“How do you get a drink here?” said a voice. It was Lynne Feldman, alone, her expression befuddled. In this laid-back atmosphere, my chief curator’s hair looked too groomed and her lips too painted, her all-black getup an overdone urban armor. If this were a West Side party for already famous artists, Lynne would simply wait like a beacon and let the party come to her, but this was a young East Side crowd and they were too intimidated to approach. The official gatekeeper of the Rocque Museum! Lynne Feldman was a goal for them, not a living person.

“Did you get a drink yet?” she said when I didn’t answer.

“No. It’s so crowded.” I wondered if Lynne would know why Janis Rocque hadn’t come tonight. “I still haven’t managed it.”

“Well,” said Lynne, with an unnervingly chummy grin. “Neither of us would survive long in the desert, would we?”

I smiled obligingly, scanning the festivalgoers. Everyone was draining back inside. I heard a few cars start up, people heading out to see other installations nearby. Should I go to the parking lot, too?

“The screening must have interested you. Weren’t you an LAAC student?” Lynne persisted.

“No, I wasn’t,” I said, less surprised by Lynne’s ignorance than by the fact she had asked me a question at all. Lynne rarely cared what anyone else thought. Critical opinions were her territory alone. And tonight, her critical opinion had puzzled me. I decided to press her. “But I was impressed by the film,” I said, “and I was touched by what you said about Brenae Brasil. Any young artist would have been very grateful for that kind of support.”

Lynne blinked. “I’m glad you heard that,” she said. “Her own institution would like to brush her under the rug. You know, Hal Giroux declined to do the introduction.”

Hal Giroux was the director of Brenae’s graduate program. I understood why Brenae’s peers might be jealous of her, but her director? Wouldn’t LAAC love their star? I asked Lynne.

She shrugged. “Let’s just say I heard that Brenae was about to make a very public criticism of their culture for women and minorities. I can’t tell you more than that, because I really don’t know. But Brenae was right, and I’m tired of what happens there.” Defeat did not sync well with Lynne’s usual proud composure, and after a wobbly moment, she steeled her shoulders. “I may brave it. I may just go to my hotel,” she muttered in the direction of the bar.

“Same,” I said, but the dread I’d been feeling all night had transformed into something else. Anger? No, the sensation was too hardened and familiar: here we were, two women, talking about another female victim, talking about our exhaustion with it, and then letting it go.