Apex Magazine Issue 31 by Sarah Monette Christopher Barzak EE Knight Michael Pevzner

Author:Sarah Monette, Christopher Barzak, EE Knight, Michael Pevzner
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-12-05T20:58:01+00:00

Michael Pevzner lives in Haifa, Israel, and has studied mathematics and computer science. Other than writing fiction, he also enjoys role-playing, attends many local conventions and wrote a column on role-playing game design on RPG.net. “Faithful City” is his first published story.

The Yellow Dressing Gown

Sarah Monette

Of all the curators at the Samuel Mather Parrington Museum, I liked Michael Overton the least. He was a loud, bustling, back-slapping man, red-faced and brash and quite, quite stupid. There was, I believe, no particular malice in him, but there was no particular good, either, except possibly in his odd but entirely sincere devotion to his work. It was the last thing one would expect of a hearty, manly man like Overton, but his specialty was eighteenth-century textiles, with an emphasis on women’s clothing. We were all indefatigable trophy hunters when it came to acquisitions, but none was as indefatigable as Overton, who spent every weekend attending estate sales and combing through antique stores, and who spent many of his weekdays arguing with Dr. Starkweather about the budget for Decorative Arts. Overton made up in brute persistence what he lacked in intelligence, and I believe he was nearly as sore a trial to Dr. Starkweather as I was. Perhaps even more so—I did my best to stay out of the museum director’s way, while Overton bounded into combat like a particularly muscular Christian hoping for a worthy lion.

The trouble with Overton, as Mr. Lucent said once, was that he was good at his job. He had a special gift for finding clothes that had been worn by famous, or infamous, persons—mostly but not exclusively women—and that, of course, was the best way to make eighteenth century textiles palatable to the general public. Eighteenth Century Afternoon Dress was of interest only to specialists; Eighteenth Century Afternoon Dress Worn by New York Poisoner Deborah Duffy was of interest to everyone.

Overton’s provenances were sometimes sketchy (Eighteenth Century Riding Habit Believed to Have Belonged to Notorious Actress Mary Raphael Spence), but they never descended as far as dodgy, and Overton himself worked like a maniac—and drove his junior curators like slaves—to improve them, even after an item was acquired and displayed. Overton never gave up.

We clashed, Overton and I, because Dr. Starkweather’s habit, when Overton’s financial importunings became too much to bear, was to allot him more of the junior curators’ time. This practice had several benefits, only one of which was that it would silence Overton for as much as a fortnight, but it meant that when I stupidly broke my wrist, it was Overton I had to fight for Mr. Sullivan’s time. Miss Coburn and Mr. Lucent were staunch seconds—especially Mr. Lucent, as otherwise it would be his thankless task to take dictation from me for six weeks—and poor Mr. Sullivan would have stood on his head and recited Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner in its entirety to get away from Overton, but it was I whom Overton blamed. He seemed to feel I had broken my wrist on purpose to pry Mr.

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