It was becoming clearer to me, on a personal level, why Tyler had done so well. Aside from being handsome, he was physically very charismatic; his jokes were delivered in the key of bittersweet; he said sincere things about what he liked and didn’t like. He looked you straight in the eyes when he spoke to you and he didn’t seem insecure. He was the kind of person you wanted to be around. And his artwork did something to the bottom of your stomach to make you simultaneously uncomfortable and afraid and curious, and that—I liked that. I think everybody did.

At some point a group of people nearby, three men and two women, started speaking loudly. I didn’t know them, but they shimmered with the unmistakable patina of privilege. It emanated from them in waves. I rolled in their direction, away from Tyler, and made myself small against the blob, stacking pillows over myself, and poked my head out one end to eavesdrop.

“The gallery is so controlling about the estate,” one of the men was saying, rolling his eyes. “I mean—she’s one of his artists. That’s his damn job. We need this work for the show. It cannot happen without it.” The ketamine had dissolved, for the moment, all of the possessive anger I’d felt earlier. In its place stood naked, unbridled curiosity. I stopped breathing and listened.

“She was the rebel of our time,” one of the women said, in a Southern lady’s accent, all pearls and politeness. “So important. Such a powerful influence.”

“I’ll work on him,” another of the women said. “We’re having lunch next week. Ugh, Brits. You can punch them in the face and they say thank you. It’s impossible to get straight talk out of them.”

“Well—she left it all to them,” one of the men said, nodding his head backward to the lake and Pine City. “They could’ve made millions since she died. Charlie’s not the problem. He won’t say it but—it’s them. They are the problem.”

Then—abruptly—I felt Tyler roll from the blob. The group hushed each other and fell silent. I twisted my head inside the pillow burrito and watched him, shoulders high and hands in his pockets, sit grumpily on an Adirondack chair in front of the fire.

“Oh my,” pouted the Southern one, in faux-embarrassment. “Have we been…indiscreet?”

“Don’t worry about it,” another said reassuringly, though even I could tell he didn’t mean it. “Let’s get a drink.”

After they retreated, I tunneled out of the pillows and headed over to Tyler, sitting in the grass at his side, digging in the dirt with my carefully polished fingernails. He didn’t say anything and I wanted desperately to know how he felt.

“Are you okay?” I asked, wanting to put my hand over his mouth, feel his breath.