Control Freak

by Brianna Hale

  He looks away, distracted by sorting through a pile of catalogs, and I realize he’s offered me the job. Just like that. Are we going to ignore him shouting at me in the middle of dad’s exhibition?

  “Did you want to talk about what happened last night?”

  He puts the catalogs down. “Yes. Thank you for reminding me. There are a great many staircases in this museum. Please keep your full attention on them as you move around the building.”

  I feel my eyebrows creep up my forehead. What to do, tell him he’s an asshole and forfeit the job offer, or shut up about it and stew at my desk every time he sends me a perfunctory email? I don’t want to be kicking myself over letting him talk to me how he likes for the next two months.

  “You needn’t have been so ferocious about it. I was scared enough.”

  Mr. Blomqvist’s eyes narrow, and what he’s thinking is written all over his face: Good.

  “I reacted to seeing a young woman nearly plummet to her death. You should consider how your actions affect those around you.”

  I should consider it. I wish I could crack my head open and show him all my jagged thoughts crowding against each other, every single one of them screaming about the consequences of every little thing I do. But what would be the point? He’s clearly one of those people who think millennials all eat overpriced avocado toast and expect the world to fall into their laps.

  So do I tell him to go fuck himself, or no?

  The summer spreads before me, empty of purpose. When I have nothing to do, my bad habits really flex their muscles, and I have nothing to beat them back with. They kept us busy on the ward for a reason.

  He’d be my boss. I don’t have to like him. We just have to be civil to each other. I’ll use him as a springboard to something better after I finish my Masters, and if he turns into a nightmare in the meantime, I’ll just quit. I’ve dealt with bigger monsters than Stian Blomqvist.

  “Yes, one should,” I say with a polite smile, reverting to my mother’s cultured phrases, sounding as if I agree with him but actually pointing out that he should be considering his actions, not me.

  He’s Swedish. He probably didn’t notice.

  Chapter Three

  Stian

  Miss Petrou smiles coolly at me, thinking I don’t know what she just said. She’s rather rude. But then, so am I. From her answers to my questions she seems to have some common sense, though she’s obviously highly strung. Her hands are gripping each other so tightly that her flesh is mottled red and white.

  If she goes to pieces I’ll just fire her later. “The hours are going to be long each day, but we pay overtime.”

  “When would you like me to start?”

  I glance at my watch and stand up. There are several of Eric’s messes I want to clean up before I can turn to the Laxos exhibition again. “Now, if possible. Lacey, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. And that’s fine. Dad said you’d probably want me to start right away.”

  She follows me out of my office, and I point to her desk and computer and pass her a key. “This is where you’ll work. Here’s the key to the drawers. I’ll arrange for someone from HR to come by later to give you a security induction. Get a notebook and come with me.”

  As well as the Laxos exhibition opening in September, we’re about to showcase a series of Phoenician artifacts. I want all the descriptions redone. Eric wrote them, and they’ve been irritating me. There was a long fucking list of things he did that I didn’t like and I never got round to correcting this one.

  We go through the exhibition piece by piece, and I put red marker through the description cards I don’t like and explain why. Lacey takes pictures of each one on her phone and makes notes.

  “How long will they take?” I ask her as I walk us the long way back to my office. I want to show her where the Laxos exhibition will be set up.

  She consults her notebook. “You hated twenty-seven out of thirty-six descriptions. But they’re only short so I can probably get them to you in the morning.”

  “Good. All right. Through here will be the Laxos exhibition.”

  I swipe my pass and push through the doors into the space. At the moment it’s vast and almost empty, with the display cabinets waiting against the walls. Several workmen at the far end of the room are constructing scaffolding to support the palace recreation.

  “It’s the first time these items will be loaned to a foreign country.” I point to a space in the middle of the room. “That’s where the Laxos Disc with be displayed.”

  The Laxos Disc is the drawcard of the exhibition, a ceramic disc stamped with symbols that defy translation. Its inscrutability makes it more valuable and interesting than all the gold and bronze objects we’ll exhibit alongside it.

  Lacey scans the room, but there isn’t much to see yet. “What do you think about the claims that the disc is a fake?”

  She’s heard of that? The dispute wasn’t picked up by many of the online magazines. “They wouldn’t let it out of their sight if they truly suspected it was fake. We might run our own tests while we have it and embarrass them.”

  When curators start telling me that a dubious artifact is too delicate to be loaned, that’s when I smell a rat. All the same, it’s fishy that they’ve never run a thermoluminescence test to determine the disc’s precise age.

  “Will you? Run your own test, I mean.”

  I scratch the side of my cheek, thinking. “Well. That would be a very rude thing to do to the Laxos Museum.”

  She shoots me a look, as if she can tell how tempted I am to do it anyway.

  “Wait, this isn’t your thesis topic, is it?” I ask, wondering if getting Lacey into the museum as an employee is a scheme by Chris Petrou. What an uproar it would cause if his daughter discovered the disc was a fake. It’s convoluted and kind of paranoid, but I wouldn’t put anything past a man who can display his urine for the sake of being sensational.

  “No. Mine’s about the deadly gaze in Greek myth. Medusa. Actaeon. Panoptes.”

  Thank fuck for that.

  I take Lacey back to her desk and leave her to it for the rest of the day. I’ve got several meetings, and in between I go through my emails, flicking some over to Lacey to handle as I go.

  At six I send her home, telling her that eight-thirty is fine as a start time from now on. It was a promising first day. We’ll see if she can keep her head when I really start to load her up with tasks.

  When I arrive at the museum at seven forty-five the next morning, she’s already at her desk. I don’t say anything. If she wants to be a workaholic for the next two months that’s fine by me. She won’t run out of things to do.

  At ten I have a free half-hour and call her into my office so we can go through the descriptions she’s rewritten. I open my post as she reads them aloud, nodding as she finishes each one. They’re structured well and give just enough context for the pieces.

  I make a disgusted noise at a grotesque neon flyer I’ve just taken out of an envelope, and Lacey looks up.

  “Malcolm Hesse?” she asks, eyeing the artwork.

  “Yes,” I mutter darkly.

  “He’s a friend of dad’s. What did you think about dad’s exhibition, by the way?” she asks, and when I glance up there’s an innocent expression in her eyes.

  I set the flyer aside. “You know these people. Maybe you can explain something to me. I’m the director of a museum of antiquities, and yet I seem to get an invitation to every modern art opening in London. Why?”

  She casts her eyes over me, smiling faintly. “Well, you’re Scandinavian, and you guys do have a reputation for being progressive. As you know about antiquities, you lend some gravitas to the room. And there aren’t many museum directors with tattoos. Maybe the artists think you’re edgy.”

  I glance at the dark blue ink on my fingers, scowling. Kristus, they’re shallow.

  “But what did you think of the exhibition?” she presses me.

  “It was fucking terrible.”


  I wonder if she’s going to be annoyed with me for being so blunt, but Lacey puts her hands over her mouth and snorts with laughter. Her laughter is infectious and I find myself wanting to smile back. “I’m not saying his work doesn’t have value or purpose. It’s just that when I look at it, my gut tells me I hate it.”

  She shakes her head, still laughing. “It’s all right, art is subjective. But I think you should know how much dad name-drops you at parties. He tells everyone that you’re a fan. Expect a lot more invitations.”

  “Fuck my life. Sorry, keep reading,” I say, nodding at her pages. “They’re good.”

  Lacey’s cheeks turn a little pink with pleasure as she continues, and the smile lingers on her lips. My assistant is very attractive, I realize, watching her as she reads. Her hair is long and dark, and she wears silver jewelry on chains around her neck and wrists. I notice a figurine of Osiris and several blue-and-white beads on her wrist. Greek, I think. Warding off the evil eye.

  I rattle off a list of things I want done in the next few days, and she notes them down and suggests the order in which they should be done. It makes sense, and I tell her so, and she goes to do them.

  I gaze at the closed door for a moment, considering Lacey. She’s not a frightened little mouse, but she’s not arguing with me at every turn, either. If she keeps this up she and I are going to get along just fine.

  Chapter Four

  Lacey

  “So, yeah. I guess I would like an apology for him yelling in my face, but I’ve put that aside for now, and I’m just getting on with the work. Maybe I’ll bring it up again before I leave, or maybe I’ll just let it go.”

  “You seem to like your boss,” my therapist replies. I’ve finished talking through my first week at the museum, and this is the first thing she’s said.

  “What?” I say quickly, pretending not to have heard her. I don’t think she’s fooled. Her eyes behind her spectacles are keener than usual. “Oh, yes. He makes the work interesting. Not that it’s not interesting.”

  Ugh, shut up, Lacey.

  I’ve been coming to see Doctor Loftin ever since I left the ward. We have weekly sessions, and I talk her through my days and any problems I’ve been having. Right now I’m considered to be recovering, and my weight is stable. I glance around her plain white office, trying to gather my thoughts. She won’t speak again until I’ve clarified myself.

  Well, I do like Mr. Blomqvist. I didn’t at first because of the shouting and his refusal to apologize for it at my interview, but he’s been perfectly civil since. Only good things to say about my work in his flat, gravelly voice. When I told him I needed two hours on Wednesday mornings off to see my therapist he just nodded and said that was fine. I even risked saying to see my therapist rather than pretend I was going to the dentist or something like that. Sharing with someone that I go to a shrink is very hard for me, because I can see the suspicion in their eyes as they wonder if I’m psychotic. Mr. Blomqvist didn’t react at all.

  “I like having something to do over the summer, and working at the museum is good for my career,” I say firmly, because I didn’t mention anything about how he’s attractive or that I like the way he smells, so she’s got no reason to be suspicious. I just told her how he wants things done a certain way, and I respect that. Sometimes he can be blunt, but it’s being argued with once he’s made his mind up that riles his temper. If I make a suggestion when we’re planning things he takes it on board.

  Dad told me about his car. Control freak. I suppose he is, but he’s the director. He gets to be in control.

  We finish the session by going through my food diary, but I’m still annoyed by Doctor Loftin’s comment when I leave. You seem to like your boss. People are so sordid.

  There’s a beautiful park outside the museum, and when I arrive for work dozens of people are sitting on the grass eating takeaway lunches. It’s a hot day but there’s a breeze blowing, and the leaves on the trees are a brilliant green. Doctor Loftin and I have talked about me starting to eat in front of other people again, but I can’t face it yet. The thought of people seeing me put food into my mouth and chew it makes shame and panic flood my stomach.

  Instead, I go inside and take the stairs up to the office. When I reach the top floor, I sit down on a step and pull my lunchbox from my handbag. No one uses these stairs. I can see the door from my desk, and I’ve been watching.

  Lunch is a salad of poached chicken, sunflower seeds and a baked potato. To go with it I have eight carrot sticks and a small tub of hummus. I measure and prep everything the night before. My therapist wishes it was more food, but she’s happy that I’ve reached a healthy weight. I’m skirting the lower bar of what’s acceptable, though, so I have to be careful to eat everything on my plan. If my weight dips she’ll send me back to anorexia prison, AKA the Dawnstead Eating Disorder Inpatient Ward, AKA the worst place I’ve ever been in my life.

  I take a deep breath and start eating. It’s more mechanical than pleasurable, and I can only take small bites. Swallowing too much at once makes me gag, and I have to concentrate so that the food goes down at the right time. Thinking of food as fuel for my body and brain rather than the enemy has helped, but I still don’t like eating. From within her box, that nasty part of me whispers how disgusting and shameful I am the whole time, and how I deserve to fade away to nothing.

  Forty-five minutes later I’m finally done, and I snap the lid back on my lunchbox and go to my desk.

  Over the next few hours, I work steadily through my to-do list for the exhibition, trying to ignore the way the food feels in my belly. At three I go back to the stairwell and eat a muesli bar. That takes fifteen minutes, and I pray that Mr. Blomqvist doesn’t think this is too long to be away from my desk. Hopefully he thinks I’m down in the café or something. I’ve seen lots of the other museum workers chatting away in there.

  By four in the afternoon, the air-conditioning seems to be struggling. There’s a skylight in the middle of the room and the temperature is steadily climbing as the sun beats down. In between emails, I fan myself with my notebook.

  Just after five, Mr. Blomqvist emerges from his office in his shirtsleeves, carrying proofs for the Phoenician exhibition flyers that we’ve had redone. I wrote the copy, and I’m rather proud of it.

  Right now, though, I’m not thinking about the flyers. I’m looking at Mr. Blomqvist. Earlier he was wearing a tie and jacket, but perhaps he’s too hot as well because they’re absent and his collar is open. He leans past me to grab the envelope the proofs came in, and his shirt gapes a little. I can’t help peeking, and I see that there are more tattoos on his chest. His very strong chest. I glimpse blue and black ink, intricate designs that might be Nordic, and then he’s straightening. I quickly look back at my computer screen.

  “These are good. Approved to print,” he says, putting the proofs back in their envelope and handing them to me.

  Thank you, sir, I think, as I have lately whenever he tells me something like this. Except that today the heat has got to me or I’m still distracted by the sight of his tattooed body, and it slips out. “Thank you, sir. I mean—Mr. Blomqvist.”

  Crap.

  “No need to call me sir,” he rumbles over my head, and I could swear I hear a shade of something in his words, but I can’t tell what. He goes back into his office, and I’m glad because now I’m so hot I could self-combust.

  So I like calling him sir in my head. It’s no big deal. I just like the way it sounds and these days so few words bring me pleasure. The word sir fills my mind with peace, like a hand reaching out to dampen a struck cymbal. My therapist doesn’t need to know. No one needs to know. Except I’ve just said it to Mr. Blomqvist.

  Despite that thought making me squirm, my sense of peace endures well into the evening. I eat dinner in my room as usual—a piece of salmon, rice, hazelnuts, and steamed vegetables—and when I come back downstairs I watch TV with my parents for an hour or so, but most of the time I’m thinking about Mr. Blom
qvist. About calling him sir. And whether I dare say it to his face again.

  I kind of want to.

  The next morning I arrive at the office to find an email that makes the bottom fall out of my stomach. A feature article about the Laxos exhibition in one of the major newspapers has been canned. Mr. Blomqvist spent three hours with the journalist a few days ago, but now she says her editor is pulling the piece.

  When he steps out of the elevator ten minutes later, I can barely return his hello. He’s going to go through the roof when I tell him. This was one of the key marketing pieces he was relying on. If we don’t get the word out about the exhibition, it’s going to flop and next year’s budget will be toast. I won’t be here of course, but I still care, and I’m the one who’s going to break the news to him. I remember him berating me at dad’s exhibition and I want to grab my handbag and flee.

  We have catch-ups in his office twice a day, the first at ten, and the two-hour wait is agony. At exactly ten I stand up, knock on his door and go in. Feeling it’s best to get the worst over with, I tell him about the article and then brace for impact.

  “That’s disappointing,” he says mildly. “Can we contact some of the other papers and see if they’ll consider us last minute?”

  I let out an involuntarily rush of breath. He’s not going to lose his temper.

  “Something wrong?” he asks me, frowning.

  “Oh—no. I just thought the news might upset you.”

  He looks at me for a long time. “Did you think I would yell at you, Lacey?”

  I’ve noticed he does that a lot, saying my name firmly, as if to emphasize that he’s talking directly to me. “I did, actually.”

  “Why did you think I would be angry with you?”

  “I know how important the exhibition is to you.”

  “It is, but what the editor decided is out of my control. It’s out of anyone’s control.”

  “I thought you were…” I trail off, embarrassed. A control freak.