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“I’m fine,” I say it too loud because Callie is laughing in my ear.

George doesn’t laugh. George looks at me the way my grandfather used to look at my mother the next morning when she came home after sneaking out late the night before. Quiet and patient and just waiting for her to break.

He pats my bicep once and then says, mild as Sunday, “Callie, stop whispering to her.”

She only laughs harder.

“Long night ahead, Ms. Hadley,” George says it to the closed door, not to me. “Pace yourself.”

What does that even mean?

“Let’s get these shut. It looks like rain.” I step out for the briefest of moments, letting the humid city air roll over my sweaty skin. A fine mist coats my flesh as I grip the heavy door.

Outside it smells like wet asphalt and the river two blocks over and somebody’s cigarette and somebody else’s perfume and the hot-bread bakery that runs ovens overnight.

None of it is curated. None of it is on the list.

The satin drinks the mist in, darker where it lands, the black going to true black across the bodice. My dress is taking onwater. I can’t tell if I am sweating into it or if it is sweating onto me. I breathe in deeply, before I remember I have a job to do.

“Wait.” I hear a voice.

The doors are heavy and half-closed, and the rain is starting and the bakery exhaust is roaring two blocks over and the voice came from somewhere on the other side of the lot I can’t see from where I am standing.

I hear him anyway.

Then my ears ring the way they ring after a concert. Except the last concert I went to was with my mom to see Collective Soul at Penn’s Landing.

The door swings under my palms and I am already stepping into George’s space to move him back. That’s when my brain finally arrives at the situation, panting, late, useless.

Son of a bitch. It’s him!

“What is it?” George steps back obligingly, looking at the man running toward the front door, no sprinting. How? He was two floors down and bound and outside three minutes ago. My mind slowly catches up to my hands, and my hands catch up to…

“Wait! You don’t understand I have to ta?—”

The lock clicks shut, stealing his words.

My hands stop shaking, just barely. My breath, however, is still panting.

And my chest aches, not with relief from shutting him out but irritation I shut him out. As though I’d just locked a door on something important and couldn’t explain why.

“There ya go, Ms. Hadley.” George stretches his back a little. His spine makes a series of pops that he sighs in relief at, before he does a gentle shake. “I’m going back in to keep an eye on all those rich people.” He begins his slow, and I do mean slow, walk back to the event room.

My hand stays on the deadbolt for one more second. Two. The dress is too warm at my back, too cool at my front. It doesn’t know what it is anymore. Neither do I.

Going back inside feels like stepping into a closed jar.

Which means I can’t avoid it anymore. I have to go back in there. Mingle. Smile. Function like any other thirty-two-year-old woman. Pretend I know what I’m doing, what I’m talking about. And not feeling like I need to chase a stranger down and have my filthy way with him. How utterly disappointing.

The museum remains quiet behind me.

Most of the guests are already in the main hall doing what guests do, drinking my champagne, eating my hors d’oeuvres, talking about Angela. As they should. They will be talking about Angela for the rest of the night.

Angela who built the foundation we are celebrating tonight from the ground up.

Angela who is fucking dead.

Angela who I cannot be evaluated against without losing because the dead are unbeatable.