I smiled as I looked at it. It had all been a fight—even getting this poster hung up in the hallway had been what my dad would call a knock-down, drag-out—but Kat had done it, in the end. And I was so proud of her for pulling it off.

The festival wasn’t until next month, but getting it off the ground had been the biggest challenge of all. Mr. Campbell had not taken kindly to the idea of someone coming in and putting on a show that he wasn’t in charge of and hadn’t sanctioned—especially not when it was being spearheaded by Kat, who he’d been pointedly ignoring ever since she turned down assistant directing. It was essentially the cut direct, something I’d read about in old novels but had never seen someone employ in real life, or modern day. But through lots of fights, she’d prevailed. I was acting in three of the plays, and was directing one. I knew it was going to be a huge success.

And even though it was still very hard for me to do, I was trying not to think too far ahead. Right now, the furthest out I wanted to plan was this summer—and someone had to plan it, since everyone had very different ideas, and none of them were compatible. My mom wanted me to come with her on a gallery tour of the Catskills—she’d been acquiring a lot recently. I was pretty sure it had something to do with finally getting New York Night number three, now hung in the spot that had been reserved for it all those years, completing the series. After she’d gotten it, she’d starting acquiring for the Pearce in a different way. It was like she was less locked into what my grandmother would have chosen. She was even thinking about getting a separate space, or a different wing, for emerging artists. She was still figuring it out, but it had been a revelation to me that no matter how old you get, it’s hard to shake your parents’ expectations.

Matty was making big plans for what he was calling the Sinclair/Lampitoc Sibling Summer (Winter) Friendship Fun Tour. He was determined that we should all go to Australia and New Zealand—possibly Fiji, too—and the rest of us had a suspicion it was just because he liked how absurd it sounded.