Page 28 of Gave Proof Through the Night

“See? You need a break,” I say. “We’ll be done before the end of July and then you can come back and deal with your temperamental artists.”

“There are relationships in this room I’ve spent years on,” she says. “Every time I step outside this gallery for a job there’s risk to all of that.” She looks at me. “I can’t.”

“What would it take?” I say.

“Erica,” she says pragmatically. “I love you. I’d vouch for you anywhere. But I can’t get involved right now.”

The room is quiet. I look at Zoe. Zoe looks at me.

“I understand,” I say, and I mean it. It came from a real place and it’s a real no and I’m not going to make her feel bad about a real no. “Good luck with the show. The textile artist. What’s her name?”

Ginger blinks, caught off guard. “Carmen Villanueva.”

“After the Sao Paulo collection. She’s going to be huge.”

“She is,” Ginger says. And something drops, just slightly, in her expression. “She’s extraordinary.”

“Then I hope the show is everything,” I say.

We stand. Zoe says her goodbyes too, genuinely, because Zoe genuinely likes Ginger. Everybody does. Ginger hugs us both and tells us to be careful, and we mean it when we say we will, and then we’re heading for the door.

I reach into my bag, pulling out a coffee receipt from this morning. I write a number with a lot of zeros on it and set it on the counter without breaking stride. Then I count in my head.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four…

“Wait.”

I stop, letting the tiniest smirk crack on the corner of my lips. Then I put it away and turn around.

Ginger stands by the counter, holding the receipt aloft between two fingers. She raises one brow and cocks her head and says, “You could have led with this.”

Zoe sleeps on the plane back to DC, then sleeps in the Uber, then nearly sleeps standing up on the sidewalk while I find my keys. We walk the last half block. Zoe’s hanging on my arm, dead weight, one stumble from faceplanting.

Then a cluster of men spill out of a restaurant ahead of us, loud and loose, and Zoe lifts her head from my shoulder like an animal that’s caught a scent.

She blinks. Sees them.

“Ooooooh,” she says, with genuine scientific interest. “Man candy.”

I keep walking.

“No, wait!” She grabs my arm. “Look at them. Just. Look.” Her tongue is practically hanging down to her knees. “That one in the gray hoodie. He can check me into the boards. That’s my Roman Empire right there.”

“Zoe.”

“And the jaw on that one. He doesn’t even know he’s doing it. Just existing there being built like that, completely unprovoked.”

“We need to go. My bed is calling.”

“I feel like I’m reading a hockey romance but it’s real life and I’m right here and I didn’t even have to open an app.”

“I have never, not once, seen you read a book.”