things Yale couldn’t understand, but no one seemed to be under arrest yet. No one was getting headlocked.
But before they reached the AMA, Yale felt his stomach liquefy. He told Fiona he needed a bathroom, and she told him he looked pale.
They ducked into a hotel, where thankfully no one stopped them, and Yale made it to a fancy single-occupancy restroom down a hall behind the concierge desk, Fiona standing guard outside the door. He called to her that she could leave, and she told him that was silly. She ran out to find a Walgreens and came back with Imodium and Gatorade, although he was feeling better even before she returned. He took his time, sat there fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, worried there would be a crowd of bemused spectators when he emerged. He came out to see just Fiona sitting cross-legged against the wall, and he shut the door quickly behind him. “This’ll be my defense if they arrest me,” he said. “I can just shit my pants. I’ll be like a skunk, or an octopus.”
Fiona said, “Remember Nico’s comic about Hot Todd getting the runs on a date?” Yale did. The strip ended with Todd rushing home, the dream date alone on the sidewalk, left wondering what he’d done wrong.
Fiona sat with him on a couch in the lobby. He wanted to rejoin the protest, but not yet. He could use a few minutes to make sure.
Fiona smiled like she was about to present him with a gift. She said, “You know he likes you too.”
He said, “Who?” even though he knew, or hoped he knew. He’d felt cold and drained, but now all his blood and breath rushed back into him.
“He told Nico. And Nico told me.”
“Oh. So it was ages ago.”
“Sure. But people don’t let go of that stuff. And I talked to him after you broke up with Charlie. I said he should go for it.” She kept talking too loud. She wasn’t following his cues to whisper—although the lobby was mostly empty, and the family at the desk seemed preoccupied.
“And he didn’t go for it.”
“The thing is, he’s not into monogamy, and he knew that was what you’d want.”
“Jesus. I mean, I don’t believe in it anymore. It’s the entire reason I’m sick.”
Fiona tilted her head. “That’s kind of the opposite of what happened.”
“Not really.”
He was angry and excited and confused. None of which helped his stomach. He wanted more than ever to head back out there, and he knew less than ever how he would hold it together.
When he was finally ready, when they slowly stood, he was overwhelmed with what he thought at first was déjà vu—but no, it was a real memory: leaving the bathroom at Richard’s, walking downstairs to find no one there. What if it happened again? What if they walked back out to a normal day in a normal city, the protestors having marched into the void?
Fiona said, “Let’s go straight to the County Building and wait for everyone by the Snoopy.”
“By the what?”
“The Snoopy in a blender. That statue.”
It took him a second. “Oh my God, Fiona, that’s a Jean Dubuffet.” Abstract and white, with black lines. A sculpture that invited climbing.
“I am not the only one who calls it that, and we can’t all be art experts.”
He liked the idea of crawling inside it, watching the protests, watching Asher from inside a sculptural shell.
* * *
—
They did beat everyone there, aside from some organizers milling around with clipboards, megaphones by their sides. They learned from one that there had been arrests at the AMA, some guys who’d blocked the building’s entrance. “They’ve got Mounties out now,” he said.
They sat down, leaned against the Dubuffet.
Yale said, “It’s called Monument with Standing Beast. Just for future reference.”
“Nope, no way. Never. Hey, you’ll be my date to Nora’s opening, right?”
“Maybe you’ll bring your sociology professor!”
“Yale, my parents will be there.”
“Good point,” he said. “Definitely better to show up with a diseased gay man. I know that’s your dad’s favorite.”
In February—nearly ten months away—Nora’s collection was finally, finally going up at the Brigg. After infinite delays, endless nonsense. Bill had messed things up badly, promising the Foujitas on loan to the Ohara Museum in Japan before the Brigg even had a chance to display them itself. Yale was still on the mailing list for the gallery, and he’d been alarmed to notice that in the write-up of the show, every artist but Ranko Novak had been listed. Even Sergey