I was pretty sure she wasn’t, and I almost got into it with Jessie, but I yawned and he didn’t yawn back, and according to an article I’d recently read, that meant he was a psychopath, so I refrained from starting any kind of heated exchange with him.
I told Jessie I needed to center myself before I went in to the museum, and I turned around, put in my earbuds, and listened to a playlist October had made me back when we first started hanging out.
In 2013 SFMoMA had closed for an extensive renovation. It reopened three years later with three times more exhibit space, including the ground-floor galleries now accessible via the new entrance at Schwab Hall, allowing visitors into the adjacent Roberts Family Gallery without having to go through the main lobby.
At 9:56 a guard unlocked the double doors, while the mechanical shades rose at a laboriously slow speed and disappeared into the ceiling. One at a time, the people at the front of the line advanced through a metal detector and into the building. I advanced halfway to the entrance, and from there I could see bronze stanchions with blush-colored ropes demarcating the queue that snaked toward the structure in the middle of the room.
She’s in there, I remember thinking, a wave of anticipation dousing my heart. But despite my anxiety, I felt grounded and eager. I believed I was where I was supposed to be. And I kept reminding myself of something Cal had said in Montana: I’d already lost what I was afraid of losing. There was nothing at stake here.
Not surprisingly, the structure was a work of art too. A 10 x 10 roofless form made of asymmetrical bronze frames, edging thick pieces of glass with just the slightest tint, as if the glassmaker had blown a thin stream of rose-colored smoke into them before they set. There was an open doorframe at the front of the glass house and one on the opposite side in the back. Each had a security guard standing by.
But the most visually compelling feature of the structure was the glass itself. All the panes looked like someone had taken a chisel to them, causing artfully crafted cracks to extend out from random points. I could barely see beyond the fractures, but even through the landscape of a thousand jagged lines, I recognized the figure of the woman seated at the table inside.
At exactly 10:00 a.m. the first person in line, a young African-American girl wearing a lot of colorful necklaces and a big backpack, was ushered up to the glass house and invited to enter.
One of the security guards took the pack from the girl before she went in. And as I advanced a few feet, I could make out October’s hands on the table. I saw the girl sit down and set her hands directly on top of October’s. It was impossible for me to know if the girl spoke or not. Five minutes later she walked out wiping her eyes and smiling.
Upon entering the museum, I took out my earbuds and put away my phone.
The Roberts Family Gallery was a huge space, and the glass house was in the center of it. At the back of the room, a wide, stunning maple staircase led to the main lobby of the museum, and also provided bleacher-like seating for visitors who wished to sit and observe what was going on in the gallery below.
After Yanmei and I both made it through the metal detector and were standing inside the building, she turned around and gave me a sweet, gawky, double thumbs-up. I was about to give her at least one proper thumbs-up in return, but a familiar voice coming from the staircase froze my heart.
“Oh, no you don’t,” she said, the tone like bullets being shot in my direction.
I looked up and saw Rae racing down the steps, dwarfed in a long black blazer over a black oblong skirt and heavy black boots. She was heading right for me, seething. There were no snacks in her hand, and her hair was back to what I guessed was its natural color, black and shiny like wet tar. She had a museum staff nametag clipped to her lapel.
“Absolutely not,” she said, her hand reaching toward my chest, halting me. “You’re not going in there.”
Yanmei’s eyes widened and she looked back and forth between Rae and me. Jessie stepped to the side so he could see what was happening.
“Nice to see you too,” I mumbled sarcastically.
“I’m not kidding, Joe. What do you think you’re doing?”
“Waiting my turn like everybody else.”
“You know, I honestly didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to show up here, but since you are, consider yourself banned. No need to make a scene. Just turn around and go back to wherever you came from, yeah?”
Yanmei looked worried. Jessie seemed to have a newfound respect for me. “Dude you’re banned? I talked about my cock and didn’t get banned; what the hell did you do?”
“You can’t keep me from going in, Rae.”
“I can and I will.” She pulled a device from her pocket. It looked like an old flip phone but wasn’t. A museum walkie-talkie, maybe? “I’ll call Security and tell them you’re a threat to the artist, which you are.”
“Please don’t do that.”
I did not want this altercation to happen in public, but I couldn’t step out of the line. I’d been standing for almost four hours already, and if I left I’d lose my place and have to start all over the next day.
“Please,” I said again. “I need to see her.”
Rae laughed with condescension. “Oh, you need to see her? Is that so? That’s nice for you, yeah? And are you really insensitive enough to think that she needs to see you?”
It was a fair and cutting question, one I hadn’t contemplated, and I lost my breath thinking about it.
Jessie said, “Dude are you a Danko stalker or something?”
Rae took her eyes off of me to
