Someone who made work like this would have found it impossible to talk to any member of Pine City about anything except the weather and traffic. She must have felt so lonely—and unwanted. I pictured her carving her name into the wall before she left, still the outsider, the two of them—Carey and Maria—split at the seams, enough to leave her drawings behind, to fold the dress up in tissue paper so politely that Carey couldn’t bear to look at it. I felt sudden, tremendous pity.

And—dread.

I didn’t want to be a Maria.

I was a Carey.

No—I was better than Carey. I wasn’t going to give up.

I took the dress and the jacket, tossed them in my truck, shoved the boxes to the side, and returned to my paintings.

*  *  *

The next night, when I returned to my bungalow for dinner, the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hey.” It was Tyler. His voice wavered slightly.

“Oh. Hi,” I said nervously, curling the cord around my fingers. “What’s up?”

“I’m—I’m sorry I left so abruptly,” he said right away. “Things got crazy with the install. I had to catch a ride over on somebody’s plane because of some customs bullshit, which meant I had to go to the city earlier, then I had to come back with her, blah blah, anyway, you were working and I didn’t want to disrupt you.”

“That’s fine,” I said, in a way that I hoped could be described as blithe. I’d been to art fairs overseas, too—back when I had money for hotels and travel, when I had a mailbox where invitations rendered in invisible ink or disguised as prescription pill bottles could be delivered. When I had a passport that wasn’t blank. “I’m working, anyway.”

“Fifty days, right?”

“Nearly. Nineteen to paint.”

“Can I bring you anything?”

“When?”

“Tomorrow, maybe Friday night.”

“I’m fine. I’ll see you when you get back,” I said noncommittally.

“You sound like you’re in it. Are you done for the day?”

“No. I was only home for dinner. I have to go back, though.”

“All right. See you soon. If I’m in the studio, knock, okay?” An invitation. He was trying to close the gap between us.

“Okay,” I agreed. “See you soon.”

*  *  *

Two nights later, Tyler’s station wagon was parked in his carport. His house was dark. Down the road, narrow lines of light burst through the taped-up edges of his studio windows. My stomach dropped with anticipation. Nervously, I washed my face, carefully brushed my curls out into a big ’70s halo, tied my t-shirt into a knot at my waist—this one had Opus T. Penguin on it—then marched over to Sports and knocked loudly.