated for you, Audrey.”