Yvette

Yvette is an art historian in her early 40s. She moved to town five years ago to take a job as curator at the Fern River Institute of Art. She has since transformed the museum into a premier destination for devotees of nude and erotic art. Her doctoral dissertation was titled “Norm and transgression in 21st century erotic performance art”.

In her professional role, Yvette comes across as serious and slightly stiff, but close friends know her as warm and playful. Privately she yearns for natural, easygoing sexual self-expression. She harbors a dream of performing a piece of her own at the museum one day juxtaposing professionalism and the erotic.

She is known in town for her “uniform” — a wool blazer over a snug solid-colored turtleneck with dark jeans — a version of which she wears every day. Her friends admit that it does look quite good on her. Em, who works on Fridays as Yvette’s assistant, dressed up as her boss for Halloween one year.

Yvette lives by herself in an apartment owned by the museum a few blocks away, where she can see the white dome and gilded statue of Venus from her living room windows. On weekends, she visits local art galleries and studios, occasionally dropping in on Lena and Asami, or stopping for a glass of wine with Margot at the Celandine. Every few quarters she teaches a course at the college on the history of performance art.