“It’s fine.” She gritted her teeth. “That’s his job. To make people love him. He’s—he’s too good at it, sometimes.”

Charlie appeared at the end of our row, all sorrow and regret, beckoning for Max with a furrowed brow. When Max stood I noticed that she was pregnant.

“Oh my gosh,” I said instinctively. “Congratulations. I didn’t even notice.”

“No, no, I’m carrying small, she could be a burrito,” Max said.

“She?”

“She.”

“Congrats,” I said. She straightened up, then looked at the ceiling to force a tear to dispel over the surface of her eye.

“Okay. I’m fine. It’s the hormones.”

“Don’t worry about the photo,” I told her, impulsively giving the forgiveness she so craved. I had a thought in the moment that if I were ungenerous, it would be bad for the baby. And—I signed the release. I did. I was young, and I didn’t know better, but I did it, and I profited from it, too, in one way or another. I can confess that, now. I should.

As Charles moved toward us, she took my hands with her tattooed fingers. “I think about it all the time. I think about it every day,” she said, urgently, squeezing my fingers. “I do. I do.”

I looked into her big blue eyes. “I don’t,” I told her. “Not anymore.” When her husband was only a few steps away, I took back my hands and walked in the other direction.

*  *  *

The galleries, unlocked after the end of the film, were already packed. I pushed my way through, holding my dress in one sweating fist, and found myself back in their wonderland, though Pine City themselves were nowhere to be seen. The whole atrium was filled with FORGIVE/FORGET, rotten flower petals coated the floor, and the ceiling was draped with one of Jack’s ethereal nets. Carey’s bronzed heart, broken in two, stood gleaming on a pedestal. Every room contained a central work of Carey Logan’s, mixed with those by the other members of Pine City. Side galleries, drawn with velvet curtains, showed recordings of Maria Clarke’s performance works. The DROP OUT piece was playing, separate from the documentary, in a side gallery, and there was already a long line of people who wanted to watch it again.

Then I saw a flash of pink and green.

Prudence.

She was on loan from a British collector. The wall text said she was the last piece of art made at Pine City. I reached up and touched her. This time, nobody stopped me. Instead, someone asked me to turn around and smile so that they could take my picture.

That’s when I saw him in the crowd, watching me, in that same threadbare tuxedo. People were speaking to him urgently, tugging at his jacket. He kept his eyes on me, didn’t acknowledge anyone else, and pointed toward the exit.