Meet Anita Olsen. The most popular girl in high school, she ruled as president of The Hot Babes Club - and as a bully who tormented Freddie Simpson for being a nerd. Freddie grew up to be a tech billionaire who invented a system of mind control, and life got very different for The Hottest Babe.
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It was a lovely autumn day in New York City. From their hotel window, Frida and Anita saw the red and orange foliage in Central Park. There was a blue sky with a few fluffy white clouds. The city could be inhospitably hot in summer, and uncomfortably cold in winter, but on days like this, in the spring and fall, it was a glorious place to be.
It was their day for sightseeing, when they forgot they were in town for an art gallery opening. They acted instead like two tourists whose only goal was to enjoy themselves. They had a list of places to go, things to do, and sights to see.
They had both been to New York before, but always on business. They'd never had a chance to see things like the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, or Broadway. Frida insisted that they go to the Empire State Building first. She happened to know all about fabulous art deco ornamentation in the building's public spaces, and she wanted to see it in person. Frida told Anita the names of the individual artists who'd created each stunning piece. Then they went up to the observation deck, looking out at the heart of Manhattan, when Frida took Anita's hand and gave it a squeeze. She was so happy. They both were. They embraced and kissed like two young lovers on vacation together.
They bought matinee tickets to see a schmaltzy Broadway musical. It was wonderful. They rode the Staten Island Ferry. Frida had another request that seemed strange. She told Anita she wanted to visit a planetarium. A planetarium?
They walked into the massive American Museum of Natural History, which was a masterpiece of traditional classical architecture from the mid-19th century. They walked through magnificent old galleries full of dinosaurs, whales, and panoramas of early humans. "This looks familiar," Anita said. "Is this where they shot that movie
Night at the Museum
?"
"They shot a lot of movies here," Frida said. "That's just one."
At length, they walked through an area that seemed to take them from the 19th to the 23rd century. Gone were the stone walls and Greek columns. They had arrived at The Hayden Planetarium.
It was a stunning piece of a completely different kind of architecture. At its heart, it was a giant white room that looked like a scene from the future, with sweeping ramps and massive white columns connected to an impossible large white sphere that seemed to float in the center of the vast open space. The exterior walls were glass, with so few metal structural elements that you could see the park-like grounds of the museum with almost no obstructions.
"This looks like a scene from a science fiction movie," Anita said.
"That's exactly what it is," Frida said. "This was designed by a famous architect named Jim Polshek. When Polshek was a little boy in 1936, he saw a classic movie called
Things To Come
. It's on cable all the time. The script was by H. G. Wells, and predicted the future of mankind on a grand scale. The end of the movie takes place in a city in the far future, when people drive around in flying cars, through a cityscape of beautiful white geometric shapes with huge glass windows. Polshek designed the planetarium and the glass enclosure to look like a set from that movie. Isn't it beautiful?"
They walked through the giant room, with Frida examining the architectural elements while Anita looked at the displays of the planets floating in mid-air and things like a giant iron meteorite the size of a compact car.
At length, Frida was ready to leave. "I'm about ready for lunch," she said.
"Wait a minute," Anita said. "We came all this way to see the planetarium. Don't you want to see the show?"
"I'm really more interested in the architecture," Frida said.
"I want to see the show. It won't take long," Anita said.
The pair entered the theater, which was inside the giant white sphere. It was a huge room with a planetarium projector in the center. It projected the stars on the inside of the sphere, creating the illusion of a starry night sky. When the lights went down and the projector turned on, the illusion was staggeringly lovely, showing what the night sky looked like before light pollution destroyed it. The most amazing part happened when a series of 3D projectors made it appear that Frida and Anita were traveling through the universe at stupendous speeds, taking a tour of the sights of the Milky Way. There was a marvelous soundtrack that shook the room and enhanced the effect.
When it was over, they walked unsteadily outside the theater and into the light of the giant white room. "Wow," Anita said. "That was like taking a ride on the starship
Enterprise
."
"It would be a lot of fun having sex in there," Frida said.
Anita laughed. "You are hopeless," she said.
They were leaving the building when Frida's cell phone rang. It was from Mari. She said that an art critic who'd been given an advance look at
Aphrodite
planned to do a review, and he wanted Frida and Anita to pose for a photo illustration. Could they come down to the gallery that afternoon?
"Sure!" Frida said. "I'm surprised to see this level of interest so quickly. The show hasn't even opened."
"The gallery owner has a habit of inviting a few of her favorite art critics for advance looks at a show," Mari said. "I think it's a good sign that they are in a hurry to get a photograph of the artist. And the model. They want to shoot you and Anita together."
"They can shoot whatever they want if they plan to say something nice about
Aphrodite,
" Frida said.
"No promises there," Mari said. "But they wouldn't want a photograph if they didn't think the show was important enough to write about."
Frida and Anita had just enough time to go back to their hotel, relax for a bit, then change clothes and go back to the gallery. Frida was excited. Her show hadn't even opened, and it was already creating buzz! Her excitement increased when she got to the gallery and saw the photographer assigned to shoot them.
