Terrence was always talking about. “There’s the combo of the two drugs from Mexico, right? I know a guy who brings it up. And Julian doesn’t want it.”
Yale said, “I thought he believed they were about to find a cure,” and Asher said, “Belief is a fragile thing.”
Asher kept leaning his chair back on two legs, and Yale worried it would tip.
Yale said to Teddy, “You look good. Your face. You can’t even tell.”
Teddy raised his left fingers to the bridge of his nose.
“I want him to sue the school,” Asher said. “He won’t listen.”
“Well it doesn’t even make sense! Everyone wants me to be madder than I am. Charlie wants me to write a thing, a personal account. I just—it doesn’t feel like that big a deal.”
Asher said, “Teddy, you were attacked. It’s nothing compared to people dying, but it’s something. And it’s related. It’s not like it isn’t related.”
Teddy laughed and said, “Remember Charlie yelling at Nico? Outside Paradise?”
It was before Nico was sick. Nico had said, “I think we’ll have to worry less about getting beaten up, you know? People are afraid of blood. I mean, they might throw something, but no one’s going to punch you in the mouth coming out of a bar now, right?” And Charlie had said, “Are you fucking kidding me? Attacks are up threefold. You should try reading the paper you draw for. Threefold, Nico.” They’d all imitated him the rest of the night. Threefold! I shall now consume threefold beers, forsooth!
There was a knock, then, on Yale’s open door, and he jumped. It was Cecily; he’d left the gallery unlocked when he let his friends in.
He hoped she’d take Teddy and Asher for donors or at least artists, but she might well have recognized them from the fundraiser, and Teddy, at least, in his duct-taped Docs and his stained white T-shirt, cigarette at his mouth, looked like he’d just blown in from the after-party of a Depeche Mode concert. She clearly thought nothing of interrupting them, because she walked right in and said, “I hope you had a lovely holiday.”
“Several of them, in fact. And you?”
“I want to check that we’re still in a good place.”
Asher raised his eyebrows and pointed at the door. Yale shook his head.
He said, carefully, “I mean, you tell me. Has Chuck Donovan complained anymore?”
“Nothing recently.”
Yale said, because it was technically true, “Nothing from Wisconsin lately either.” He could keep his voice steady when telling a technical lie in a way he couldn’t with an outright one. It was one of the things that had always made Charlie’s paranoia so bizarre; Yale was a horrible liar.
“Well, good,” she said. “Great.”
* * *
—
Asher needed the bathroom before he left. He was going to give Teddy a ride back south in his Chevette, a car so loud you had to shout your conversations. Yale and Teddy waited for him in the hall.
Teddy said, “Did you hear they’re discharging Terrence?”
Yale hadn’t heard. “Is that even a good idea?” he asked, and Teddy shrugged. He said, “Look, Teddy, aren’t you gonna get tested now? I mean, I know how you feel about the test, but if there are things that can help—don’t you want to do those? Some clinical trial? Wouldn’t you take the Mexican pills?”
Teddy said, quietly, “I did get tested. We went together. That was the deal—for his birthday, he wanted both of us to get tested. It was my present to him, that I agreed. I’m negative. I mean, I told you. I always told you.”
Yale said, “Jesus Christ, Teddy. I’m happy for you, but Jesus Christ.”
* * *
—
The next day, Bill finally returned, suspiciously tan, and there was at least more noise around the office. That following afternoon, Roman the intern started. He sat in the Northwestern crest chair across from Yale and held his black backpack in his lap. He twitched his foot.
Yale said, “I know you probably thought you’d be doing more curatorial work. I hope this isn’t a disappointment.”
“No, I mean—I’m up for anything. I don’t have experience talking to people about money, but I guess that’s good to learn, right?”
There was no way Roman would be talking to donors—he’d be listening in, at most—but Yale didn’t point this out. If nothing else, he’d join them in Wisconsin next week.
Yale said, “Listen, I’m an art lover myself. I wasn’t a money guy who fell into museums. I’m an art guy who’s good with numbers.”