It stung, but fair was fair. She still didn’t want to get to know Miriam better because being attracted to someone who was engaged and leaving in a month was a bad idea. But she’d promised Hannah, and now she felt she owed it to Miriam. Maybe art could be a space for them to negotiate a peaceful acquaintance. They could find this one piece of common ground and be pleasant to each other in that context. That would be safe.

How turned on could you get talking about glitter, after all?

“I want to go up to the attic with you, before you leave,” Noelle offered, “so you tell me about all those pieces.” This felt like a good olive branch. Maybe the gesture would make up for some of her earlier animosity. Which she did still feel justified in, given the information she’d had, but she didn’t have to tell Miriam that. She could be magnanimous. “And you should take whatever you want back home with you. I mean, you gave it to Cass, and Cass…”

Miriam shook her head. “I’m not going to take the inn’s art, unless you don’t want it. I gifted that to Carrigan’s. Besides, I would never willingly take pieces from someone who gets my work.”

“You’re famous on Instagram,” Noelle teased, a little sheepishly, nudging Miriam with her shoulder. Why hadn’t she looked Miriam up in the first place? “Lots of people get your work.”

“No.” Miriam shook her head, not taking her eyes off the night sky. “They like to have it, but most of them don’t take me seriously.”

“Doesn’t your fiancée like your work?” Noelle asked. She shouldn’t feel defensive of Miriam, but damn it, she was really talented.

“She likes the idea that I make art more than my actual art, I think.” Miriam said, without rancor, which Noelle didn’t quite understand. Why wouldn’t Miriam want her fiancée to like her work?

“Anyway,” Miriam continued more briskly, “to your original question, I do travel to pick out pieces. It’s mostly road trips down the Atlantic seaboard, or weekends at interesting estate sales. I go to Berkeley every couple of months for the Alameda Flea Market.”

Noelle watched Miriam first get excited and then even out her face, like she was trying not to seem too enthusiastic. Noelle was almost glad for the respite because Miriam geeking out was so luminous, she could hardly look. Miriam had every right to be passionate about her work, but some self-preservation instinct in her seemed to click on whenever she showed too much feeling. Noelle had wondered what caused Miriam’s internal light to go on and off, and now she was watching Miriam turn down her own dimmer switch. Had her dad ingrained that in her, that unwillingness to show deep interest in anything? Is that why Miriam had called him a monster?