“Absolutely not,” she said, her hand reaching toward my chest, halting me. “You’re not going in there.”

Yanmei’s eyes widened and she looked back and forth between Rae and me. Jessie stepped to the side so he could see what was happening.

“Nice to see you too,” I mumbled sarcastically.

“I’m not kidding, Joe. What do you think you’re doing?”

“Waiting my turn like everybody else.”

“You know, I honestly didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to show up here, but since you are, consider yourself banned. No need to make a scene. Just turn around and go back to wherever you came from, yeah?”

Yanmei looked worried. Jessie seemed to have a newfound respect for me. “Dude you’re banned? I talked about my cock and didn’t get banned; what the hell did you do?”

“You can’t keep me from going in, Rae.”

“I can and I will.” She pulled a device from her pocket. It looked like an old flip phone but wasn’t. A museum walkie-talkie, maybe? “I’ll call Security and tell them you’re a threat to the artist, which you are.”

“Please don’t do that.”

I did not want this altercation to happen in public, but I couldn’t step out of the line. I’d been standing for almost four hours already, and if I left I’d lose my place and have to start all over the next day.

“Please,” I said again. “I need to see her.”

Rae laughed with condescension. “Oh, you need to see her? Is that so? That’s nice for you, yeah? And are you really insensitive enough to think that she needs to see you?”

It was a fair and cutting question, one I hadn’t contemplated, and I lost my breath thinking about it.

Jessie said, “Dude are you a Danko stalker or something?”

Rae took her eyes off of me to address Jessie. “Sir, I need you to step back and mind your own business or I’ll have you escorted out too.”

Jessie raised his hands and backed away. “Whoa OK just chill lady.”

“Rae . . .” I sighed.

“No, Joe. Don’t ‘Rae’ me. You weren’t there. You’d conveniently disappeared, yeah? I was there. I saw what she went through. She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t sleep. All she did was draw weird pictures of forest fires and listen to The fucking National. For a while I wasn’t even sure she was going to finish the selfies project. Meanwhile, you were off doing what? Gawking at trees in Wyoming.”

“Montana.”

“Excuse me?”

“I was in Montana, not Wyoming.”

“Whatever. You were gone. Didn’t give a fuck. So I don’t care if you need to see her, she does not need to see you. Got it?”

I tried to tell myself her words were not chipping away at my resolve, but when I said, “I give a fuck, Rae,” my voice sounded feeble.

I thought about screaming October’s name and wondered if she would hear me, if she would recognize my voice, if she would care.