A So-Called Ballad - Isabella and Dylan

"The last thing Isabella Joyeuse had expected in her young life was to find herself detached before the presence of a touring collection of The 19th Century Spanish Masterworks, curated by the Brooklyn Museum, as she finished a first pass over a collection of newly discovered 'Isabella Joyeuse’ love poems, curated by local auteurs unknown. Already she had shaded ever more tentative regarding the tracks Braeden Pisztoph may, or not, have contributed towards the loose verse she was now shuffling in her hands. Up to this point then Isabella could say this day's class field trip to the Brooklyn Museum had not proceeded in any manner like those past school trips.
Prior to her sophomore class’s late morning, half-day spring road trip down to the Brooklyn Museum plaza, the second year ‘museum travel team’ had convened for a mini-assembly refereed by Ms. Salacia Olvera, of the Elmont South High School's Art Department, in their school’s lower auditorium. Her students found a standard copy of the Brooklyn Art Council's’ 'A Student Field Manual Guide to the Visual Arts' covering their chairs as they taken their seats. Ms. Olvera then led all her assembled in a check-through of their planned field trip itinerary, followed by a rather stern afternoon travel advisory as to what would be viewed as appropriate Elmont student behavior browsing their public art institutions. She then concluded the period with a brief introductory lecture outlining a few of the absolute essentials traditionally taught under ‘General Art Appreciation’.
Both the student booklet and Ms. Olvera's lecture had converged at a modestly aspirational theme that emphasized the immediate subjective responses a novice patron of fine arts might experience as they probed the esteemed works of art history they would find before them. Ms. Olvera had conveyed to her students the concept of traditional art works as natural storytellers with narratives they sought to express authentically to their observing audience. These stories, though, were best told to an attentive audience, the curious minds who could bring the right questions to bear in this personal encounter. Their own inquiries could be tendered back authentically as well to these transcendent works, silently of course. Ms. Olvera distinctly stressed the silent aspect of this approach. The Brooklyn Museum’s galleries were not exhibitors of ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’, she reminded her students once again.
Isabella saw right away the appeal of expanding her friend circle to include new antiquities. It brought to mind a 'Family Day' high school re-union her parents had kidnapped her into a while back. That might have been a fun day, actually, if her parents hadn't attended. She wondered, though, if the Old Masterworks were truly ready for the questions her classmates might bring to a story session. Could a museum exhibit ever be sufficiently noodged into exhibiting a speechless blush before some real authentic Brooklyn take-out trash? That might be the first art encounter question she’d present before these visiting museum works.
What Isabella had most definitely not been anticipating was that the first opportunity for an interactive museum experience this day would be occasioned by a packet of envelopes addressed specifically to ‘Isabella - Locker #219’. The envelopes had been tucked in with Braeden's personal effects pile, left at his friend Leon's museum security guard station, or its unguarded folding chair anyway, where Isabella had understood she and Braeden would be syncing up following their separate arrivals.
The letters had spilled to the floor when Isabella had begun gathering together all of Braeden’s things, tired by then of waiting out his no-show. She opened one of the envelopes that she saw was addressed to her and read its first page. She then placed it back in its envelope and took the unoccupied security guard seat beside her, bracing a notably more wobbly Isabella. From there she opened ...