Free The Typhoon Lover by Sujata Massey Page B

talk. I saw Chika off to visit my parents, and that very afternoon I took the Delta shuttle to New York, where I stayed overnight in the apartment of an old college friend before my big day at the Met.
    There, I was able to look at and touch more Mesopotamian pottery, and I received an in-depth tutorial on the hand-shaping of vessels before I boarded the Metroliner to continue my journey. At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the curator turned out to know all about color, and we had a delightful two hours going through the museum’s exquisite collections. By the time I showed up at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore the next day, I was thrilled to examine an ibex pitcher that was a little bit younger than one missing from the museum in Iraq. Everywhere, people seemed surprised that they’d never heard of my being at the Sackler, but grudgingly came to accept that I was a new employee preparing to work on a forthcoming exhibition.
    My time had gone so well that I was bolstered with enough confidence to spontaneously telephone my grandmother Howard, who lived in Baltimore, to say hello, and tell her I’d just been in town at the Walters. Grandmother Howard—Grand, as she wanted me to call her—was not easily impressed, but she was on the museum board, so I guessed that my visit there would please her. She was surprised but cordial when I called, and commanded me to meet her for lunch within the hour.
    It was the first time I’d seen my grandmother in almost a year, I realized as I entered her favorite luncheon place, which was located in a pretty nineteenth-century town house just two blocks south of the museum on Charles Street. Grand looked just the same, with her fluffy white hair and a violet wool bouclé St. John suit. I hadn’t known that we’d be dining together, so I’d worn pants—but very nice pants, part of a fawn-colored Jil Sander suit that my mother had passed on to me.
    My sharp-eyed grandmother immediately recognized the pants as my mother’s castoffs. After she had let me kiss her cool, powdered cheek she’d said, “I’d take you shopping for some new clothes, Rei, but the problem is that all the department stores have deserted downtown. Supposedly our new city government is putting on a renaissance, but how can you talk about renaissance when you can’t buy a decent pair of shoes or a skirt in a city?”
    I smiled, thinking how like my mother she was at that moment—and also, how like me. I’d been frustrated with the shopping in Washington until a branch of the European retailer H&M had opened downtown. Aside from a Thomas Pink boutique in the Mayflower Hotel, there wasn’t much shopping for Hugh, either.
    “Well, downtown Baltimore doesn’t look too bad, aside from the streets being torn up. This restaurant, for example, seems greatly improved,” I said, looking around at the restaurant, which still had its original black-and-white checkerboard floor, but repainted walls and an upgraded menu—a shift to mixed baby green salads with goat cheese from the molded chicken salad and tomato aspic platters that I recalled from childhood.
    “I miss the aspic,” my grandmother said. “At least we have some of the same waitresses who’ve been here since the late fifties, which is a comfort. Now, tell me about your browse through the Walters. I hope you caught the Renoir exhibition because it’s only here another week.”
    “It was my first time there since they opened the Asian wing, so I spent all my time there,” I said.
    “The Asian wing. Yes, I suppose you would like that best.” Grand sounded disappointed in me, as always.
    “I’d love to hear about what you’ve been doing at the museum, and your other civic involvements.” I wanted to change a loaded topic.
    “Fund-raising and more fund-raising! It’s supposed to be fun to give money away, but the situation’s gotten bad in the last few years. Museums, theaters, all the places devoted to culture are falling by the wayside.”