“Because you climbed a crane, mate.”

Matthew considered this and then considered it some more and then, with a sigh, climbed down to where Jordan waited. “How did you know I was here?”

“You walked right by my studio. You didn’t recognize it?”

He hadn’t. Stupid.

“What’s the deal here?” Jordan asked as they began to walk back the way he’d come. “Are you giving rebellion a go? Is this about your brothers lying to you?”

Because she just said it instead of mincing around it, Matthew told her. He told her everything. All the things that were bothering him, from big to small and back to big again.

“That all sounds truly fucked up, and I’m sorry,” Jordan said, opening the door to Fenway Studios. Together they walked down the hall toward the studio she stayed in. “The problem as I see it is that some of that shit’s about being a dream, but some of it’s just about growing up, and honestly, both are sorry situations if you ask me about it.”

“I did,” Matthew said.

“You did what, mate?”

“Ask you about it.”

She laughed her enormous laugh as he smiled at her. She lightly high-fived him and then pushed open the door to let them into the studio. “Ah yeah.”

“Whoa,” Matthew said. “This is good.”

Since he’d been last, Jordan had accomplished huge amounts of work on her copies of El Jaleo and Madame X. Each canvas had a separate, smaller easel sitting in front of it, with reference photos and jotted palette notes and instructions and business cards taped all over them. But what he was looking at was the work she’d done on the portrait of Sherry and her daughter, the one he’d helped her with at the very beginning. It was still coming together, but their faces were very good and the colors were as understated and lovely as the John White Alexander paintings she had taped on the easel beside it.

“Thanks,” Jordan said.

“They’re way better than this other weird stuff.” The rest of the studio was full of the ordinary studio occupant’s work—colorful, elongated nudes with cucumber-shaped breasts.

“Not really,” Jordan said. “I mean, Sargent’s better than Sir Tits here is, obviously. That’s why Sargent’s famous and this guy is just, you know, this guy. But these paintings of mine are copies. At least this guy is making original stuff. That’s part of it, I think. I don’t know much about sweetmetals, but I know I’ll never make one painting Sargents.”

Matthew moved Jordan’s pillow to sit on the bright orange couch. “So what do you think will do it?”