I took the puzzle (it was only half filled in) outside with me and sat on the hill, watching the woods. Nothing happened—wind shook the trees and some birds flew around, your basic forest action—and I mindlessly filled in the clues. When I was done, I paged through the remainder of the section, and found a review for a show by Carey Logan. According to the date, it was roughly six months before she’d died.

“I left asking myself two questions. One: Is ‘Other People’s Rules’ a good work of art? Two: Is Ms. Logan a good artist? The answer to both is that Ms. Logan’s electrifying personal presence, overwhelming as it may be, does not an artwork make. She may still be beautiful, but she is certainly no longer the daring youngster who asked us to look unflinchingly upon the bodies of murdered women; instead she asks us to regard her newfound privilege. Unlike her, I did not find it interesting.”

It was so unkind and sexist and humiliating. Carey had certainly proved that she was a good artist—that she was newsworthy was the paper’s own self-evident truth—and she did not deserve to be taken down so forcefully. I could not recall reading any review that assessed whether or not Chris Burden, who let himself be shot on-camera, or Vito Acconci, who masturbated under the floorboards of a gallery, were still attractive, or if any male artist was still attractive unless it was asserting that like Bruce Springsteen their butts were still worth grabbing. I’d never seen Richard Prince, Jeff Koons, or Chuck Close being admonished for showing us their privilege. The word newfound reminded us that she was uneducated and poor, that she was some kind of interloper into privilege, implying that she didn’t deserve it or that she was a fool to be interested in it. And the byline enraged me most of all—it was been written by a woman, no less. The same woman, I realized, who so generously expressed her apparent shock that I “could so successfully handle the XL format,” since it was “traditionally the domain of men.”

“Judas,” I hissed at the paper.

A brand-new Range Rover pulled up, emerging like a shiny black nightmare from the gentle scenery. When the driver’s-side window rolled down, I found myself looking at the smooth, artificially plumped face of an impeccably dressed man with dyed-platinum hair and a permanent sneer.

“Hello?” the man whom I presumed was Julian snapped, though he made no effort to introduce himself. “Ugh,” he said, impatient with disgust. “You’re…bleeding.”

I looked down. My tape bandage had worked itself free. “I cut my leg in the barn,” I tried to explain. “Thanks for bringing the key.”

He rolled his eyes unsympathetically, as though I had somehow intentionally removed my own flesh in an attempt to skip the nonexistent line of invisible people for usable studio space.