No no no no no, she said, we’ve already placed the ad buys. We went all out. We’ll delay delivery for varnish if we have to. Can you remake Prudence in the next few months? That will have to be okay. We’ll keep that our little secret. That’s not in any of the ads, right? No. No. And nobody has bought that one yet. That’s good. Because if I have to change the advertising you’ll be on the hook for the marketing we’ve already done. You know that, I’m sure. It’s in our agreement.

Okay, I told her.

No problem.

And that is how I found myself committing fraud.

*  *  *

The day after my call with Jacqueline, I contacted every semi-reputable residency in America. Full of a manic certainty that I could make seven huge paintings in three months and that everything I’d worked for, everything I’d achieved, wouldn’t be for nothing—I hadn’t submitted the wall text, no one knew what was supposed to be in the paintings, Jacqueline sold some already but only based on photographs, and it’s not like she’d paid me yet, I only got paid on delivery, I didn’t need to do anything other than copy myself, I was certainly allowed to sell whatever paintings I wanted, there was nothing wrong with it so long as I got paid in the end—I dialed number after number and pleaded my case. The pinnacle of my creative career required pulling off an enormous, complex, physically laborious hoax, but I didn’t question whether or not it was possible; I fixated only on getting it arranged. All I needed was a space, and I could make everything right.

But it didn’t work. “We’re full. Try us next summer!” they all proclaimed. Voice after voice shot me down with brightly colored arrows: No, No, No, but next year we’d love to.

“Your CV is very impressive. Just need to follow those deadlines,” the voices chirped.

I emailed almost every artist I’d ever met. They were either staying put for the summer—“DYING for the studio time”—or had already sublet their places while they traveled, and every response I got with a frowny face at the bottom made me want to throw Cady’s computer out the window.

We called our closest friends over for an emergency meeting. (Mostly they were Cady’s friends, and therefore my longtime, albeit warm, acquaintances.)

“We need a plan,” Cady yelled over the din of box wine and records. Everyone knew I had to remake one painting. Nobody—not even Cady—knew it was seven.

“Why are you asking us?” Atticus said, the boyfriend and house in the Catskills long since forgotten. “I live in a shipping container in Corona Park. I can’t solve your problems, baby.”