He lowered his voice, and now he was whispering. “Everyone in the city is going to be talking about this show, writing about it. And who represents Ramona Avalon?”

“Hell if I know.”

“No, Lily. She’s your client. She wants to work with you.”

“Well, she probably shouldn’t have fucked my boyfriend then.”

“I’m telling you, Lily.” He picked up my hand, pressed his fingers into my palm. “First of all—it’s fake, okay?”

“Doesn’t sound so fake to me. You moaning her goddamned name sounds pretty real.”

“Lily. The sex, it happened, okay? But it’s just a means to an end. I’m telling you. This will make your career. You didn’t want to be a gallery girl anymore? Guess what? You’ve got the attention of everyone in town. You’ve got more control than you think.”

“Control? I’m a pawn! You turned me into a spectacle? Cheated on me? You’re broadcasting what I sound like in bed? If you think anyone can respect me after this, you’re absolutely insane. And if this is supposed to help me, why couldn’t I be in on it?”

“You know that wouldn’t work—it needed to be authentic, raw! Lily, you of all people should appreciate this. We made art out of normal life. This stuff happens all of the time—people messing around on one another. It’s just acting. Really. No genuine feelings exchanged.”

Ramona had broken away from a group of buyers and edged against my side, between Matthew and me, whispering in my ear. “We talk about this stuff all the time, Lil. How people crave stories more than anything else. We just gave them that.”

There was one brief moment when I stopped to consider whether they might be right. Whether I could intellectualize this away. How much easier everything would be if I accepted their reasoning. It was so tempting, to pretend it might actually be okay.

“I was trying to help you,” I said to Ramona. My voice had dipped into another register, one below the anger. I sounded sad and shaky and small. “I cared about your work.”

Philip Louis pulled Matthew away and the two of them leaned together, whispering and looking in my direction.

“You’re angry. I know. But Lily,” she said, “he will tell you one thing about all this, and let me tell you another. You need to be free of him. His name. What about you? What about your name?”

“What are you talking about?” I spat.