that love supposed to go? He was gone, so it couldn’t change, it couldn’t turn to indifference. I was stuck with all that love.”
“This is what you’re doing with it,” Yale said. “The collection, the show.”
Fiona, he realized, was quietly crying. He reached over and scratched her back.
Before Roman returned, Yale told them both the story of how Nico, waiting tables at La Gondola, once chased after two customers into the rain when they hadn’t paid—pinning a man twice his size against a lamppost until the cook came to provide backup. Yale and Charlie had watched from inside the window. “He was like a kid,” Yale said. “The way he ran and the way he tackled him. Like his limbs were wound up with springs.” Fiona had heard the story before, but she laughed as if she hadn’t.
Yale said, “This might have to be our last trip for a while. But you can call me with anything you think of.” He wrote his new number. “And—I want you to know that as the gallery grows over the next year, there could be changes in my role.”
Nora opened her mouth, and he was worried she’d ask what he meant. But she put her hand, cold and weightless, on his. “This was meant to be,” she said. “Do you believe in reincarnation?”
Yale looked at Fiona for help, but she was only waiting for his answer, bemused. “I’d like to, I guess.”
“Well.” She patted his hand. “If we get to do it, let’s all come back at the same time. You two, me, Nico, Ranko, Modi, everyone fun. It’ll be a party, and we won’t let any stupid wars break it up.”
* * *
—
At the B&B, Yale and Fiona watched the evening news out in the TV nook. Roman disappeared into his room.
Yale said, “What have you heard about Charlie?” He wasn’t sure it was healthy to ask. He wanted to know what Teresa was going through, and how the paper was doing, and if Charlie missed him. He wanted to know if Charlie was still skulking around the city. He wanted a full-color diagram of Charlie’s heart and all its failures.
“I don’t know much. Asher’s organizing that thing against Cardinal Bernardin, and I know Charlie’s involved. I haven’t seen him, except—well, so Teddy had a birthday party.”
“Ouch.”
“No, I mean—”
Yale laughed at himself, but it really did hurt. A third-grade hurt, a primal hurt. “Who was there?”
“It was small. You didn’t miss anything. Everyone just talked about Julian the whole time. Asher was there, and Katsu, and Rafael and his new boyfriend, and Richard. And Teddy’s Loyola people, who were honestly dull as hell. And then Charlie brought that big guy he used to date, the one with the beard. Martin.”
“Martin!” This particular fact entered Yale’s mind more as lurid gossip than as a personal affront. He wondered if it was a new development, or if Charlie had kept things going with Martin the whole time.
“Everyone missed you. I mean, I missed you, and your absence was palpable.”
“I guess that should make me happy.”
“Wait, what are we doing for your birthday? May, right? Do you want a party? Or we’ll do a dinner! We’ll go to Yoshi’s!”
Yale found he was incapable of imagining what his life would look like in three months. He smiled and said, “That sounds perfect.”
* * *
—
On the way back to his room, Yale stopped and knocked at Roman’s door.
Roman’s shirt was untucked, his hair a mess.
Yale said, “We should get going early. Is seven okay?”
“Sure. Listen, this trip finishes off my internship hours, right?”
“Oh. Yeah. I think you have more than enough.”
“So I’m sort of done at the gallery. I mean, if it’s okay, I’m not coming in anymore.”
“I’ll barely be going in myself.”
Roman took his glasses off and rubbed the dents on the bridge of his nose. He said, “You’re not my supervisor anymore.”
There was no one else in the hall, but Yale felt he should whisper. “Right.”
“So maybe you could come in.” Roman stepped back, made space for Yale.
The room was dark, and Roman smelled like honey and cigarettes, and Yale walked through the door like he was diving into a sunken ship.
2015
At noon the next day, an email on Serge’s laptop. Fiona didn’t remember writing her address down for Fernand the art critic, but either she’d done that (dizzy with wine and blood loss) or Fernand had asked Richard for it.
“This is what my speedy friend was able to find,” he wrote, “but with