“Do you have that book on Anselm Kiefer that came out recently? Or anything on Jay DeFeo? That big article on The Rose?”

“Actually, I think we do, the Kiefer at least. DeFeo, uh…we might have that last catalog. How have you not committed the Rose essay to memory?”

“Well, I had it in hard copy and PDF’d on my computer.”

“Fuck. Right. Well—everything’s in the library—go on in any time. The door code is my birthday. It’s in a panel to the left of the front door. Then to set it before you go, keep the door closed and type it on the inside panel.”

“Star? Pound?” I wrapped my hair in a t-shirt, holding myself and the phone upside down.

“Enter.”

“Okay. I’ll drive over now, if that’s okay.”

“It’s totally fine, but I’m not there. Fleur and I drove to the city this morning. Klaus is hosting a dinner tonight on a barge across from Hart Island.”

“That’s disgusting.” Hart Island was a potter’s field—a mass grave of unmarked bodies.

“I know. I’m going to try and get ashore.”

“Don’t fall in.”

“I might. If anyone’s going to fall in, though, it’ll be Tyler.” My heart fell at the mention of his attendance. “Eat and drink anything you want, okay? Gotta run. Talk soon. I’ll be back next week.”

I was horribly, hideously crushed after that phone call. He was already back. Tyler had no reason to invite me to that party in the city, and even if he’d wanted to, I was working: All I could do was work. I couldn’t leave. We both knew it. There was no rational reason for me to be upset, but I was, and I sat there feeling stunned and miserable and left out. Then I combed my freshly pink hair out, violently, yanking at the knots with enough force to pull them from my scalp in little clusters, hard enough that I had to physically stop myself.

At Max’s, I could be distracted. I grabbed the nearest clean t-shirt, another Atticus choice that had a smiley face on the front and the words HAVE A NICE DAY: FUCK SOMEONE on the back.

The drive to Eliot House took another ten minutes, and I parked directly in front of the Mies-van-der-Hobbit-Hole door, finding the access panel easily and gaining entry in thirty seconds.

The house was completely silent; I was alone in the concrete spectacle.