In the aftermath of that shocking day, I astonished both myself and Dr. Adams. I finished the Navy Yard chapter in one intense day of work. Chris tiptoed in to my office and left without a word. The phone rang many times. Chris grabbed them all and gave me the messages the next morning. Joe’s said, “Bravo. Call me when you emerge.” Sometime deep in the night, I hit Save, and then Send. I was done with this story.
Then I rashly promised Dr. Adams she would have the first draft of my conclusion chapter before her deadline. Conclusion chapters have to be totally excellent. Strong. Thoroughly supported. Logical. Conclusive. Definitely conclusive. Having said it, I had to follow through.
Was I escaping my frightening experiences by immersing myself into work? No doubt, but there was more.
The universe seemed to be sending me a message. Normally I would have mocked without mercy anyone who said such a ridiculous thing. Normally I don’t believe in the universe or its messages or any part of the whole meditative/crystals/ third eye nonsense. I am a scholar. Give me the damn facts.
Nevertheless. There was a message coming at me from all directions. It said “Wake up. Time to break out of that cozy trap. You can’t stay in a cocoon forever.” Dr. Adams said it despotically. My dad said it, nagging. Darcy and Joe had both said it, gently, as friends. Even Phyllis, of all people. My old job was ending. My academic department was pushing me out. Yet somehow I couldn’t hear it until I became entangled with Michael Conti’s life.
Sweet Mrs. Conti had stayed in a bad marriage for too long, because she lacked the courage to leave. Jennifer Conti, with far more choices available in her life, had stayed too. Tom Doyle wanted nothing more than to crawl back into his old cocoon, the only job he’d ever had, and the wife who didn’t love him.
I will always maintain I would never have become the graduate student who stays forever. Hear that, Dr. Adams? Or a low-level museum employee, either. I did have goals, fuzzy though they might be. But it was true that I was not at all eager to stretch one more time into yet another new life.
But there was the universe, shouting, “If not now, when? ”
When I got my date for the dissertation defense, my heart stopped beating, just for a second or two. That meant Dr. Adams and the rest of the committee had signed off on my final version.
On the day, I dressed in my best, all armored up with lipstick and hose. I reminded myself I knew my subject cold, right down to my bones. There was no reason whatever, I told myself, for the butterflies in my stomach. I ordered them to fly in formation or get lost. All I had to do that day was answer questions and sound smart. At the end, the defense panel asked me to step out for a moment. I stood in the hall, invisibly shaking, until the chair opened the door and said, “Come on in, Dr. Donato.”
Joe took me out for an uproarious meal with much drinking. Chris had declined to join us, giggling, and I was so excited I didn’t wonder what she was up to. I returned to a large box of fancy chocolates with a card signed, “Chris and Jared.” I celebrated for a week, at work, at home, with friends. Even Dr. Adams sent a congratulatory message.
When the week ended, I had to return to real life and that pesky ongoing problem of making a living. That whole spring would stay forever in my memory as a blur of late nights. After dissertation work, museum work, housework, at midnight I would be scanning the journals and websites, sending out letters, re-creating my resumé for each application. Some nights it left me so wired I could not fall asleep, no matter how exhausted I was.
I got a nibble from one of New York’s lesser universities, but in the end they were too disorganized to actually get the position funded. I applied for a terrific job that would have meant two hours commuting each way, four days a week. I was desperate enough to take that on but it went to one of their own employees. I suspected that was their plan all along.
I sent many unanswered letters. I met some interesting people at places that had no openings at all. “It’s all networking,” Darcy said, and more than once. I didn’t believe her.
Just at the point where I was calculating how Chris and I could afford to eat on unemployment benefits, looking into good public high schools, and wondering if I could pick up a few extra dollars doing child care, the phone rang.
It was Lisa, writing a series about changing cultural institutions. Or something like that. She started with, “Grab your phone this second! You need to record this number.”
She was at the Brooklyn Museum, covering an exhibit. She was not more than a ten-minute walk from my house. She overheard a conversation. A key employee there had just been poached by the National Gallery.
“Call,” she ordered. “Right now. Bye.”
Unnerved though I was by then about job-hunting, I made the call. Just like that, I was scheduled for an interview the day after next.
My boss, Matt, sat me down to role-play an interview. He edited my resumé, too. Curators I’d worked with sent an animated good luck card. One of them made a call to a friend who worked there, scoping out the inside story on the job.
I dressed up again in my one good suit. I carried copies of my resumé. The letter confirming that my degree would be awarded in May. A list of references. Copies of my curriculum vitae, too, the academic version of a resumé. And just for a little extra luck, I carried a note from Joe folded into a tiny square and tucked under my watch band over my beating pulse.
I was glad to have it there as I walked into the museum. The building alone is kind of scary, a massive white stone monument to turn-of-the-last century civic prestige. It is meant to impress. It succeeds.
I was walking into a major institution that would be the star of the cultural firmament in any city that did not also have the Metropolitan Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt, the Museum of Modern Art, the Frick, and a dozen others.
All I could see in the interview room was a committee of suits, serious people looking like serious executives. I reminded myself that I was not an imposter. I could do this job. In fact I was the perfect person for it. I touched Joe’s note and squared my shoulders.
They asked me if I was familiar with the museum, especially the significant American art collection and the historic rooms. Thank goodness I could say yes. They asked me about my dissertation and how it fit with their mission to serve all of Brooklyn. They asked me for my ideas. Thank goodness I had some.
Over the next month, there were many more such interviews, each one with scarier people further up the food chain.
To my astonishment, I ended up with an offer to start the first week of June. Two years, working as the history expert as they redesigned a whole floor. Health insurance. A paycheck. Paid vacation. And a job title, an important step forward and upward in my career. Dad said, “Congratulations! You have finally joined the grownup world.”
I won’t lie. That’s exactly how I felt.