Jack: “I don’t know if DROP OUT is an artwork. She said that it was.”

Marlin: “We’re in a weird position. It is fraud. If the value of the work plummets, we could be held liable for damages.”

Max de Lacy, pictured in the elaborate gilded egg of her office: “I wanted to write about DROP OUT in The Art of Losing, my memoir that releases next month, because I deeply loved the woman whom I knew as Carey. She was a friend. I wanted her to have what she wanted. To be seen.” Max glimmers. The thing about Max is that she means it when she says things like this. The camera allows the light to bounce off the peonies painted on her wall, and cuts back to Max smiling; it’s an effect that makes her look as gauche and out of place in this film as a diamond bracelet in a homeless shelter.

It cuts back to Tyler in his studio. The camera zooms out to show an empty room. “We’ve sold Pine City to Eliot&Sprain and consolidated our assets.” He looks around. “Today is our last day here.”

Charles Eliot: “We have no legal action to pursue against Pine City at this time.” The camera zooms out to show him standing in front of the Mission, directing workers.

Helen Sprain, sitting in the office of their Chelsea gallery: “This extraordinary property will become a true center for the arts in upstate New York. Performing arts space, a permanent collection, rotating exhibitions, funded residencies for marginalized artists—the Maria, as it’s now called, will be an anchor for the community.”

Marlin, exiting her empty studio: “The next thing is the retrospective. We’ve loaned the museum everything we have.”

Jack: “It’s not only the Carey work. It’s the work we made about her.”

Jes: “I don’t care about the retrospective. We got what we wanted. Bring on the future.”

Tyler: “I want to move on.”

The closing credits dedicated the film to the memory of Maria Frances Clarke over a photograph of her standing in Tompkins Square Park. In a floral dress, holding a skateboard, grinning ear-to-ear, her hair long, dark, uncombed, she looked like a nineteen-year-old girl with everything ahead of her—and absolutely nothing like Carey Logan.

*  *  *

The audience was spooked. Some people were yelling into their phones and shoving past each other for the doors, while others stood, struck dumb, looking around for Pine City, who were not in the room. Most people didn’t seem to know whether they should be angry or outraged or excited or confused or what, and so they typed into their phones, searching for an article or a recap or anything that would tell them how to feel.

Max, beet red with discomfort, stayed still. She hadn’t known a thing about Charlie and Maria.

“I’m sorry,” I said to her, simply.