This book plunges deeply into the mind of Valora Bianchi, a quiet and beautiful 27 year old apprentice temporarily studying abroad in the United States from Italy.
She collides with 29 year old Elena Rose, a troubled woman from surburban Seatt...
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V.
I traced the outside of my lower lip with my fingers, taking a last reassuring glance about the public visitors. The guests were gathered in large groups with their families and associates, gesturing towards displays, brochures flailing from their hands. I scanned the bodies for Sara to settle any last minute uncertainties that I had not attempted to locate her.
Daniel stepped to the side to allow me first access into the exit door from the main exhibitions. Slight unease wormed from my intuition, a telling insight of sorts that this treatment wasn't at all necessary to locate Sara. I could stand and wait; search more efficiently. The lure of what laid behind the staff doors was more magnetizing than escorting Sara around by the hand like a child. Sara was Sara, extroverted and gregarious, she had a tendency to disappear at social functions. She overwhelmed herself with chatter like unregulated stimulants. Her gratification came from external validation, hierarchical acknowledgement of any sort. A distinct woman from myself that obscured herself with her figure, held her tongue, and let language be shaped by her body; it said all it had to say. It wasn't unusual for her to leave me in socially erratic places like this, to make herself known among the guests. It was a quality I did not penalize her for, and was, after all, how we had met.
Agreeing to follow him into an employee restricted area was my own doing, not at his request, and as odd as I found the suggestion, there was the curiosity that lingered to be quenched. I would punish myself later, and be back tomorrow at opening if I didn't take advantage of the opportunity. Naturally, no intimate interest regarding Daniel existed beyond the fact he were aesthetically easy on the eyes. The forming of friendships that were rushed and inorganic never appealed. If Daniel and I were meant to somehow blossom into friendship, it would happen by fate, and bind together by chemistry, not as a result of him pulling puppet strings under the Director position. The artist in me squirmed to have a glimpse of what laid beyond the doctored exterior of these facilities, how the gears harmonized without the pressure of frivolous viewers to cause distraction. It was no different from venturing into the taboo realm of art. A private tour; a museum defaced. We planted ourselves inside a sterile elevator, ascending to the 9th floor from level L. Claustrophobia made its introduction in the pit of my stomach as I leaned into the railing, focusing on the glowing numbers fluctuate.
"Don't like elevators?" he asked, observing me gingerly as I counted to myself.
"It's an odd fear of mine, I have slept in rooms smaller than this."
And crates, underneath hand-carts, inside mother's saratoga trunks that housed her intimates. There had been many intricate spaces for a young girl to play in within my family home. When not flourishing among the streets, and basking in a Cathedral nave, I had built invisible civilizations underneath mother's bed. I used nothing but bisque dolls made of leathers, cloths and papier-mâché, conducting elaborate stories and questionable themes to soon transpire.
