Across the room, Layla looked up and aimed a vacant smile at me. I returned it with a frosty, close-lipped version, and bent back to the press release, crossing out her note.

This day was growing new depths already. I took another sip, ignored the burning.

10

AN HOUR LATER, MY PHONE’S buzz pierced the quiet of the gallery. Kaye: She’s running late. 1:30 okay?

Sure.

Great!! Sorry.

Across the room, Layla moved closer to Pearson and Erik. “‘Of course your work has holes in it. You’re a woman.’ That’s what that stupid aesthetics dude said to me,” she told them, clearly continuing some previous conversation. “Can you believe it?”

Erik shrugged. “Sounds like a stupid aesthetics dude.”

“And then for three hours we didn’t get off whether you have to ‘earn’ the right to make protest art. Whether you have to be a ‘true victim’ in order to have a voice,” said Layla. “I shouldn’t have signed up for that slot. October is the worst. Everybody is sick of looking at art, and they just want to seethe about politics.” She paused. “They just want to sound impressive to Hal.”

Layla had to be talking about her crit. I had listened many times to my coworkers, LAAC graduates, gripe enjoyably about crits at the school. The crit was LAAC’s principal way of teaching art, and generally meant an hours-long, in-class conversation with one student about his or her work. I’d heard that crits could go on for six or seven hours in Hal’s courses, lasting late into the night with sleeping bags, but even Layla’s three-plus hours sounded long to me. Still, there was a hint of neediness in her voice. She wanted to be heard.

“I’m just sensitive right now because open studios are coming up.” Layla dabbed her forehead with her fingertips. “I’m not ready.”

Another pause, during which neither man spoke.

“I was all set to show my nail-salon-worker series, but now I’m having second thoughts,” Layla added.

“Crits got the best of you? Trouble with your oeuvre?” Pearson spoke in a honeyed tone to a men’s penny loafer. “Drown your sorrows with a reality check at the No One Gives a Crap Saloon. Open 24/7. Locations everywhere.”

“Shut up,” Layla said blankly. It was hard to tell if his ribbing upset her.

Pearson tossed the loafer toward Erik. “Who were you expecting to appear at your ‘open studio’?” he asked.

“Never you mind,” Layla said. She tied the laces of a child’s sneaker in a neat bow.

“Seriously, who did Daddy line up for you this time?” Pearson didn’t wait for her answer but instead stomped around the room, flinging shoes aside, as if looking for something.

“Come on,” said Erik, glancing at me. “We need to focus on this together.”