1 It started getting warmer, like summer. That’s how spring is, though my dad always tells me there was a time when it wasn’t that way. I was still at his house in-state, but it was getting really old. My dad was still on my case, and Tina—well, Tina just wanted to talk about her hair and her clothes and her nails. All those things are important enough, sure, I mean, you can’t go around not caring about them. But every now and then I would try to talk about art, and she would just give me this blank stare. She didn’t even know who Basquiat was, I don’t think. It was only when I mentioned that he dated that old pop star that she cared at all. With all her money and all the things science can do these days, I think Madonna’ll be alive forever, and that’s fabuleux because she knew Basquiat, actually knew him.
I tried some painting while I was staying there. Nothing came out of it. I’m a terrible painter, to be honest. I knew that. I was just bored.
There was a time when I thought maybe I had the potential to get better. But I don’t. It’s so much easier to appreciate beauty than to make it. When I realized that, one night while I was doing move with my friends in my old little apartment before it got destroyed, was when I decided to become a collector. I have an eye for good things, you know. Going from gallery to gallery, drinking their wine and talking to the artists, making quiet little jokes about the awful things and standing in awe like everyone else in front of the wonderful ones, was something I loved so much more than putting on dirty clothes and splashing paint around a canvas. In the end, I was much better at buying what I knew was great than making what I knew was pretty terrible.
I used to make friends with the artists when I started collecting, but that got weird. I mean, they’re weird, there’s that, just as people. Staying up all hours, making strange comments, never watching the right OLED screen shows because they’re too busy being involved in weird things nobody cares about anymore or never did—but that can be entertaining and funny sometimes. I guess the real problem is that they’re always broke. Which is fine if you’re hanging out and doing move in someone’s apartment and one of them needs you to spot them a pill because they’re not making any money off of their art yet. That’s okay. But when you want to go out and have a nice dinner, and drinks, and go to the clubs, and they show up in their weird secondhand clothes and can’t hang out all night because they’re too poor—that’s just sad for everyone. So I mainly only hang out with the artists that I know are from good backgrounds, or selling well enough. It’s less awkward that way.
The time I spent at my dad’s in-state house was pretty soul-crushing. I have friends all over the world, of course, from summers abroad and vacations and such, but even the appeal of going to the places they were was diminished. I mean, New York did its work in preparing for droughts with emergency water supplies, but lots of other places, like the Mediterranean, South Africa, and southern China, are all getting pretty dry. I have friends there. Well, a lot of them left, or have little compounds where things aren’t as bad, but it’s sad, really sad. And with the droughts come the fires. And if it’s not droughts and fires, it’s floods. The whole world’s kind of fucked, in different ways. So most of the traveling I do is to places like my dad’s house anyway, little places tucked away and stocked up for any emergencies and out of the landslides of the mountains and near enough water. I guess I felt safe at my dad’s place, even if I didn’t feel so happy.
Pollock was happy, and that was something. Once, someone suggested that he was an ornament for me, a pretty little teddy bear dog that I keep in a bag on my shoulder. I love Pollock so much; nothing could be further from the truth. I had him registered as my therapy animal a while back, mostly for travel purposes, but it’s also true. His little face has saved me from the deepest depression so many times. That he had space to run around in my dad’s compound was something.
But all this being holed up in a house in-state was death on my art collection, which had been somewhat decimated by the destruction of New York. I’d housed half of my collection in a special storage space in Brooklyn where the waters shouldn’t have reached, but they did anyway. Some of it had been in my beau little apartment, and you know how that fared. There was a bit at my dad’s in-state house. I kept it in a special room where the temperature is always seventy degrees and there are no windows.
Sometimes I would go and look at it, going over every piece individually, appreciating the beauty, remembering where it had come from, what the artists were like, what I’d been wearing when I found it, what my hair had been done like, every last detail. It made me happy for a minute. I don’t just collect things like Basquiats; that would be ridiculous. Every last piece there, whether it’s by someone who’s well known and magnifique, or someone who’s just coming up, means something to me. Each one of them is inside of me, in a place I can feel moving through me like my blood. I know that sounds kind of stupid, but that’s how it feels; there’s no other way to describe it.
As I stood there one day, I removed a woodcut from the storage room and propped it up against the wall. It was a picture of a boat on the sea in the rain, done in stormy greens and blacks and muddy blues. In the boat, one man was beating or killing another man, who had his arms raised up above him. It all took place under a full moon, and was very noir-pulp. I loved it for how simplistic yet daring it was. Those men in that boat were really so far removed from life that they appealed to me. It wasn’t Basquiat, that was for sure, but it was really, in its own way, remarquable and moved me just the same.
2 One weekend, I was so bored that I went for a pedicure with Tina. My stepmom Tina is the worst, so you know I was pretty bored. She’s a tall, blond, leggy woman from the Midwest who came to New York City to be a model. She made it, too, for a little while, which I guess is the best you can realistically hope for as a model. But she knew her days were numbered when she got her first wrinkle, so she grabbed onto my dad at a cocktail party and hasn’t let go since.
Tina goes to this chou little spa that I really do enjoy when I’m up for enjoying anything, which lately hasn’t been often. But I wanted to enjoy it, so I put on some decent clothes and got in her little classic Italian car that my dad bought her for their last anniversary, and off we went to this spa where everything’s green plants, pale green and white colors, and vague fruit and flower scents. There are these little women who work there from all over the world. They all seem so tiny and perfect and beautiful, even though they’re all doing pretty disgusting jobs like digging around people’s toenails all day. I guess you have to do something for a living.
While these women were buffing and paring and painting our nails, we started to talk. Tina isn’t one for very deep conversation, so it started off shallow. I mean really shallow. She spent about fifteen minutes talking to me about her new sweater. It’s a pretty sweater, almost the same pale green as the spa walls, and so soft. But it’s a sweater, and I didn’t care to talk about it for that long.
“Can we change the subject?” I said.
Maybe I said it a bit too crossly because Tina looked hurt for a second. Then she moved on to her shoes, which were placed neatly on a mat near the door.
“Tina,” I said, finally. “What are you passionate about?” I’ve found from the many parties I’ve been to where people are giant bores that the best way to get out of a horrible conversation is to ask something that makes the other person feel very awkward.
“Well, I . . .” she began. “I should say I . . .”
“I mean really passionate about?” I pushed further. “Like, don’t say your car or your shoes. Something that really moves you.”
Tina shifted in her chair like she was uncomfortable. I felt pretty satisfied that she would shut up, so it really surprised me when she said, “You know, I’ve always been interested in weather patterns. Don’t ask me why.” She giggled self-consciously. “Don’t tell your father! He would think I’m crazy.”
I paused. Tina had an interest that wasn’t shopping or looking good?
“What is it about weather patterns that interests you?”
She was blushing now, and talking fast, like she was telling a secret she was relieved to be free of. “They weren’t always as extreme as they are now, you know. When I was younger, big storms were events. But I was interested in them even then! I mean, did you know how rare and beautiful a tornadic waterspout is? Or that hurricane eyes are surrounded by a vertical wall of clouds that are the most destructive part of the hurricane? But if you fly through the wall, you’re in the most peaceful, gorgeous place you’ve ever seen? It’s all so fascinating!”
“Tina?” I said. I really didn’t know what else to say.
She went on in this rushed tone, talking about gigantic Mexican spring-pendulum seismometers and other such oddities. I was so surprised that I didn’t say anything.
Finally she stopped. She looked around. The only person she saw besides me was a little woman painting her toenails zebra stripes, as she had requested for her “for-fun pedicure.” I wasn’t sure quite how many pedicure intentions she had, but I suspected they were numerous. She let out a sigh. I had never seen her look so relaxed. The whole thing was so odd that I was pretty dumbstruck. Then, to be polite, I suppose, she said, “What about you, Evann? I suppose you’ll say you’re most passionate about the artwork you collect?”
I paused again, this time because I was blown away by the fact that she did take an interest in the things I talked about, when I clearly had known very little about her. I felt kind of bad, you know? Like here she was, just waiting to tell someone all this weird stuff she was into, and never had the chance. What kinds of friends did she have that this was her life, holding in the things she really cared about? What kind of marriage? I felt pretty weird all of a sudden.
I guess I waited too long to answer, because she gave me a strange look. Really quickly, I said, “Yeah, of course. Art. Basquiat. Galleries. Collecting.”
She tossed her perfect blond hair over her shoulder, but continued giving me a penetrating look that I didn’t know she had in her. It was like I had broken the ice on a lake and found the cold waters.
“You haven’t done any of those things in months,” she said more wisely than I ever would have given her credit for. “You must be miserable.”
Then I was crying. My God, my God, I thought. I’m crying in front of Tina. I wiped my eyes and tried to say something, but there was nothing to say. I was so miserable. Even Tina could see it.
“Evann,” she said compassionately. “I’m just your stepmother. I don’t give life advice to anyone, most of all you, but you really need to do something to get back on your feet.”
“I know, okay?” I said. “But what am I supposed to do? New York is destroyed, Allentown is over. Should I move to some foreign country where they don’t even have water reserves? Where do I even go?”
“You don’t watch the news, do you, Evann?” she asked.
“You do?” I said. The surprises were never-ending.
“Turn on your wristscreen. I’ll send you a video.”
“Fine,” I said.
The next thing I knew, I was watching a newscast. Newscasts are the worst, with all these shaky amateur videos and boring newscasters. The only really good part is that they constantly break for cat videos. But this one seemed different. It was a straight video, done old-style. Which they never do if not to make a point about how real and poignant something is. So I knew I was in for some big schmaltzy news story. Boring. Leave it to Tina to not really surprise me.
There was a blasé newscaster in her Business Wearhouse skirt suit talking about something. I turned the volume up, not that I really cared.
“Now, we take you live to the site where we are talking to Mayor of New York City, Richard Bradley.”
Oh, Christ. Mayor Bradley. This was getting even better.
But then I saw it. It was tiny, because I was watching on my wristscreen, but I could tell it was remarquable. Truly the most remarquable thing I had ever seen since I saw my first Basquiat. It was a battle scene on the side of a building, so perfect that I couldn’t look away. I could barely hear what Mayor Bradley was saying in the foreground. I could barely hear Tina talking next to me. It was jagged and bold and frightening. It made me feel that thing, that feeling that I feel deep inside me and can never explain. It was like Guernica, but a million times more modern, emotional, and terrifying. It was fabuleux, it was breathtaking. None of the words I had could match it.
“This is what our city has always been about,” Mayor Bradley was saying as if from somewhere far away. “This painting, this amazing artist who is moving from borough to borough doing these beautiful works, just proves that the city is not gone for good. This painting is the spirit of resilience in this undestroyable mecca. This storm has set us back, but it has not extinguished us. Neither will the next one. We will rebuild—bigger, better. We will be, as always, a place where beauty like that behind me flourishes. We will come back stronger than before, having faced many great hardships together. Like the phoenix, New York City will rise above the ashes.”
The newscaster in the bad suit spoke. “What about the many people who say they’re never coming back to New York?”
“I beg them to look at this painting and remember why they came here in the first place. If, working by night, in the conditions this city is currently in, an artist can create something so great as the image we see behind me, I think the rest of us can be inspired to rebuild condos, restart businesses, and reform the place that inspires us all.”
They went on and on, but I turned the video off. There were tears welling up in my eyes once again, but this time it wasn’t because I was depressed.
“It was so beautiful.”
“Those paintings are all over the city,” Tina said. Beneath us, the tiny pedicurist was finishing up her work. She smiled up at us. “Evann, I think New York is the place you’re looking for.”
“Yes,” I said.