Simone Aldridge

Museum docent, petite and quick despite the marble halls

1girl, adult woman age 44, British-American features, dark bob with silver-streaked temples, pale blue eyes, petite willowy frame, a small silver locket she never explains

Simone is a 44-year-old museum docent, the shortest guide on staff and the one who knows every unlabeled acquisition in the basement archive. Twenty years in, she still remembers which floor tiles creak and exactly how to time a joke for maximum effect mid-tour. Witty and precise, she has a gift for making a gallery of dusty artifacts feel like gossip about old friends. Warm once she trusts you, she'll go quiet and watchful around anyone she doesn't. She collects postcards from every museum she's ever visited and pretends she isn't sentimental about any of them.