“Okay, but if you can’t convince Keith to go . . .” Maeve hesitated. “Maybe the rest of us should, anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Jonathan asked. “Leave Keith here?”
“We’re not leaving Keith,” I said sharply.
Wait, did Maeve just want to get back to Bates? After all, what would Mr. Wonderful say if he learned about this mess? I wondered if Alice had also been right about Maeve all those years ago. “You’re underestimating Maeve,” she’d said to me not long before that night on the roof. “Trust me, she knows how to get what she wants.” But Alice had been trying to convince me that Maeve had some klepto problem, which frankly was so paranoid and ridiculous I’d dismissed the entire conversation as more Alice drama.
“Listen, I’m sure you want to get out of here and get back to the city, to Bates or whatever— ”
“Bates? What does Bates have to do with anything?” Maeve asked, and then her eyes filled with tears. Maybe I wasn’t being fair. I could see she was distraught. “I’m just . . . really worried, that’s all. About all of us.”
“The contractors still need to get paid anyway,” Jonathan said, tired but matter-of-fact. “We can’t go anywhere until that’s taken care of.”
“We’re all just stressed,” I said. “Let me first go talk to Keith.”
When I got upstairs, Keith’s door was open. He was sitting on the bed, eyes on his phone. Next to him on the bed was an empty picture frame. He looked up at me, then back down at his phone. I crossed the room and sat next to him on the bed. Picked up the frame.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“A picture frame,” he said lifelessly.
“Yeah, thanks, I can see that,” I said. “Why do you have it?”
“It’s from my apartment,” he said, and there was something unsettling about his tone— a mixture of sadness and resignation. “There was a picture of all of us in it. One from college. Alice gave it to me sophomore year.”
“Alice never gave me a picture,” I said, looking down at the empty frame.
“That’s because she loved me more,” he said. “Everybody does.”
Was it sweet that Keith had brought the photograph with him? Maybe, if our picture had still been in it. Or if it hadn’t been Alice who had given it to him. As it was, the empty frame was disturbing. Had Keith gotten rid of the picture? Wasn’t that a suicide warning sign? The drugs had always been Keith’s slow-motion way of killing himself; maybe he’d finally decided to take a short cut.
“Everybody does love you more,” I said, then stayed quiet for a minute. “So, what’s this bullshit about not going to rehab?”
“Oh, I’ll go,” he said unconvincingly. “I just need to talk to Finch first. He texted and wants to work some stuff out about his London show. I have a fiduciary duty to get things in order before I’m unavailable. But then I’ll go. I’m not trying to get out of it, I swear.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I don’t think that’s what happened. Maybe Finch texted, but not about London,” I said. “Or if he did, he’s fucking with you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Finch knows about his London show getting canceled.”
Keith winced. And all I felt was awful. “He does?”
“He told me this morning,” I said. “He came into my room, before everything with Crystal. Right before he left.”
“Your room?” Keith looked even more confused. “And why would he tell you that and not me?”
“Finch signed on with the Graygon Gallery a month ago.”
“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”
I nodded. “I know. That’s because I didn’t tell you. I saw Finch’s contract with the new gallery, all signed and finalized.”
Keith’s brow furrowed even more deeply. “How did you see one of Finch’s contracts?”
“Because I had sex with him the night of the Cipriani party. I saw the contracts at his apartment.”
“You what?” Keith looked stunned. I turned away.
“I know,” I said, unable to bring myself to look at him again. “I don’t have an excuse. But it happened. And I’m sorry— he’s your most important artist. I knew that at the time, obviously.”