PROLOGUE
She had to get away. It had been six years since Audrey had graduated from the Cooper Union School of Art, four since acquiring a Masters in Library Science for the Arts from Pratt, and two years since she could remember the names of everyone she had slept with. At the age of twenty-eight, Audrey was finding self-reflection in the most disturbing places and decided to do something about it. She would make the out-of-character and ultimate romantic gesture: move to the Midwest, purge, take a look at what was left beyond the toxins, and then come back and let herself slowly and unavoidably get polluted again.

There were perhaps two distinct incidents the year before the relocation decision that lead to this quarter-life metro-crisis. Both involved men. And rent.

First, at an alarming and ultimately life-changing gynecological exam, Audrey learned, to her horror, that she had contracted both chlamydia and gonorrhea. The sexually transmitted diseases were gone from her system after three excruciating weeks of abstinence from both sex and alcohol, at which point Audrey learned how boring and dirty New York clubs and exclusive parties were, and how it felt to interact with men with whom you had no chance of sleeping. The significantly older gentlemen, celebrities, the live-in fiancés of other girls, the men who are normally characterized as unpotential sexual partners, were for some reason under a different classification for Audrey. She was after all, a librarian, and it was her job to categorize the true character of things by the most specific criteria. William, her ex and first college love, currently living with his girlfriend in Greenpoint, was not filed under “unavailable” but rather, “usually occupied.” 

One can imagine, therefore, that when Audrey transmitted to Will the aforementioned power couple of vaginal dysfunction, things got a little complicated. When the girlfriend acquired the surprises and yet nonetheless continued her romantic and domestic partnership with Will, things got a little confusing. When Will explained to Audrey in their final conversation that neither he nor said girlfriend could afford a New York one-bedroom that wasn’t shared by two people and decided it would be easier to forgive and forget than endure such a drastic change in lifestyle, Audrey knew she had to take a vacation.

The second incident was, quite simply, a “not-boyfriend” becoming a “live-in boyfriend” following the loss of his irregular installation job at PS1. After “just crashing” for three weeks, Jacob, a one-time football star turned abstract painter, discovered that selling coke was an easier way to make money than part-time museum work, and left way more time for his canvases. As the paintings were stacking up and Audrey’s socks were disappearing, she knew it was time to move. Out of the city, away from the bad choices and lost nights, to a place where after working hundred-hour weeks between the library and her studio, she could be bone tired somewhere that was not always too noisy to sleep deeply.

That place, as it turned out, was Rochester, Minnesota. Thanks to the Mayo Clinic, the nation’s best and largest hospital, this was where patients went hoping for some miracle to keep them from dying. To Audrey, the position of Head Librarian for the Arts Collection opening that May, was just what the doctor ordered.

CHAPTER  1
Audrey was tall, lithe, and super sexy…