Cliffhanger

Chapter 1

Chapter 1Alex tried to slip out the door unnoticed, but he hesitated at the threshold, holding his hat in one hand and checking that he had his sunglasses. It was a fatal error.

“Hey, sweetheart!” came the call from the living room. His father hurried across the foyer and unceremoniously grabbed Alex by the shoulders, turning him and pulling him into a hug, knocking his glasses awry.

“Can’t let you leave on your first day without a hug for luck.”

Alex struggled in vain against his father’s grip. “C’mon Dad, enough.”

Laughing, his father let him loose, kissing him on the forehead and resettling his glasses on his nose. He was only a couple of inches taller than his son and didn’t have to lean down much to do it.

Alex rolled his eyes and smiled wanly at his father. “You done?”

All he got was a grin, so he turned and stepped into the elevator hall, pulling the apartment door shut behind him with an audible “Later, Dad.”

He collected himself as he rode down in the paneled elevator, only to be accosted again as he stepped onto the marble floor of the lobby.

“Eh, chico! Lookin’ good for your big day!” And again, Alex was grabbed and pulled into a bear hug.

“Jesus, Antonio, what is it with you people?” growled Alex.

The doorman released Alex suddenly and stepped back, both eyebrows disappearing into his hairline. “You people?”

Alex just whacked him gently on the chest of his long uniform coat. “Oh, please, I meant you and Dad, who just molested me the same way upstairs.”

Antonio smiled at that, adding sarcastically, “Oh, you mean us people who love you.”

More eye-rolling. “I know, I know. I just didn’t want to make a big deal out of this.”

“But it is a big deal, mijo.”

“Look, ‘Tonio, it’s my first day at an entry-level job in a low-paying career. What’s to celebrate?”

The doorman just smirked at him. “It’s your first day at the Metropolitan Museum as a curator, that’s what.”

“Assistant curator. Among many. Which is a fancy term for grunt worker.” In spite of his attempt to be cool, Alex was blushing furiously and trying not to smile at Antonio’s pride in him. The middle-aged father of two girls had known Alex since he was five years old. He had always looked out for the frail, shy boy, and had taken a special interest in him. Sometimes Alex had wondered if Antonio colluded with his parents. He always seemed to know what was going on in Alex’s life.

Without saying anything more, Antonio moved to open the plate-glass door, holding it for Alex and—to the young man’s mortification—bowing slightly as he passed through it onto Park Avenue.

“See you later, sir. Have a great day!” The smile on the doorman’s face was equal parts affection and sarcasm.

Alex replaced his glasses with sunglasses and reset his now somewhat crumpled hat on his head, hurrying to the corner and turning west toward Fifth Avenue. The side streets were fairly empty. When Alex stepped out onto Fifth Avenue and turned north, however, the sidewalks were more populated—younger men and women in jogging clothes, nannies with strollers, smartly-dressed businesspeople looking for Ubers or stepping into chauffeur-driven cars. Alex maneuvered neatly through them, hat in place, eyes on the pavement. This was his standard approach to moving through the city—keeping his head down and avoiding attention. He was not a timid man, not particularly; but he knew what worked.

As he strode northward, a quiet flurry of emotions began to fill his brain. He expected to feel excitement and some anxiety—that was all part of starting a new job—his first job! He couldn’t fully account for the other feelings that swirled there; unwelcome feelings, feelings he’d had to deal with increasingly over the last year. Why was he feeling shame? What did he have to be angry about? Where did this wave of sadness come from, making tears prick at the back of his eyes? He stopped abruptly, ignoring the muttered curse of the man behind him who had to dodge around him. Taking several deep breaths, he shook his head. That seemed to work, at least for now. Alex noticed several people eyeing him as they passed, but he shrugged it off. He needed to focus on what mattered.

He paused before starting up the high staircase to look up at the front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. How many times had he been here—with his parents, with school groups, on his own? More than he could count. Happy memories for sure, but today, it all looked different—the colorful banners hanging on the façade and, above the paired columns, the piles of rough marble blocks, echoes of never-completed statuary from more than a century ago. This was no longer just a place to visit. This was where he would work.

Alex scuttled in through the left-hand doorway and stopped at the security desk.

“Hi,” he said to the uniformed guard behind the desk. “I’m, um, new staff? I’m here to see Stephanie Carr?” As Alex pulled off his hat and put away his sunglasses, replacing them with his thick-lensed eyeglasses, the guard’s eyes widened predictably. Alex inwardly groaned, but merely smiled hopefully. Checking over a telephone list, the guard eventually smiled back.

“I’ll let Mrs. Carr know you’re here,” he said as he pushed four digits on a telephone. “You can just wait over there.”

Alex did as he was told, hovering out of the way, his eyes scanning the Great Hall for signs of his new boss. As always, his heart sped up at the sight of the enormous space, its triple domes and high Roman arches expressing the size and power of the institution.

At this hour of the day, before the public was admitted, only a few staff and security people were moving purposefully across the terrazzo floor. A crew with ladders and armfuls of multicolored flowers were installing new arrangements in one of the four huge urns set in niches flanking the entrance and the grand staircase. Morning sunlight streamed in through the mezzanine windows facing Fifth Avenue and the oculi in the domes. The light slanted through the tall void and cast bright patches on the walls and floor.

Alex shivered with a mixture of excitement and fear. There again were those other emotions, feelings that didn’t make sense—little snippets of joy, random sparks of anxiety and even anger that flickered through his consciousness like faded snapshots. For a brief moment, a wash of deep gloom passed through him like a cold breeze. It was disorienting, since he knew what he should be feeling, and these other sensations were at odds with what his mind told him.

The sound of heels clacking his way drew Alex’s attention to a small, trim woman with a carefully groomed mop of dark curly hair and a big smile on her face.

“Alex! You’re here!” she said, holding out her hand to take his in a firm grip.

“Yes,” he answered, feeling both happy and awkward. “I’m so excited to start.”

“Well, first, we’ll get you settled, and then I’ll have someone take you over to security for a picture and a badge.”

She waved at him to follow her, and he scurried to catch up, finding himself suddenly breathless. He followed Stephanie Carr through the labyrinth of the museum into the American Wing, down a side hall, into an elevator not used by the public, then up several floors.

Once they were deep into the hidden maze of offices, Stephanie ushered Alex past a conference room, gender-neutral restrooms, and through a central skylit library space. She gestured at this broadly as she moved to the door of a cubby-sized office with a view out over the museum’s rooftops.

“That’s the departmental library, where our visitors can do research. Here’s your office.”

Alex smiled weakly at his supervisor, who was still beaming as if it was the best day of her life, then scanned the tiny, crowded space. A desk and a chair. Horizontal files, a bulletin board, and a small bookcase with no books. A new desktop computer sat, dark and silent, on the empty desk.

“You settle in for a bit, Alex. Since you need to go to security and HR. I’ll get someone to help you do that and to show you around. I’m afraid I’ve got a meeting, but we’ll talk later today.”

At Alex’s open-mouthed silence, she added, hesitantly, “Okay?”

Alex blinked, forced himself to smile again, and then emitted what was something between a laugh and a sigh.

“Sorry, Stephanie, I’m just a little overwhelmed.” He could feel himself blushing, which would be particularly obvious to her.

All Stephanie did was say, “Good,” flash another buoyant smile, shake his hand again, and hurry out of sight down the hall.

He sat at his new desk for a while, staring out across the machinery-covered rooftop to the thin edge of green he could see to the west. Central Park. He had a Central Park view, however minimal. This was real.

Reaching up to set his hat on the file cabinets, Alex leaned back in the desk’s ergonomic chair, and turned on the computer. He used the information considerately left for him on a half-sheet of paper on the desk to log in and find his email account.

To his surprise, about a dozen emails already waited in his inbox, some of them related to the intake process for new employees, but others related specifically to the job he had been hired to do—act as an assistant decorative arts curator focused on the department’s growing jewelry collection. His master’s thesis had been on American jewelry manufacturers and how their products related to other aspects of the design and production of home furnishings in and for the United States. Apparently, there was nobody else to handle these emails, and some of them had been sitting in his box for a few months already. A good place to start.

Alex got so absorbed in his work, he barely heard a soft clearing of a throat behind him. Turning, he found himself being studied by a beautiful young man who appeared to be his age, leaning casually against his door jamb.

“Hi,” Alex managed to get out. He stood and moved the few steps to the door, holding out his hand. “I’m Alex White,” he said, smiling tentatively.

“You’re f*****g kidding me.”

The reaction was not what he’d expected.

“Uh, no, that’s my name. Alexander White.” He hesitated. “Did you not know I was coming?”

Shaking himself slightly, the young man looked abashed, and waved his hand in front of his face as if clearing away cobwebs.

“I’m so sorry, um, Alex. You just took me by surprise. I’m pretty sure I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

“Surprise? How?” Alex’s initial embarrassment gave way to curiosity at the change of demeanor.

The young man seemed to tower over Alex, at least six-foot-five to his own five-nine. Slim and graceful, he had large deep brown eyes, ringed with long lashes, skin the color of really good coffee with a dollop of cream in it, and a breathtaking smile.

He bent forward slightly, in an oddly courtly gesture, reaching out a large, long-fingered hand to engulf Alex’s own and said: “My name is Alexander Browne, but everyone calls me Xander.”

Alex sat back down, while Xander remained standing, looking down at him with a strangely beatific smile on his face.

“I hadn’t heard your name before,” Xander added. Here he paused, as if weighing what he was going to say next. “And, to be honest, you live up to that name rather dramatically.”

A look of horror flashed across Xander’s face, “Jesus, I’m sorry, that was awful, it’s just…”

Alex, feeling strangely relieved, simply raised a hand to stop him.

“Never mind. You’re not the first. I am indeed very white. Although some would say pink, because I know I’m blushing terribly.” He ran a hand through his thick shock of snow-white hair, blinking up at Xander with ice-blue eyes ringed in the palest of lashes. “I’m albino. Very sensitive to bright light. By definition very white. Even I notice the irony of my name.”

“And now we have a shared irony to talk about,” smiled Xander, radiating a gentle delight. “Why don’t we pursue this while we do what Stephanie asked me to do, and maybe I can avoid embarrassing either of us any further.”

He stepped backward out of Alex’s office and, with a theatrical sweep of his arm said, “Mr. White?”

Alex stood and moved toward the door, nodding with mock seriousness at his new friend. “Indeed, Mr. Browne.”

Together, both of them chuckling quietly, they set off down the hall to the elevator.