I love her for treating him like a person who can be contained in a sentence. She knows he can’t, but she also knows I need to pretend sometimes.
The phone buzzes again with another thread.Jonah:Something came up. Can’t meet today.
No emoji. No punctuation. No joke about pickles or spray paint or the way he thinks coffee tastes like punishment. He follows it thirty seconds later.Jonah:May be out of town for a bit.
There’s a hole in the middle of those two texts big enough to drive a truck through. Jonah does last-minute. He doesn’t do vague. He also doesn’t go out of town without milking it for three ridiculous stories that he swears are true. It’s not nothing. It’s just opaque enough to feel like someone else wrote the shape of his morning and handed it to him.
Me:You okay?
The dots appear and then disappear and then nothing. I set the phone down next to the coffee ring and tell myself not to throw it. Tossing it won’t make it answer. It’ll just add a crack to a thing that didn’t ask to be part of my life.
I peel the dress off like it did something wrong and hang it over the back of a chair. My hairpin clatters on the table. The shower groans and spits and eventually acts like water. I stand under it until my skin stops registering last night and starts registering the day. I put on a hoodie that has never been washedproperly because I like the ghosts of paint in the fibers and a pair of jeans that fit.
The knock comes when I’ve barely pulled the hoodie over my head. Three quick. Then one more. Not Lila’s code or Jonah’s rhythm. I cross the room, look through the peephole, and see a man in a brown jacket with a messenger bag and a clipboard. He looks like every courier in the city and exactly like someone who belongs in hallways. I open the door with the chain still on.
“Yes?”
“Delivery for Aurora Hale,” he says. The envelope in his hand is cream with a seal I could draw from memory after one look.WARD FOUNDATIONin tasteful black, and heavy paper that dares you to crease it.
“I didn’t order anything,” I say.
“Courier only,” he says. He slides the receipt on the clipboard through the gap like a trick he’s practiced. “Signature?”
My name looks ridiculous on a line next toReceived By. I write it anyway and try not to scratch too hard. He hands me the envelope. It’s heavier than it should be. He says, “have a good one” and he’s already halfway down the stairs before I can ask anything useful.
The chain comes off. The lock slides. The door clicks shut and the loft holds its breath with me. I take the envelope to the table and set it next to the coffee ring. The seal is raised and feels like a small bone under my thumb. I break it cleanly because this isn’t a keepsake; it’s a thing I have to interrogate.
Inside is a letter printed on the kind of paper that makes pens behave, and behind it, a contract thick enough to stop a small knife. The letter uses my full name and the right punctuation.Dear Ms. Hale,thank you for your contributions to the city’s cultural life, et cetera.We are pleased to extend an invitation to join the Ward Foundation’s ArtistResidency Program.Et cetera.A private studio space— on their floor, I bet —a stipendthat makes my eyes widen in spite of myself;logistical supportthat reads like a gift if you don’t think about it; anda posture of mutual respectthat makes me want to ball the letter up because no one who writes that phrase means it without a footnote.
The contract is where the meat lives. I read because I have to. I don’t skim. I hit every clause and then double back like I’m checking locks.Non-Disclosure Agreement—standard terms, except for the part where “subject matter related to ongoing or past Ward Foundation programs” gets its own bullet.Travel Notice—not approval, they say, just “reasonable advance notice.”Safety Review—language about “coordinating to safeguard vulnerable populations” which is a sentence you can put your ethics onto and your control inside if you’re clever. I lean closer.Public Exhibitions—I have to give them notice and “reasonable opportunity” to “coordinate with partner organizations” and “mitigate foreseeable risks.” There’s a paragraph with nice words around it that works like a hand on a door. It doesn’t lock it; it gets there first.
I breathe out. Honey over hook. Money over a line. I know this tactic because I grew up on the receiving end of its cousin.Here’s a thing you need. Here’s what it costs that we won’t say out loud.
Without meaning to, my eyes go to the corner of the room where the new canvases lean, half-wrapped. The little one with the red spiral sits angled where the light catches it mean. In the morning it looks less like a mark and more like a wound. That makes me want to own it. It also makes me want to throw a cloth over it and tell it to be quiet.
The phone vibrates again.Lila:CALL ME, I have gossip and carbs lined up like bowling pins.
I pick up and hit call because I don’t want to turn this letter over on my own. She answers on the first ring like she was holding the phone in front of her face.
“Tell me you’re horizontal,” she says.
“I’m dressed,” I say. “But if it makes you happy I’ll lie down.”
“I don’t want you horizontal,” she says. “I want you fed. And then I want you to tell me every word from your little upstairs moment.”
“Not little,” I say before I can stop myself.
“Ah,” she says, satisfaction bloomed. “So he’s tall in person too.”
I look at the contract and find myself laughing because my body needs it. “He’s tall in person and in personality,” I say. “I don’t want to replay it on the phone. Not yet. I’m dealing with a courier.”
“Who sent flowers? Do I need to kill him?” I don’t bother trying to dissect the excitement in her voice.
“Contract,” I say.
That gets her attention. Paper makes her more alert than compliments. “From?”
“Foundation,” I say. “Residency. Money. Space. Words.”
