I fought through the crowd until I burst through a fire exit, onto the sidewalk. Tyler was nowhere to be seen; the street was filled with occupied taxis and throngs of people. A group of partygoers next to me lit up in a cloud of cigarette smoke. I bummed one, then held it between my fingers, unlit, while the city around me, dark and damp, honked and blinked and squealed.

When the traffic moved, I spotted him—leaning, in that way that he was so good at—on a wall across the street.

His hair, combed back, had turned almost completely gray. His beard was enormous; it hadn’t been trimmed in months. There were more lines on his face. He looked older, but the unhappiness he’d carried, the worry, the tender charge of fear and anxiety—that was gone.

“You sold it,” was the first thing I said.

“We did.” He shrugged. “You were right.” He took the unlit cigarette from my hands. “May I? I know you don’t want this.”

“You’re right. I don’t.” My dress was still balled up in my other fist, and I let go of it, watching the wrinkled, sticky fabric tumble to the ground.

He lit up and exhaled. “The Maria,” he said, shaking his head. “You were right about everything—about the retrospective, about Charles, about the film. He bought it from us shortly after you left, over market value, on the condition that we do the retrospective. They even liked the name. The Maria.”

“Did he agree not to sue?”

“No,” Tyler snorted. “He’s holding that card. But he’s as deep as we are. Now—he’s digging in deeper.” He looked at me with admiration. “You were truly right about all of it.”

“That’s the thing about being cynical,” I said sourly, staring at the sidewalk, the smoke from his cigarette. “Sometimes you get to be right.”

“When do you think people will start going there?”

“The second it opens. Charles will wrap it all up in so much marketing, publicity, complicity—the next generation will stay there, show there, refer to it. Carey will become a romantic myth, like Joseph Beuys and his fat and felt and mountain people. Even tomorrow,” I told him, gesturing toward the crowd across the street. They were mid-twenties, stylish, curious; one of them watched us. I pretended not to notice.

“I know,” he said, shaking his head. “We should have done this years ago.”

I had no response. It wasn’t funny.

“I didn’t think you would come.”

“I didn’t either.”

“Was it enough?” he asked.

“I’m glad you used my film.”

“We couldn’t—not in the end. We couldn’t do that.”

“No. I understand.”