by Erin Mallon
“Is it, though?” I mumble under my breath.
“Hmm?” Mabel asks.
“Nothing. I’ll… I’ll see you at lunch. Buddy.”
“Awwwww. You called me buddy, buddy!”
Oh man, she looks thrilled.
I have a feeling I’m going to regret this.
Chapter Five
Planetariums make me feel weird.
Every time I’m in one, I get the heady feeling that I’m all powerful and limitless and precious and perfect… and simultaneously a completely helpless, meaningless, ultimately worthless speck of human goo.
Both concepts feel completely accurate and true.
Yup, planetariums make me feel weird.
Right now, I’m sitting inside the Museum of Natural History’s massive Galileo Theater with three members of my Trix and Monty team: Bruce, our builder; Damon, the museum’s in-house graphic designer; and Lionel, our consulting paleontologist. Yes, that makes me the only female member of the team. Besides Dr. Knowles, of course.
Being the odd female out doesn’t bother me one bit, though. I grew up the middle girl between two brothers, and I’m well accustomed to being only one of a handful of women in the room where scientific discussions are being had and decisions are being made. It was that way in my hometown’s zoology club at the community rec center. It was that way in most of my college geology major classes. And now I’m finding it’s certainly that way in “the real world.” Don’t get me wrong, it ain’t right—and it’s hopefully changing day by day—but I’m not about to let it get me down.
We’re assembled here under these faux stars for a team bonding activity and to potentially give our feedback to the museum’s astronomy team. Apparently, they are testing out their new dino-inspired presentation, which is set to launch alongside the Trix and Monty unveiling. It’s called—
“THE DAY THE DINOSAURS WERE DECIMATED!” a voice booms way too freaking loudly over the speakers, followed by piercing, screeching microphone feedback.
“Ah! Gosh! Geez!” We all cover our ears.
The voice resumes. Softer now.
“My apologies, ladies and gentlemen. I should have checked my sound levels before beginning. Starting over. Ahem. ‘The Day the Dinosaurs Were Decimated.’ That was better, yeah? Yeah, that was better.”
That voice.
Holy shit, it’s him.
“It’s Alf,” I say a bit breathlessly.
“Alf?” Bruce, the builder, whispers. “I loved that show!”
“Huh?”
What is this guy talking about now?
“You have a thing for aliens from the planet Melmac who like to eat cats, FitzGerald?” He chortles. “And hey, why do your eyebrows look so hairy today?”
“Um. No? I don’t?” I whisper back, completely confused. “And do yourself a favor and do not mention my eyebrows again, okay?”
Lionel nudges him. “She has no idea what you’re talking about, Bruce. ‘Alf’ was way before her time.”
I already love Lionel. An insanely smart scientist in his fifties who actually speaks to young women with respect. What a concept! I’m really looking forward to learning from him during these next few months.
That heavenly voice rumbles in my ears again, more relaxed and in command this time. I zero in on the sound as though it’s the only thing that exists because, at this moment, it is.
“For hundreds of years, humans have pondered and puzzled ‘How exactly did the dinosaurs die?’ Thus, for hundreds of years, amateur and professional paleontologists alike have speculated on what could have occurred to sweep these massive beasts off our planet. From the feasible philosophy that lack of vegetation led to starvation to the downright absurd arguments that perhaps aliens annihilated them or that the dinosaurs did, in fact, fart themselves into extinction, all theories have been given their due.”
“Oh God,” I groan.
The animated images above us shift from a limping Lambeosaurus and a clearly dehydrated Deinonychus to a Brachiosaurus blowing a massive cloud of methane out of its butt.
“Who wrote this thing?” Lionel muses. I can see his forehead scrunching even in the dim light of the planetarium.
Damon adds his somewhat positive two cents, “Not sure. The graphics aren’t completely terrible, though.”
And of course, we hear from Bruce. “Hey, go easy. That guy just pulled off a fart joke without a hitch. Color me impressed!”
Mystery man continues his audio tour, which—against all odds—is still somehow incredibly sexy, despite the ridiculous text he’s reading. It seems the man has a gift.
“Until now. Now we know what every scientific sign points to: that a massive asteroid collision in the Yucatan over sixty-five million years ago, an impact that triggered an unstoppable, deadly chain reaction of events is responsible for ending the reign of dinosaurs.”
I can’t take it anymore. First of all, I always find talk of the dinosaurs’ demise to be completely devastating, so I kind of can’t bear to watch this. Second… I gotta find out who is behind this voice once and for all.
I’m not sure why this feels so earth-shatteringly important to me. Is it because I got stood up—for the record, Calliope FitzGerald does not get stood up—and I want to redeem myself somehow? Is it because I’m a scientist, and uncovering mysteries is basically my jam? Or could it possibly be because—and I absolutely hate to admit this—I feel… inexplicably sad at losing something I never even had?
Whatever the reason, this feels like my Dorothy and The Wizard of Oz behind the curtain moment. Hella important and full of giddy energy because I know, at long last, I’m finally about to get some answers. Unlike Dorothy, however, I’m gonna lay some serious smackdown on this guy when I find him.
I think.
Maybe.
I actually have no clue what the hell I’m going to do when I find him, but here we go regardless.
I shoot up to standing, and whisper, “If you’ll excuse me.” All three of my teammates turn their heads to look up at me. I guess I need to explain my sudden departure. I stammer, “I need to, uh… I have to… Um.”
Think, Calliope.
Ooh. Bingo.
“I’m having lady issues,” I hiss. “If you catch my drift.”
All three men immediately break eye contact with me and offer a smattering of uncomfortable, “Oh, yeah. Fine. Sure, go,” type responses. I’m sure I could have come up with a different excuse, but when in doubt, you can almost always count on fellas’ squeamishness around the subject of menstruation to get yourself out of a tricky situation.
The image on the dome screen shifts to a huge hunk of rock hurtling toward Earth right as I hurtle myself through the dark theater, scanning left and right, up and down, searching for wherever this dude could possibly be perched. Epic instrumental music pumps through the speakers. The kind you hear in movies during a high-speed car chase or a montage of a beloved character making terrible life choices that you know without a doubt she’s going to regret.
Then, I see it. A tiny speck of light in a dark corner. And directly above it… the shadow of a guy looking down at a lit-up piece of paper. I can just barely see his face. He leans forward and continues to speak into the microphone.
“An asteroid almost seven miles wide, traveling at speeds over 40,000 miles per hour is about to hit Mother Earth and create a crater twenty miles deep and one hundred and twenty-four miles wide. BOOM! Impact! The asteroid explodes with the energy of billions of atomic bombs!”
My body jolts as the entire dome above us fills with fiery orange light, but I continue to creep closer to him. Yes, creep. The word creep is completely accurate in this instance. I do not walk. I do not saunter. I am a creepy creeper creeping up on this man in a dark-as-hell theater while he attempts to do his job, and I do not feel an ounce of shame for doing so.
/> “Heat from this fireball reaches 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, setting up a shockwave spreading faster than the speed of sound! Hurricane winds take over in an instant! Ocean water is displaced, then fights back in the form of towering tsunamis! A seemingly endless expanse of rocks shoots miles up into the heavens, then cascades back to Earth, creating massive mountains! Tout suite!”
Is it me, or does this guy seem really excited by the imminent death of my dinos? And tout suite? Come on.
“In the six-hundred-mile radius of impact… Everything. Was. Decimated.”
I’m right beside him now, but he’s so wrapped up in his performance he doesn’t see me. That is, until I start the slow clap. A classic slow clap is guaranteed to get someone’s attention. Use at your discretion.
At last, he turns and spots me, his head whipping back and forth between me and his script as he sputters out a few more lines with an air of confusion peppering his delivery. “Within eleven minutes, uh… the, uh… the sky went completely dark.”
“I guess I know now why you would choose a dead baby fawn as a rendezvous point.”
I find in situations like this that it’s best to start mid-conversation. Why waste time with explanations and reintroductions. I mean, let’s get right to the point, shall we?
What is his response as he frantically fiddles with his buttons, head whipping back and forth?
“Um…”
Scintillating. What a conversationalist.
“Okay, let’s get more specific then. It makes sense to me now that the kind of guy who revels in the extinction of a magnificent empire of exquisite animals like the dinosaurs would also choose a dead baby fawn as a spot for a meet-cute and then pull a cowardly no-show.”
“I’m sorry, are you talking to me? Because I’m sort of in the middle of something.”
He gestures to the gigantic domed ceiling projecting gloomy images of a soot-filled sky with herds of Pentaceratops lifting their heads in confusion while more pre-recorded music plays. I don’t care, though. I’m on a roll.
“You should know, Alf”—I say his name with no small amount of disdain—“that taxidermy really gets me down. It actually gets me way the hell down, but still, I waited there for you for a full thirty minutes because I stupidly thought we had a connection. Sure, I get how the Hall of Mammals is a great way to show children animals up close and personal, but come on! Taking fierce yet helpless creatures from their natural habitats, euthanizing them, then stuffing them full of whatever taxidermists stuff them full of just so we can ooh and aah at them for all eternity? I mean, what kind of monsters are we?”
“Listen, I have a cue coming up in a moment, and I kind of need to focus, so maybe we could—”
“I kept asking myself that question as I stared into the artificial marble eyes of that baby deer from the 1960s, patiently waiting for unworthy you. What kind of monsters are we? That baby deer was cut off in her prime! And during the 1960s of all decades! She could have been marching for women’s rights on Washington! Reading ‘The Feminine Mystique’ beside a babbling brook! Exploring her sexual liberation at Woodstock! But no. Instead, over a half-century later, here she is propped and posed behind a pane of glass in a Philadelphia museum, dead-eyed and frozen while grade-schoolers gawk. Well, fuck that.”
“Alright, you gotta stop. Is there security anywhere?”
“But you did say you were a Disney fan, though, yeah? So, what do I know? Maybe Bambi and her murdered mommy are your jam. Bullet dodged, I guess. Bullet dodged for me, that is. As we all know, Bambi’s mother wasn’t so lucky.”
His face softens at that moment as he seems to register who I am. It is also then that I realize I can hear my own voice in surround sound.
Oh. Sweet. Geezus.
I drop my volume considerably. “OhmyGod am I…? Can they all…?”
He tips forward at the waist and speaks directly into the microphone. The clearly live microphone.
“Pardon me, ladies and gentlemen, it seems we’re having some technical difficulties. We’ll resume in just a moment. Thank you for your patience.”
He switches the images above to a swirling screen saver of sorts and slaps on some plinky-plunky space music, then finally clicks the off switch on the microphone.
“Ya done?” he asks me. And not too kindly, I might add.
How in the world does he get off being exasperated with me?
“Why the hell didn’t you turn off the microphone minutes ago?” I ask. A completely logical question, if you ask me.
“Hm. Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Alright now, you don’t have to be snarky with me.”
“Oh, don’t I? If you must know, elevator girl… That’s who you are, right? The girl from the elevator?”
“I prefer elevator woman, but yes, that would be me. Hello again.”
“Hello.” He looks like he wants to say something else for a moment, but apparently decides to continue being a punk instead. “I didn’t ‘turn off the microphone minutes ago’ because I’m new to this position and still learning the ropes.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. This was my trial run, and I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but… it’s not going very well. Thanks for that, by the way.”
“I dunno, I thought you sounded great.” I deliver the compliment as though it’s an insult, but it’s a compliment all the same.
“You did?” He drops the snark again and looks at me as if he’s craving some actual feedback. This allows me the opportunity to take in his face for the first time. Eyes that are sort of green, but also sort of blue. What would you call them? Cerulean? No, cyan. Right? I’m not sure what to call them other than… captivating. His hair is super dark brown. A bit wavy and shaggy. I like how relaxed it makes him look. And his lips? Geez, his lips are like two inviting sex pillows that –
My point is… damn, he’s pretty.
No, he’s downright beautiful.
Feedback. He’s requested feedback.
“I mean, there are some definite content issues you’ll want to address before your next showing, including, but not limited to, your use of the idiom tout suite, the overall way you seem to delight in the decimation of the dinosaurs…”
“Wait. Are you critiquing me right now?”
“Well, yeah. You asked me for feedback.”
“No, actually. I did not ask for feedback.”
“Maybe not with words, but your face certainly did. So. Moving right along… oh! You gotta cut that line about the dinosaur farts.”
“What? Why?”
“Because it’s absurd!”
“I said exactly that, though,” he argues. “The line was…” He grabs his notes and scans them. “…the downright absurd arguments that perhaps aliens annihilated them or that the dinosaurs did, in fact, fart themselves into extinction… See? I admitted it was an absurd theory.”
“Hey. You invited my team here to give you our feedback. I’m giving you feedback. Take it or leave it. On the positive side, though, your voice? Let’s just say you have a voice that’s perfect for radio.”
“Oh. Alright. I guess I fell for that one.”
“Fell for what one?”
“The insult. I have a voice for radio? Thanks a lot… um.” He searches for his next word. “What is your… I still don’t know your name.”
Has anyone ever had such perfect teeth? They’re so straight and white and standing at attention like little soldiers. Like little pepperminty rectangular squares of Chiclet gum that I want to nibble on. Am I staring at his mouth? I think I’m staring at his mouth.
“Would you… consider telling me, perhaps?” He’s tilting his head downward a bit in an effort to get my eyes on his. I startle to attention and look directly at him. “Your name, elevator woman?”
“Oh. My name is Calliope.”
&nb
sp; “Muse of epic poetry.” His eyes brighten when he says it.
“Whoa! How did you…?”
“Astronomy major, English minor. I love studying the origins of things. The universe. Words. It’s a beautiful thing knowing how something began and how it came to be what it is now. Don’t you think?”
Is this guy for real? I desperately want to be mad at him for ditching me yesterday, but he’s making it really hard right now with how insightful and adorable he is.
“Um. Sure. Beautiful, yeah. Hey, for a guy with a thing for words and origins, your knowledge of euphemisms could use some work. The insulting phrase you were thinking of is a face for radio, not a voice for radio. A voice for radio means that your voice would sound fucking fantastic on the radio, which it would. A face for radio means that you’re ugly AF, and I think it’s pretty obvious that you, sir, are the furthest thing from that.”
He smiles, and I want to kick myself for letting those last few words—which sounded suspiciously like a compliment—out of my mouth.
“Ahem.”
A throat clears. I whip around to see four gentlemen lined up and staring at us. Three of them I know. One I do not. The lights are up to full now in the theater, and I don’t think either one of us even noticed.
My sparring partner visibly panics.
“Dr. Abrams. Hello. My apologies for how this first run went. I did experience some technical glitches, but I assure you I have them all worked out now, and the next time I run the program, it will be smooth as—”
“There’s not going to be a next time, Ralph. In my office. Now.”
“Yes, sir.”
The man, who I have to assume is his boss, turns to leave, and Ralph—oh, his name is Ralph!—immediately follows. Before he’s out of sight, though, he turns back to face me.
