I didn’t say anything in response to that, and she mistook my silence for something it wasn’t.

“Told you it was going to sound pretentious.”

“No,” I said, too seriously. “I like the idea that a person can go about their daily life and be an artist simply by being. But that seems like the most difficult kind of artist to be. What do you think the key is? To making that work, I mean?”

She shrugged, a lopsided, contemplative look on her face. “I think that’s a question I’ll be trying to answer for the rest of my life. I certainly haven’t figured it out yet. But my hunch is that just being here is a good start.” She locked her eyes on mine, and again it felt too intimate. “Being present, I mean. Like we are now. I’m looking at you, you’re looking at me. I’m listening to you, you’re listening to me. We’re engaged. Connected.”

“This is art?” I asked.

She nodded, and her face shone. “This is art.”

As we turned and headed back to her house, completely out of the blue she said, “Have you ever done mushrooms? You know, the magic kind?”

I laughed. “Why? Are you planning on drug-testing me?”

She laughed too. “Inquiring for research purposes.”

“Yeah. Sure. A couple times in college.”

She looked at me again. Diego looked at me too, with so much interest and clarity I contemplated the possibility that he was a person in a dog suit.

“What’s it like?”

I wasn’t sure I could describe doing mushrooms in a way that an artist would appreciate, but I said, “It’s fun if you’re in the right mood, I guess. However, things can get weird pretty quickly if you’re not.”

“I read an article this morning about psychedelic drugs and their effect on drawing. I want to do an experiment where I pick a subject and draw it naturally, and then draw the exact same thing after eating mushrooms, to see how differently they turn out.”

There was a mischievous grin on her face that made me wonder how old she was. She could’ve been twenty-three or forty-five. It was impossible to tell.

“Don’t worry, I’m not into drugs or anything,” she assured me. “It’s just that lately I’ve been feeling like I’m holding myself back. I’m stuck. I need to get out of my comfort zone, in the hopes that it will open me up and make me a better artist.”

I nodded, wishing I could be more like her. Hoping I could become more like her through the osmosis of being around her. “How old are you?” I said, “if you don’t mind me asking.”

“Thirty-four.”

She was only two years older than I, but she seemed so much farther ahead. “One of my old coworkers sells mushrooms,” I told her. “He and I meet up for beers every so often. I could ask him for some next time I see him. If you want.”

A little bashfully, she said, “If it’s not too much trouble.”