“So who is this Sylvia?”

“Nice girl. You’ll meet her soon. She’s a frustrated writer who’s been working on a novel for the last six years. She’s a magazine editor at Umbra. She’s good people, and a really good poet. She’s published two collections.” She peered at a figure in the distance. It wasn’t who she thought it was. “Ian has a point though. She and Lewis are kinda different.”

Fire followed Claire inside and walked himself through the show, a collection of cast-iron tableware with a floral motif. What’s this about? he thought. He picked up a vase shaped like a tulip. The work was nice, very detailed, but he wasn’t sure if he would call it art. He’d never tell Ian this—not now anyway—but the place looked like a sample sale at Pottery Barn. The work was too—he searched for the word—neutral. It lacked perspective and conviction, subversion and commentary. Where was the wisdom and the humor? Ian’s work used to be ironic. Now it was simply iron.

He saw some plates embossed with sunflowers and thought of the woman in the navy blazer. She hadn’t lost her irony. Muddy Waters.

Water. He had to take a pee. His thoughts were still with her as he stood over the bowl. His cock filled his palm like a fat iguana. He should’ve asked for her name and number again. No, he shouldn’t have. She was involved … like Blanche had been, and in any event, pressing her might have turned the sweetness into vinegar. She had a vibe about her, though, that woman … and those sunflowers … it was all quite interesting … the sunflower field in the dream … the sunflowers on her blazer and again in Ian’s work. Did this mean something? Could she be the one? No, she couldn’t. She was involved, and therefore unavailable.

He tried to forget her as he went upstairs to the office, a loft above the gallery floor with ocher walls, a wooden floor, and a pressed-tin ceiling.

Lewis asked him to join the poker game. He told him he didn’t know how to play. It was one of his inconsistencies that he didn’t like to gamble though he loved to court adventure.

Claire suggested dominoes. But before she could retrieve her set the doorbell rang.

“Are you hungry?” she asked before leaving to answer it.

He said yes and she told him there was food in the kitchen and directed him to follow her.

“It’s good to see you,” she said at the foot of the stairs.

“It’s good to see you too.”

Her brows began to rise. She released her lower lip and her mouth began to open, but she changed her mind.

She went to get the door. He passed beneath the office, down a wide hallway to the kitchen, which was tiled in black and what he thought was gray until he adjusted the dimmer and a fine rain of light washed over the stainless steel fixtures and the marble-topped workstation that filled the space like a carrier in dry dock. Rummaging through the fridge, he found and placed on top of this Intrepid some grapes, a fruit tart, conch turnovers, a platter of farofa, and a bowl of feijoada.