L.K. thinks, rebuked—Beauty can never be deduced by examining its creator.

Could she live in such a loft? Or, could she live in close proximity to such a loft?

Her smiling host brings her a glass half filled with amber liquid. What’s this?

Single-malt whiskey.

But no, she doesn’t want whiskey. Not at this time of day—afternoon …

“Try it, dear. You’ll like it.”

Laughing, she protests. “No. I can’t …”

“I said, try it.”

“If you have sparkling water, club soda …”

“Sorry. I don’t.”

“Wine …”

“Try this.”

Clinking his glass against her glass, which feels to L.K. unusually heavy.

Oh, this is annoying! This is pushy, aggressive.

Dislikes the man, this macho posturing.

Out of politeness L.K. takes a small sip. Isn’t sure what single-malt whiskey is.

The sudden heat of it! Amber liquid seizing her mouth, her throat, in a rush of sensation.

“To us, dear. To meeting by chance on Belle Isle.”

These words are ironic, are they? Or romantic?

Vann is regarding her with a smile. Is it a fond smile, a bemused smile, a smile of appropriation, a smile of sexual yearning? Desire? Aggression? Threat?

He is no threat to her, she is sure. He means no harm to her, surely quite the opposite. Now that they are out of the clanging freight elevator.

But did they meet by chance? L.K. isn’t sure that she believes in chance.

What appears to be chance is just obscurity, perhaps. You don’t know the connections between things, as a fly blundering into a spider’s web has no idea what he is blundering into.

To the fly, chance. To the spider, destiny.

Vann drinks. L.K. takes another, tentative drink. She has not had anything so strong to drink in years and feels a sensation of sheer elation, recklessness. Why not?

Her dear friend in the hospice is dying. She has been terrified of seeing her friend die before her eyes. As she’d been terrified of seeing her husband, her husband’s body, after his death, when he had needed her and she had abandoned him out of cowardice.

Vann is telling her about the history of the Durant. The “mecca” for outsider art for decades.

(How old is Vann? How long a career has Vnn had? The man looks to be in his mid- or late fifties at least. She may be a decade older.)

The closer L.K. examines her genial host, the more it seems to her that the man isn’t “white”—not altogether. Could he be (part) Hispanic? Middle Eastern? (There is a large Lebanese-Catholic population in Detroit.) More likely part African American, with murky brown eyes. That broad, flattened nose, sensuous sharp-chiseled lips …

She has been staring at those lips. Thinking—If he kisses me, I will … She has no idea what she will do. Her limbs feel weak in anticipation.

L.K. has had lovers of ethnicities other than her own. She has been color-blind all her life.