Page 27 of Gave Proof Through the Night

“She texted again?” Zoe asks. “What did she say?”

“She’s working a room full of politicians. She’ll tell us more when she’s ready.”

Zoe chews on this for half a block, then says, “What’s Ivy’s angle?”

“She doesn’t have one.”

Zoe snorts. “Everybody has an angle.”

“I think she’s just ready to knock some guys down a peg or two.”

“Huh.” She walks. Thinks. “I got more of a most-popular-cheerleader-in-school vibe from her.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she was.”

What I do know about Ivy is that she walks into rooms full of very important people and leaves with things they didn’t realize they’d handed over. Favors, introductions, information. She collects these things like a kid collects Pokemon cards and does nothing until the moment that information comes in handy. That’s someone you want on your team.

“Do you think she’s got a lot of dirt on people?” Zoe wonders.

“Most definitely.”

A small dog in yellow rain boots and a matching slicker is being walked past us by a woman in a jogging suit. It’s not raining.

“I mean like, embarrassing things.” She goes on. “Like what if the most powerful men in DC play D&D in someone’s basement every Thursday? What if…”

Zoe stops, just now registering the dog. “Why is that dog in a raincoat and booties?” She watches it go. Turns back. “A whole secret D&D campaign. Imagine judges and congressmen in capes rolling dice and deciding whether their elf character trusts the wizard.”

“I’m pretty sure Ivy has worse dirt on these guys than that.”

She skips forward to pull a tag off a flier advertising guitar lessons, then shoves it in her tote bag. “I just hope she’s not some kind of DC sleeper agent and we all end up in federal prison.” A beat. “Do you think federal prison has good food?”

I catch up to her and give her the side-eye.

“I’m just saying.” She puts her hands in her pockets. “She’s in. I’m on board.”

I glance at the building numbers. “We’re almost there.”

Ginger’s gallery sits on a cross street off Fifth, three blocks from the Met. The building is narrow limestone with floor-to-ceiling windows and a single brass handle on a door with no buzzer, no posted hours. It’s very chic.

Zoe stops and looks up at the façade. She tips her head back and lets out a low whistle.

“After you,” I say, and pull the door open.

Ginger comes from the back when the door chimes and sighs heavily when she sees us.

“What do you two want?”

Classic Ginger. Straight to the point and unapologetic about it. We go way back, so I don’t take her greeting as an affront.

“Twenty minutes,” I say.

“It always starts with twenty minutes.” She waves a hand. “Come sit. I’ll put the kettle on.”

The gallery is totally and completely Ginger. That’s the only way I know how to put it. Clean white walls meet gold accents, natural light pouring through the high windows. Her back office is open and very beige, like a Pottery Barn showroom. She’s built something real here.

We sit in a comfortable corner of her office and give her the run-down. She listens without interrupting. Sets tea down in front of both of us. When I finish, she steeples her hands and looks at the table for a moment.

“I have a Peruvian textile artist coming in,” she says. “Her first New York show. I’ve been building toward it for six months. I have fourteen things happening at once right now. A sculptor in Red Hook who won’t return my calls, a painter from Berlin who returned all of them and sends voice memos at two in the morning, and a twenty-three-year-old from Bushwick who thinks he’s the next Andy Warhol.”