Page 69 of 32 Days in May

“What? Why would I ever be mad? This is. . . . this is amazing.”

“But I didn’t tell you about any of this—about this part of things.”

I pull away from him and take his face in my hands. I’m not crying, but I should be. “Baby, you don’t owe me anything.”

He lays his hands over mine. “Did you just call me baby?”

“You deserve it,” I say. “You look stressed.”

“Yeah.” Marco throws a look over his shoulder toward the building. “A lot of people I want to work with are here tonight. From fashion brands and bigger galleries around Europe. Plus, some people I really need to make things right with. Old coworkers from different projects over the years. The whole team worked really hard to help me get my foot in the door. I haven’t been this nervous since I was a kid. I’ve never done something like this before—like, stood on my own as an artist. They’ve invested time, energy, love.”

“Your work is incredible, Marco. You’re incredible. You’ve got this.”

He takes a deep, steadying breath, squaring his shoulders. “Well, either way.” He reaches for my hand. “I’ve got you here.”

We step through the grand doors, squeezing past the guard, who greets Marco with a handshake, and into a high-ceilinged front room. Marco’s arrival—and mine, too, I guess—sends a ripple through the crowd and everyone explodes with movement. Turning heads and double kisses, one on each cheek. The space around us is choked with bodies and noise, and while everyone grabs for Marco, he holds on to my hand the entire time. Everyone’s smiling at me, and they’re warm and fragrant like the Roman night.

They’re looking at me like they know me. The walls are high and stark white around us, with gallery lighting but no art. Through another pair of double doors I spy what has to be the exhibit. I can hear the same soundtrack—the one that played over the speakers in Brooklyn—of waves crashing, gulls crying. Sounds, I realize, from Evergreen.

The crowd moves us through the room, like a multitentacled beast, depositing us into various groups of gorgeous, important people. I meet those who have job titles I dreamed of, even job titles I once had, but somehow they seem more valid. Art directing for fashion houses and beauty brands and mononymous individuals. Not for failing media conglomerates or ointment manufacturing companies.

Someone presses a flute of prosecco into my hand, and I take it, suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude. I really do need a drink. Tonight is outside of everything usual and typical. I can’t even think about medicine and dosages; none of that exists here—in a place so close to perfection. Dosages, triggers, aches and pains—those can be tomorrow’s problem.

I lean close to Marco while he chats with a very large Dutchman, trying my best to not interrupt what sounds like a bone-dry discussion of public art policy. “Would it bother you if I have some champagne tonight? Just a sip, to celebrate.”

“Whatever you want,” he assures me, pressing a hand into my lower back.

The first sip of alcohol I’ve had since our first date. It fizzes on my tongue, dry and electric. My stomach immediately comes alive with fire and my nerves mellow. For a moment, my mind flickers back to other moments I drank to soothe myself—a quick snap of terror and dread in my chest. But just as quickly as it arrives, the memory is gone.

I’m okay, I tell myself. Tonight, I’m okay.

Once again, the crowd bucks and moves us forward, like high tide at our back pushing us to shore. Finally, we arrive at the second set of doors. The exhibit.

I tighten my grip on Marco’s hand and he squeezes back.

Here, the crowd parts for us as we step into a different world. This room is cooler, less cramped. All the noise of conversation and glassware clinking and lo-fi music is gone. Like in a movie, everything dims.

My feet fail me and my hand falls from Marco’s, cool and moist. His photographs are enormous splashes of black-and-white, fantastic explosions of life stretched across canvas. There’s only one or two on each wall, except for the farthest wall at the other end of the room. There I see only one photo, lit from above.

My breath snags, and my feet carry me forward. As I cross the room, heads turn. They smile, they look twice. They see me, in double.

Because there I am.

In black-and-white, six feet off the ground. Lit from above.

The moon hangs heavy in the sky, bold beside the soon-to-fade afternoon sun that drips like milk-white honey over the surface of the ocean. Sunlight unravels like a bolt of ribbon down from the sky, over the ocean, then to the handrail slipping over the edge of the boat and, finally, over my face. Over my close-cropped hair, my full, curly lashes and closed eyelids, the angle of my nose and the pout of my sleeping mouth, over my fingernails glinting at the tips of my limp hand, tucked under my chin.

And just behind me is the arch, smooth and long, of the whale jumping.

I can almost hear this photo. The powerful, quiet sway of the ocean. The gulls overhead. Marco telling me to stay still.

For a moment, the room falls away and I’m back in Evergreen, the place that has kept me, made me feel safe, while I rested.

My eyes have fallen shut, and when I blink them open, he’s next to me.

Without pulling my eyes away, I say: “It’s me.”

“It’s you,” he says softly. “I hope you don’t mind. It’s my favorite photo from the set.” He runs his tongue over his bottom lip before adding, “I can’t tell if that’s because it’s my best photo or my best subject.”