a channel-change interstitial instant. It passes before Bronca can really register it, and then White visibly sighs and turns to walk out of sight—but a few startling observations lodge in Bronca’s mind at once. First, that White sort of shakes herself a little with that sigh, which is just an odd movement for her to make. Like she’s shaking off the unpleasantness of Bronca’s presence, or something. Second, wasn’t White’s hair white or platinum blond, a moment ago? Now it’s honey blond. And her heels aren’t white, but a pleasantly summery yellow.
And lastly, in that half an instant, Bronca noticed White’s shadow. Moving, before she started moving. Contracting, for one fleeting glimpse—as if it were much, much bigger a moment before.
Then White is gone.
Bronca lifts her hand to examine it, in the wake of that strange jabbing prickle. It’s fine. Didn’t even hurt much, really. But there are tiny indentations all over the palm, like if she grabbed a hairbrush bristles-first.
Bronca casts about in the lexicon of knowledge that she possesses, but finds nothing that can explain the encounter. The Enemy has been a thing of immensity and animalistic savagery for tens of thousands of years. It has never been a small rich passive-aggressive white woman. Which means that Bronca’s just seeing danger under every extremely large check.
Still.
Yijing wanders in, texting something on her phone with one hand and waving absently to Bronca with the other, either not seeing or ignoring Bronca’s tension. Bronca heads to the reception desk. Veneza is part-time and doesn’t come in ’til later, so Bronca’s the front line ’til then. She sits there for a minute, processing that whole interaction—and coming to the rapidly growing conclusion that lexicon or no, something was very, very wrong about Dr. White.
Then the phone rings. It’s Raul. “I know what you’re thinking,” is his lead.
Bronca’s thinking of closing her office door and trying to squeeze in a nap once Veneza comes in. “Well, hello to you, too, Mr. Development Chair. Is that an official ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ or an off-the-record one?”
“It’s a warning,” Raul says, which yanks Bronca wholly back to business. “The board members have been discussing White’s donation all night, by phone and email and even text. When money’s involved, some of these people don’t fucking sleep.”
Yeah, that about fits Bronca’s observations of the Bronx Art Center board of directors. A few are prominent artists, but those aren’t the important ones. The ones who really control everything are CEOs, scions of old-money families, consultants for think tanks, and retired versions of Bronca who were clearly better at their jobs than she is, because they ran nonprofits and somehow came away millionaires. “Okay, and the consensus was—wait, let me guess. Take the money.”
“Unrestricted funds, Bronca.”
“Not unrestricted. She wants our principles in exchange!”
He lets out a slow, careful sigh. Bronca respects Raul, his loose regard for power dynamics in workplace sexual relationships aside. He’s one of the artists on the board, and unusual in that he’s got equal talent at sculpture and at wrangling prickly business-types who have no idea how art works. Where he falls down is wrangling prickly artist types like Bronca.
“That’s very melodramatic,” he says. “And not at all true. The Better New York Foundation—”
“Jesus, really?”
“Yes. Very well resourced, very private, and very dedicated to raising the city from its gritty image to the heights of prosperity and progress.”
Bronca actually pulls the receiver from her ear to glare at it for a moment. “I have never smelled a bigger pile of horseshit. That’s—” She shakes her head. “It’s gentrifier logic. Settler logic. They want the city without the ‘gritty’ people who made it what it is! Raul, what she wants—”
“Isn’t too much to ask. That’s what the board concluded.”
There is a finality to his voice. Bronca’s heart clenches as she understands. This is all going so fast. “Are you saying this is do-or-die, then? Take the money, or…?”
“What do you think, Bronca?”
Her first instinct is to start yelling. She knows that’s the wrong response, the response that isn’t going to help, but she wants to do it anyway. Her grandfather always did complain that she was too prone to bluster and bludgeoning. Her people have survived by hiding in plain sight for generations, passing as Black or Hispanic or whatever worked, but all that time pretending has left its mark. She tries to always remember that the way of the Lenape is cooperation, but it’s a struggle sometimes.
“Listen to me. If we remove Unknown’s