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From Leo David’s sent-emails folder:

Hey Rashid, How’ve you been? I feel like it’s been ages since we were developing games side by side at Rutgers, it’s awesome that you’ve been at Storm for so long now. Question—I was looking at their open positions and thinking about applying, because things have been so crazy at Tiny Elephant, but was wondering what your work-life balance is like? I hear that there isn’t much of one anywhere in the industry, but maybe there’s some magical Eden I haven’t found yet…

Hi Frank, My plumber, Benito, passed along your name. He and I have been working together to remodel the bathrooms in my dad’s house that I’m planning to put up for sale soon, and he told me that you’re not just great at refinishing floors and tiling, but that you’d be willing to let me work with you so that I could learn…

Texts between Shira Levinson and Leo David, March:

Shira: Thinking of you today. How are you doing?

Leo: Why are you thinking of me today?

Shira: It’s…your dad’s birthday, right? I put it in my calendar after the funeral.

Leo: Oh, shit

Leo: Yes, it’s my dad’s birthday

Leo: I can’t believe I forgot. He’s going to be so mad I didn’t get him a present

Shira:…

Leo: Kidding. Obviously

Leo: I’m allowed to joke about that kind of stuff

Shira: That’s a very Jewish mentality, you know

Leo: Is it?

Shira: Yeah. Black humor. We’re hated so much everywhere all the time that you just have to laugh about it, you know?

Leo: Huh

Leo: I’m surprised by how much I like hearing that

Leo: I bet my dad would like hearing that too

Leo: You know, if he wasn’t dead

Shira: I’m not sure if I’m allowed to laugh or not

Leo: I give you special permission to laugh at dead parent jokes

Shira: Wow, something I’ve always wanted. Thank you, Leo David

Leo: You’re welcome, Shira Levinson

18

Year Six

Though the email had been sitting in her inbox for several weeks at this point, Shira still felt a warm stirring of pride every time her eyes caught the subject line. Congratulations! You’ve been selected… The rest was cut off by her phone’s small screen, but she could recite it in her brain like the Sh’ma. Congratulations! You’ve been selected for admission to the Residency at the Grossman Center for Jewish Art.

It wasn’t one of the big residencies that people knew by name: MacDowell or Yaddo, single words that produced dropped jaws and intense surges of jealousy. When she told people about the Grossman Center, they’d probably say, “What?” It wouldn’t receive a glowing write-up in The New York Times like Danica’s exhibition in the Venice Biennale, written by one of their childhood artist idols. Shira hadn’t gone seeking it out, but she hadn’t been able to resist reading it after Ellery had reposted it with gushing words of praise.

But it was hers. She’d earned it. The Grossman Center was an offshoot of a synagogue in LA, and they would pay her to come paint in their hall and show her work and teach some classes at the synagogue. The judges had looked through her work in relation to other people’s and decided that hers deserved a reward. That the people at their synagogue wanted to learn from her. And that was enough to keep her ember of a new show idea alive and glowing, hopefully ready to catch fire.

She’d considered not telling her coworkers at the marketing firm, almost as a test—could she be happy about something even if it didn’t impress other people? But she’d decided to do it. This residency wasn’t about impressing people. It was about furthering her work, and it was okay if it impressed people along the way. She could still care about what people thought, as long as it wasn’t the only thing she cared about.