PIECE: Puzzle box, or secret box, handcrafted from wood in Hakone-Odawara, Japan.
Annie stood in the center of her basement studio and surveyed the space. In the couple of months since she’d arrived, she’d added pieces of secondhand furniture and knickknacks from around the mansion, trying her best to make the plain, damp space comfortable. Portable heaters placed in strategic corners provided much-needed warmth, as did overlapping rugs strewn on the cement floor. A sheepskin draped over an old couch created a cozy spot to lie down. Above it hung three screen prints she’d found that Paige had tried to discard. Annie had snatched them from the curbside garbage bin before the truck picked it up. They showed the same image of a shed standing among patchwork farm fields, but in varying color schemes of green, yellow, and blue, as if showing the scene in different seasons.
Annie shivered and unlatched a trunk she’d found in an unused corner of the basement. She brushed a thick layer of dust from the cover, then lifted it open. The smell of cedar crept up from among carefully folded textiles in vivid hues of orange, red, aubergine, and moss. From the varied palette and patterns, Annie surmised that Betsy had collected these treasures from far-flung corners of the world. Annie ran a hand along the zigzag embroidery on a wool blanket. She recognized the pattern as an Incan design. On a hitchhiking trip through South America, she’d once seen weavers in Peru work a similar pattern on backstrap looms. Annie had sat alongside them, watching the quick blur of their fingers as they chattered and chewed on coca leaves. Annie had brought home a similar but smaller blanket—ever conscious of her limited space, both in her backpack and in her New York apartment.
Just thinking about the four hundred square feet she’d left behind surfaced an ache in Annie’s chest that she’d been trying, ever since she arrived in Madison, to shove down and shut up. She told herself that losing her apartment was a small price to pay in the name of art. Still, she missed the sounds of the city—the chatter floating in through her open window from the coffee shop below, the sighing sound of the bus stopping at the corner, the constant white noise of hundreds of conversations going on in a single block. She missed how the shadows from the building across the street kept out the morning sun, but flooded her small rooms with light in the afternoon, perfect for painting or drawing. She missed being able to stop in at a museum or gallery on a whim, whenever she needed rejuvenation. Losing New York, and her tiny foothold in it, felt like losing a family member. But if there was one thing Annie had learned over the years, it was that she had to keep moving.
It’s just that she’d always thought of it sort of metaphorically.
Annie never second-guessed herself. Not when she’d been sprayed with teargas while marching for civil rights in Alabama. Not when she’d been hospitalized for heatstroke in DC rallying for the Equal Rights Amendment. And she certainly hadn’t flinched when she’d gotten a letter from the co-op board expressing concern over the activities taking place in her apartment. Annie had contacted a lawyer friend at the ACLU, who advised her to obtain a copy of the board meeting minutes. The minutes reflected that Mrs. Van der Woodsen on the fourteenth floor, among others, had voiced worries about “drug addicts” being given access to the building.
For once in her life, Mrs. Van der Woodsen had been right. Annie was letting drug addicts into the building. And she was giving them drugs. But not the drugs they were addicted to.
Now, a loud knock brought Annie’s thoughts back to the present. She opened the door that led to the basement from the backyard.
“Caroline,” Annie said. “I’m glad you came back.”
The woman standing on the other side didn’t look like someone with chronic pain, and she certainly didn’t look like an addict. She looked like a suburban mom, with her yoga pants and short haircut. But Annie had learned, by photographing dozens of people, that not all physical pain was obvious from the outside, and that addictions were easy to hide when a person was determined to do so. Annie knew, though, that the mother of two had become so addicted to prescription opioids after shoulder surgery that she’d once passed out in the bathroom of a dollar store, with both kids in a shopping cart, after buying black-market pills in the parking lot. Annie also knew there were a lot more Carolines out there, and that she couldn’t help them all. But maybe if she could document a little bit about a few people’s struggles, she’d raise awareness.
“Can I get you anything to eat or drink?” Annie asked as she led Caroline inside.
Caroline shook her head. “No thanks.”
“How have you been feeling?”
“Honestly? Like shit. At this point I’m not even sure if the way I’m feeling is related to the surgery or the withdrawal from the drugs. But I haven’t had any pills in a month now, so maybe this is just my new normal. I do think the pot helps, though. It at least distracts me from the pain for a little while.” Caroline winced as she sat down on an armchair draped with a Turkish kilim tapestry. Annie noticed just how pallid and dull Caroline’s skin looked next to the bright diamond pattern on the fabric. It was as if the raspberry and azure tones of the tapestry drew their saturation directly from Caroline, stealing the flush from her cheeks and the color from her eyes.
Annie settled onto an adjustable stool behind the camera she’d set up. “Do you mind if I just start taking pictures while we talk?” she asked.
“Go right ahead.” Caroline removed the flats she was wearing and placed them on the rug.
“Just like last time, we don’t have to talk about pain, unless you want to,” Annie said. “Or about anything, really.” Click click click.
“Fine with me.” Caroline fidgeted and looked around the room.
Annie got up, opened the door of a metal filing cabinet, and produced a lacquered wood box. When Annie first discovered the box in a cabinet in the corner of the basement, along with a set of Japanese language–learning CDs, she couldn’t figure out how to open the thing. But after fiddling with it for a bit, she realized it was a puzzle, and became more determined than ever to get it open. When she finally did, she realized it would be the perfect place to store her pot. Now, she jiggled each side of the box in the specific sequence she’d memorized, until the top slid open and revealed various smoking tools and a bag filled with preseeded, high-quality cannabis.
“You’re probably looking for this,” Annie said, bringing the box to Caroline.
She sat up straighter. “Thank you.” Caroline selected a handheld vaporizer from the box, switched it on, and set it down. While she waited for it to heat up, she picked up a vase from atop an overturned crate being used as an end table. Blown-glass daffodils, tulips, and lilies in translucent shades of yellow, pink, and lavender sprang out from the mouth of the vase on delicate green stems. “This is lovely,” she said.
“A friend of mine who’s a glass sculptor gave it to me when I left New York. She does mostly large-scale pieces, to install on ceilings and walls and things, but obviously I couldn’t move something like that with me, so she made me something small.”
Caroline picked up the vaporizer. “I think it’s ready. Do you want any?” She held it out toward Annie.
Annie settled back onto her stool, then pressed the shutter release with another click. “No thanks,” she said. Not that I haven’t smoked my fair share over the years, Annie thought. But this was not about her.
Caroline nodded as she inhaled, then blew out a light stream of vapor. “I just didn’t know what the etiquette was.”
“There is none,” Annie said.
To herself, she added, No etiquette, no rules, no road map. For someone accustomed to venturing into uncharted territory, Annie wondered why she suddenly felt so nervous.