Dark Museum

Sophia | One Year Later

The envelope only said: Sophia.

Before taking the steps to her brownstone, Sophia shuffled through the possibilities of who could have taped the note to her door. No address. No stamp.

The back of the envelope read: I hope I'll see you. J

Sophia let herself inside.

Taking a DVD and magazine from her designer carryall, she set the bag on the kitchen table and flopped on the sofa.

In her previous life, she never would have watched a film by herself. She and her friends would pile on her parents' sofa with a hot bowl of popcorn and giggle until her dad told them to keep it down. After moving out, she scouted which of her friends would host since Ms. Nina didn't share her bedroom TV.

Ms. Nina had died since Sophia had been in the museum. Having been in her mid-forties when Sophia lived with her, adding thirty years gave her a pretty healthy age. Her parents were elderly now too. All her grandparents and her aunts and uncles were gone.

Life in 2021 was easy in some ways (ordering food and paying bills easy), and upsetting in others (everyone reminiscing over the 90s, which was still the future to her).

To take a break from a particularly upsetting Eighties Nostalgia TV program, where her favorite stars were in their fifties and sixties — the age she herself should have been — Sophia took the subway to Queens for a spicy snack and a change of scenery.

Before she found the food she found Ajay on a poster in a window.

He knelt with his arms and legs spread. The top button of his jeans was undone, as were all the buttons on his billowing shirt. Tight abs. That scar.

A TV in the corner of the shop played a music video that kept the vibe in the fluorescent-lit store strictly Bollywood.

Upon entering, the music on TV changed to something mysterious, upbeat, gritty. A man stood with his back to the camera, the glowing words He's Bakkk cross-dissolving from English to Hindi to Urdu. Flocks of blonde women in gauzy, barely-there clothes swirled, keeping his face concealed. A close-up of the man's lips beside a woman's ear. Elaborate overhead camerawork. Back-lit dancing. At the chorus, the man turned dramatically in his sea of women and showed his face.

Ajay was so refined. More muscular. His only flaw was the scar on his abdomen, which he rocked.

"You can buy the movie if you're going to stand and watch." The man from the counter approached while she was lost in the song and made her jump.

"So," Sophia said, turning back to the screen. "He's doing movies again?"

"Everyone thought he was dead. He just—" He swept his hand in the direction of the door, where another customer was entering. "Disappeared!"

The man scooted behind the overloaded counter and finagled a magazine out of a tight wall rack. "Take this as well. No one saw him for thirty years. He lost his wife, his home, everything. Nobody knows where he went or why he returned."

Ajay smoldered from the cover of the magazine. Hands folded under his chin, eyes intense on the camera — on her. A small photo of him in the corner boasted the title Can you believe he's 70!

Sophia bought the DVD and the magazine and took them home, not wanting to open either. She couldn't imagine watching this particular movie with anyone.

Except maybe ...

The J on the envelope could stand for Josh.

She opened it and a concert ticket slid out. No note. With the show in a nearby Park Slope bar, starting in an hour, she talked herself into and out of going several times before she shouldered her bag and walked out the door.