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Back Fake Like Me Save as PDF
Chapters (42)
  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Dedication
  4. Carey Logan Retrospective Coming to Young Museum
  5. 1996
  6. Chapter One
  7. 2011
  8. Chapter Two
  9. Prudence
  10. Chapter Three
  11. Chapter Four
  12. Chapter Five
  13. Chapter Six
  14. Humility
  15. Chapter Seven
  16. Chapter Eight
  17. Chapter Nine
  18. Chapter Ten
  19. Chapter Eleven
  20. Chapter Twelve
  21. Chapter Thirteen
  22. Chapter Fourteen
  23. Chapter Fifteen
  24. Chapter Sixteen
  25. Chastity
  26. Chapter Seventeen
  27. Modesty & Temperance
  28. Chapter Eighteen
  29. Purity & Obedience
  30. Chapter Nineteen
  31. Chapter Twenty
  32. Chapter Twenty-One
  33. Chapter Twenty-Two
  34. Chapter Twenty-Three
  35. Chapter Twenty-Four
  36. One Year Later
  37. Chapter Twenty-Five
  38. Acknowledgments
  39. Discover Barbara Bourland
  40. About the Author
  41. Also by Barbara Bourland
  42. Reading Group Guide

“It’s New York. Nobody remembers anything,” I said lightly, blushing. I felt a magnet hold my hand to his jaw—a magnet so strong I broke the connection in shock—and he returned to his own space, leaning back again, telling me what he’d been doing that day, who he’d been that year, reminiscing in a rush, the words and memories coming as fast as the beating wings of the hummingbirds who still gathered around their sugar feeder.

I listened, and that was where my confession ended, that I had known him, after all.

I did not confess that I dreamed of running into him for years after that day, pictured him at all sorts of moments, mostly lonely ones. On some days, every tall, dark-haired, clean-shaven man wearing an expensive suit had been a potential Charlie to me, and I would see them in the subway or on the street and wait for them to turn—

—and then it would always be someone else.

Until that party downtown.

There he was, at long last, and married to my friend.

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

The next day was horrible, backward. The notebooks interrupted time and time again. I kept looking at the digital camera’s tiny picture display of the spines, spinning the wheel to zoom in. CAREY 2, FORGIVE/FORGET, THE BURIAL PROJECT, 72 HOURS, TOMBSTONE PIZZA, YOKEFELLOWS, ELIOT&SPRAIN HOUSE: Those were all sculptures. HOLD ME, CHOKE ON IT, SLEEP DISORDER, OTHER PEOPLE’S RULES, DROP OUT, LOVE THAT MIRACLE, SIDE EFFECTS (MODAFINIL): Those were the performances. Two rolls of film, the letter said. Pine City had possession of two rolls of film. A work that, in Charlie’s words, “could upgrade the market for her previous works quite significantly.” Something that would make everybody money. Money that Pine City didn’t want. What could it be? A film, but of what? Which one was the film? SIDE EFFECTS (MODAFINIL) was the one where she stayed awake for days. SLEEP DISORDER was when she slept in a box, with the aid of constant supplements of sedatives. CHOKE ON IT was the hot dog–eating competition. OTHER PEOPLE’S RULES was the one with the awful review. But LOVE THAT MIRACLE and DROP OUT—I had no idea what those were. One of them had to be the film.

I would drift off like that, then blink back to discover paint pooling onto the canvas from where I’d paused mid-stroke. My daydreams became impossible to avoid.

Eventually I stopped working and scoured the studio, looking at every forgotten tool, in the kilns, in every cabinet, but there was nothing: no film canisters, no CDs or DVDs, no USB drives, nothing. I even checked the shoe boxes of terrible drawings again, going through all of them this time instead of just two. All I found in the three remaining boxes were more drawings and two pieces of clothing.