He shifts his weight from the ball of one foot to the other; his feet are sore from crouching, and his knees are beginning to hurt, and suddenly he feels keenly self-conscious, crouched down like this behind a car in the cold and spying on his wife and daughter. He looks around him for other people; the street is empty, and he is relieved. Still, he is glad when Ruth turns from the doorman and beckons Isabelle; Wilson finally stands as the two of them make their way down the street. Ruth walks ahead of Isabelle, who slows to walk on the low fence around each tree they pass and then hastens to catch up with her mother. Wilson wonders if Ruth is aware of her, and he wonders whether if Isabelle were following him rather than Ruth he would be aware that Isabelle wasn’t simply trailing behind. Maybe he wouldn’t, he thinks. Maybe Ruth isn’t. Maybe that is the way Isabelle wants it.

The idea of an art class is not appealing. Isabelle does not need or want anyone telling her how to draw. She does not want to sit at a table and draw with other people, especially people she doesn’t know, and even more especially if they are the kind of people who would voluntarily sign up for a mother-daughter art class. Her mother has told her that all drawing materials will be supplied, but she has brought her own sketchbook and her own pencils anyway; these she clutches as she walks with her mother on the park side of Fifth Avenue, staring at the hexagonal pavers passing beneath her feet. She has not looked up since they turned off their street and onto Fifth Avenue; she does not know where this art class is, or how far they’re going to have to walk, but she has decided that she will not lift her eyes until they have gotten there and are seated at their table. Letting the ground roll by beneath her eyes is like watching trees flash by on the side of the highway; it seems that the ground and the trees are the things that are moving, and not she herself. She thinks of what it would be like if that’s really how things were, if people only had the illusion of progress and really it was the world moving around them, like a giant treadmill. For all she knows, it could really be that way.

“Okay,” her mother says. “Here we are.”