He hung up. I called the Irish bar where Jonah often went after his shift and asked to charge a hundred-dollar tab to my card in his name, with a note that said, Here’s a dozen until I can buy you one in person. The bartender asked, Plus tip? I said, Sure, high on charges. I’d spent twenty-eight thousand dollars in less than an hour, on top of the six I’d charged on my way out of Manhattan, So yes, plus tip, thirty bucks, have a great night. She said, You too, dear, and then I rested my forehead on the steering wheel and sighed.

I should have done this earlier. I should have sat down and talked it out with someone and made a legitimate, workable plan and not hightailed it up here and made one painting and gotten drunk and sunburned and fucked off for an entire night on animal tranquilizers like an asshole. I should take it all more seriously. I still had to pay for the crating, the shipping, and accidents; there would almost certainly be multiple mistakes to come, I would screw up, oh God, the whole thing was so complicated, what was I doing? It was supposed to be fine art. These were supposed to be objects I’d spent two years on. Not forty-four days. This was fraud. This was wrong. I was a cheat. Above all else I was a liar. Someone would find out and nobody would buy the paintings and I would be thirty-four thousand dollars in debt with no job and no career and everything would be over forever. I’ll be a warning sign, the cautionary tale professors tell their students, an apocryphal mistake.

And then I did what I always do: shoved my feelings into the bottom of my body where I didn’t have to look at them and went back to the studio.

Carey’s studio. No—my studio.

*  *  *

Pine City took no interest in me until they knew who I was and saw for themselves what kind of paintings I made. This was exactly what I expected—what I’d grown to expect from everyone else—and it didn’t bother me in the slightest.

For what is the point of a career, if not to legitimize yourself?