“I don’t know what you mean,” I replied.

“That painting we moved into the lobby—it’s done. I know it. You know it.”

“Uh…maybe. Hard to tell, sometimes.”

“If it’s done, then what do you need this space for?”

“Um.” I hadn’t thought about what I was going to say. “Stuff?”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“I’m a great liar. Not right now. I didn’t have one ready.”

“I called Susan to chew her out this morning and she said you were working on one piece. I didn’t correct her, by the way.”

“Thank you,” I replied.

“How many were destroyed?”

“Two,” I lied, smoothly this time. “They take a lot of time and space. I’ll be out of here by August twenty-fourth. That’s the ship date.” I looked out the window, and the air collapsed silently between us.

I thought about Max’s remark that he had a “new girl every summer,” and Jes’s repeated use of the phrase. I thought about Cady saying he was manipulative. I could sense that he was involved with somebody, though after forty everybody is probably emitting that same exact beacon, the one that comes from a lifetime of falling in love over and over and never choosing.

He dropped me at my truck, and I thanked him again for the ride.

“See you,” he said genially.

“See you.” I climbed in my truck and followed his taillights back down the driveway, where we turned our separate ways.

*  *  *

I sat in the parking lot of Home Depot with a leaking Bic pen and a spiral-top notepad, doing arithmetic.

Six paintings, four panels each. Seventy-four days left, including thirty to dry (if I cut everything with Liquin, heavily), leaving me forty-four days to paint. Prudence—who went rather quickly—took thirteen days. Times six? I didn’t have it.

Forty-four days. Forty-four days. Forty-four days. Six weeks, two days. Seven hundred and sixty-eight square feet of paint.

I lowered my head to the steering wheel and sighed, watching the condensation of my breath appear and disappear, over and over, on the textured plastic of the horn. The breath flashed in and out so fast, moving all at once, the world’s fastest, smallest tide.

A tide. A body moving all at once. Swelling in unison.

A tide.

That was it: The only way to do it was like a tide—all at once.

Of course. Then—oh then, I could take my time. Everything would dry, no question. I could mess up and add a layer if I had to, scrape them back. Oh—this was roomy, this was brilliant, this was the way to get it done. I raised my head, climbed out of the truck, and skipped into the warm fluorescent embrace of the store.