“Mein Gott, das ist fantastisch!”

“What’s that?” asks the forever clueless Dana.

“That’s French,” explains Alice and we move further.

After a while, we all walk up to Bette (who by the this time moved only to the third shot).

“This place is so inspirational, don’t you think?” She says before she coughs a bit – the aftermath of her one-day flu. “Do you realize that this is the person who got to see the beauty and grace in the nowadays celebrities even when they weren’t famous?” I never knew my girlfriend fancied any kind of celebrities. “Look at this, it’s Richard Gere, Demi Moore, John Travolta, Mel Gibson long before they were making millions and being looked upon as cool in Hollywood. And I like them better the way I see them in these shots, there’s still a certain mystery and even innocence to them.”

She pauses for a bit to let a new flow of air fill her lungs and resumes her speech.

“Michael Childers is a person who worked with Andy Warhol. He is the one who opened the eyes of America on Belle de Jour, Catherine Deneuve maybe it’s actually thanks to him that she was offered her now classic part in The Hunger. Just look how his black and white photographs can show you all the vividness and color shades that are only possible to find, notice how he plays with shadows on people’s faces and how he makes each moment he captured last forever”

Bette keeps talking and I’m starting to see exactly what she says, until I hear Dana quietly saying, “I didn’t know Bette was such a geek” to Shane, while Alice does the “zzzzzzz” and walks away.

Two and a half hours later, Bette and I leave the museum and join the girls in the car – they left long before Bette felt satisfied with the greatness she saw.

“Bette, did you know that there’s another hall dedicated to this guy’s nude pictures?” Alice inquires as Shane drives off, so that Bette won’t rush out of the car to see what she missed.

“Yes, we walked around it, too,” my gorgeous girlfriend answers. “These are some of the most recent works of Childers and to tell you the truth, I don’t see as much depth in them as I see in his earlier shots.”