Number three in the trilogy nobody asked for. The director of book restoration is waiting for final approval of a new project when she gets a visitor that she's not seen in four years.
Also, all characters/names of people working for in/or around the Smithsonian are from my imagination. I did no research on this.
"Thus you can see that this system, along with the talented team I've assembled, will not only put the Smithsonian in the lead of rare and precious book restoration, I believe we can become the world authority in identifying fakes and forgeries." I give the assembled board my best professional smile and close the slide show of my presentation. Hopefully before my underarm dress pads give out.
"I must say Ms. Crawford, when you came to me with this idea I didn't think it had a ghost of a chance of succeeding, not with such a small budget and team, but this has me convinced." Paige Lehrer says, nodding to the screen gone back to the image of a Guttenberg bible; half desiccated, and half restored.
Two of the other members nod and smile in agreement. Sedalia Jefferson turns her head away from the others just enough to hide her face, and gives me a quick wink. My heart soars.
"It will be impressive…if you can pull it off. If not, the museum will look foolish for not investing in all the new technology other restoration centers are using." Noel Eastman drawls. I'm used to swimming with academic sharks, but the E-man is more of an electric eel masquerading as a clownfish. He appears friendly and harmless, but then he slithers up behind you and gives you a painful zap.
Sedalia speaks up before I can. "No one will blame the museum for throwing a few dollars at an inexpensive project. They'll blame B, and we'll have the talented people she recruited. If it succeeds, we'll be thought of as visionary leaders who were brave enough to let a maverick try out an interesting experiment, and it paid off." It's a nice balance. She's distanced the museum from any failure, while linking success to the board rather than me. Eastman might agree to a green light now.
He taps his lips with his pen. It's monogramed of course, just like his jacket and handkerchief. "Both valid points." He looks at me and I try to give him bland, professional façade. "We will confer and give our decision on Monday Ms. Crawford"
"Thank you Mr. Eastman, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your time and attention."
Less than a minute after I've fallen into my office chair, and just as I'm reaching for my phone to text Tionne, Eastman walks into my office without bothering to knock. The tool.
"Well B, that was quite the show you gave us this afternoon!" His tone implies that I performed a strip tease rather than presented a professionally produced academic proposal. The snake.
I smile at him, picturing him as a teddy bear. I tried smiling at him while I pictured disemboweling him, but it terrified him and cost me funding. "Thank you Noel, I try to keep you entertained." I also keep my seat. If I stand up, I'll remind him that I'm taller than he is, and my project is DOA.
He chuckles, "I find your willingness to 'go without a net' by not using microscopes and lab analysis brave, but somewhat backward. And your team-" The bastard makes an actual 'tsk' noise, "Quite the collection of 'misfits' you've assembled." He laughs again at his own wit. The walking pile of fecal matter.
Looking down at my lap, I try to calculate how much time I'd have to hide his body if I asked him out for a drink and then strangled him in the back seat of my car. Surely his wife would be glad for a night off?
"If you're referring to Mickey Reyes, I admit he's a bit eccentric, but his patience is boundless. No one I've ever heard of can restore ancient writing the way he can. He would have seen that Galileo's Moon was a forgery with just a glance."
"Perhaps, but he looks like a homeless person and a forties fashion designer had a baby!"
"So what? You'd rather pay for a room full of lab equipment, thirty technicians, and get it wrong than ignore poorly fitting sweater vests?" I raise an eyebrow but not my voice.
"Fine, fine, you've sold me on that. What about this Sidney woman though? You're not really getting her to work for peanuts when she can work for the private sector, make boatloads of cash, and live in Paris?" He smiles, thinking he's made his point.
"Sharnell Sidney is an American. She's tired of living abroad. Her family lives less than an hour south of here, and she's always wanted to work at the Smithsonian." I give him the hard look he deserves for objecting to Sidney. "No other restoration artist has her eye for detail, or the breadth of knowledge she has. Besides, we're not paying her peanuts, she'll be making only slightly less than I do."
"That's ridiculous! You're a director!"
"Sidney should BE a director. She should be the curator of the entire museum and we both know it."
Eastman believes the best defense is a good offense. "And you think those two, plus yourself will be enough? You have other responsibilities you know."
"We'll have five grad students and two doctoral candidates. I admit, the first year will be tough, but once we hit our stride and start producing, I'll add a few people to the team."
He shakes his head, rubbing his mouth. "It won't be enough; you'll fail before you have a chance to succeed."
"Why Noel, I didn't know you cared so much, I'm touched." I brace for the zap.
"Of course I care. Small budget or not, it's still money. And it is true that if you succeed, we all succeed. It would be a real feather in the museum's cap if your little team managed where the big labs have fallen short." He paces the couple of steps that are all my tiny, crowded office allows. "I feel like you need just one more. Someone who is not a human microscope, the fashion model who knows 12 languages, or Julia Roberts with a PhD."
"Don't be ridiculous. Aside from coloring, I look nothing like Julia Roberts." It occurs to me that the eel is somewhat intimidated by me. "So, what's your solution? I'm all about inclusion."
"I know just the man! He's a Harvard PhD, has plenty of experience, and has all the right connections to help with funding." His grin borders on triumphant. The SOB didn't just zap me, he dropped me into a pit trap lined with sharpened stakes. Fuck.
If I say no, he'll kill the project. If I say yes, I'll have a Harvard, white bread, millstone hanging around my neck. He'll make my job harder, not easier. It's the built-in kid that doesn't help with the group project.
I look at his smug face and suddenly, I'm through. I get why Sharnell went to Paris. I get why giant labs with state-of-the-art equipment are fooled by forgeries that are later caught with time and a magnifying glass.
"Sure Noel, bring him on board. I knew my plan was too good to come about without a hitch. My only question is, will he just be spying on us, or will he be actively working at sabotage?"
"What? That's nonsense! You need a face to show the cameras! Someone people will actually believe is an academic. What if you succeed and no one believes you? What then? Do you think that if you, who looks like she should be busy driving her three kids to soccer practice, stands up and announces that the just discovered diary of one of the Medici's is a fake that anyone will believe you? I suppose you can get the prettier Tyra Banks to stand behind the podium, but who's going to take her seriously? Or the man with x-ray vision? When he's not on the poster for the anti-vax movement?"
I spring to my feet. In my 'present the proposal of my life' shoes, I'm 5'11", and I tower over him. The wondering about hiding the body thing must have popped up behind my glass face because he takes a hasty step back.
"You know something little man, your time is ending. Hell, my time probably won't last out the decade. Pretty soon it will be prettier Tyra Banks behind the podium, and you know what, if people don't listen to her, they're going to get left behind. The days when some white guy with a Harvard education that his dad's money and influence bought automatically gets a seat at the table are ending. Sure, ivy league schools are good, I went to one myself, and it was no picnic, but I had to work five times as hard as you did just to get in the door. And yeah, I had, and still do, have to fight just to be taken seriously, but if I'm willing to work that hard, imagine how hard it was for Sidney and Reyes. Imagine how hard they are willing to work." Somehow, I'm maintaining my professional tone, but it's a struggle.
"So, yes, by all means, bring in your man from Harvard. I could use another researcher. But that means you'll approve the project right? You'll add a salary for this guy to the budget, yes?"
He swallows, but manages to answer me. "Yes, of course. Your people, I-I mean the people you've already hired won't lose any money."
"Great. So you'll email me with a time to meet this great guy of yours and I'll have my assistant update the proposal."
"O-okay then, see you Monday." He sprints from the room. The dick.
I collapse back into my chair, tired beyond belief. Should I go home, put on my frumpy pjs, and eat the pint of ice cream that's waiting in my freezer, or should I steal dynamite from a construction site and blow up the damn museum? I pull out my phone to text Tionne, but a man appears in my doorway and taps on the frame.
"Hey B, you got a minute?" He's a little old to be a grad student, maybe a visiting professor?
"Um, sure. How do you know my name?" I sit up straight and give him the best smile my tired ass can dredge up.
His expression is somewhere between a grimace and a smile as he steps inside, shuts the door, and sits in the visitor chair. "I know everyone's name. You can call me Chuck, it's easier, less formal." He lays a hand on my arm. The world goes white. Color comes back in layers. First black, then red, then green, then blue, and edges fill in with the other colors after that. Chuck's face comes into focus, but it's just background noise as the memories wash through me. The library, Tionne, Mrs. S, almost flirting with the stranger in secondhand clothes…Sam. Making copies. Dean. Learning that monsters are real. Sam. Ruby dying while white light explodes through her body. Cemeteries. Making love. Lilith and the new deal. Long rides in the black car. An old blind man with a secret. A cave of wonders…and SamSamSamSam.
"You made me forget. You made me forget the love of my life. Why did you do that?" Fragments of memory continue to burst through my brain. Little explosions of color in the gray landscape, like a black and white photo turning to full color.
"To save Dean from hell and Sam's soul from 150 years as Lucifer's chew toy." He reaches out as if to pat my hand, looks me in the eye, thinks better of it, and retracts his hand. I have scared God. "So, I'm insane, right? Because there is no God. Scientifically, you can't exist."
He sighs and stands, "I love you B, I do get tired of having the same conversation all over again. Come with me." When he heads out the door, I hesitate for a moment, then on impulse, grab my phone and backpack and follow him into the hall.
When we reach the top of the stairs, he pauses. People are walking up and down, through the halls, into and out of doors. I can see trees moving in the breeze outside too. I turn my head to nod at a colleague. She starts to smile in return and then freezes. Everyone freezes. The trees outside are suddenly still. Birds are caught in mid-flight. For a moment I expect that I, too, will be unable to move, but I turn my head and look at Chuck.
He flicks his fingers, holds out his hand and the glass in the big window vanishes. The bird caught in mid-flight can move again. It flies inside and lands on Chuck's outstretched hand. The bird chirps out a complicated warble and Chuck answers it back. It chirps a reply and flies back out the window. Simultaneously the window is restored, and the bird resumes it's mid-flight position. Chuck turns and looks at me.
"Ok, you're God."
"And you, B, willingly let go of your memories, so I've restored them as I told you I would."
"Why now?"
"Ah, good question. That's why you're one of my favorite minor characters, you always ask intelligent questions."
"I'm glad of that. I'd hate to be on the outs with you."
He gives a quick little indulgent laugh, "You would, you really would. But to answer your question, Sam needs you."
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Sam exists, but I nod. "Ok, what for?"
"To find Dean, and to keep Sam from making a huge mistake."
"Another one?" I don't laugh at my own pathetic joke. If I do, I doubt I'll ever stop.
"Yeah, he does tend to overcorrect." He looks me over. "Let's go back to your office for a minute." As we turn to go back, time resumes. People move again as though nothing happened. I want to find a corner and cry.
Back in my office he points to my laptop, "You're going to need that." I close it and slide it into my backpack. "Now picture what you want to be wearing when you meet Sam again – not lingerie or a wedding dress, please." I picture my favorite jeans outfit and he nods. "That'll do it."
He reaches out to put two fingers to my forehead, and I realize that God has chosen to be shorter than me. "Wait, stop, just a minute, please?"
"What?" He folds his arms and looks impatient.
"Um, well…" I have so many questions there's a logjam in my throat. I swallow and ask the most relevant question of the moment. "What are we saving Dean from?"
"Oh, right. Purgatory." He lowers his arms and smiles at me again. "See? Good questions. None of that nonsense about 'what does it all mean?' or 'why do you let bad things happen to good people?'. That shit gets old."
"Well, it means something different to everyone, and you let bad things happen to good people because you can't control everything – I mean you could, but what would be the point of creating all this stuff and all these people if you were going to control every little thing? That would be boring." I open my mouth to say something else, but then realize what he said.
"Wait. Purgatory is real? It's not just Dante's invention or the Catholic excuse to sell indulgences?"
"Yeah, it's another one of those things humans get wrong. Purgatory is afterlife for monsters. I created it to house the Leviathan, and then when monsters started showing up, I sent them there too. Sam will get you up to speed on the Leviathans."
"And he'll just remember me?"
"He'll take one look at you, and it will all come back to him, I promise."
"Groovy. What about this place?"
"What? The museum? It'll still be here."
"No, I mean my project, the people I hired, the work we're doing."
"Everything will continue without you until you want to come back."
"Seriously? No one will be looking around like, 'Where is she?'"
Chuck raises a brow, and I nod, "Right, of course you can do that, sorry."
He grins, "No problem, I get that a lot. Oh one more thing before you go. I'm okay with all the fornicating you and Sam will be engaging in, but try to hold it down to a dull roar and spend the bulk of your time getting Dean and Cas back, ok?"
Too shocked to form a coherent answer, I nod.
"Cool." He snaps his fingers, and the world disappears.
Between one blink and the next, a breath in and a breath out, I go from my office to a mostly empty parking lot. In front of me is a glass office building and behind me is Dean's car. Several windows in the building are broken, and smoke is drifting up into the sky. The Impala is exactly the same and I walk over to peer in the window, but before I can look inside, the front door of the building slams open and Sam rushes outside.