Free Among the Ten Thousand Things by Julia Pierpont Page A

wrong?”
    “No.”
    “I can’t hear.”
    “No, you’re right,” Deb said louder.
    The refrigerator opened, tinkling bottles and jars inside. “So what about tonight? Are you going or what?”

The kids would not come. They’d missed Jack’s shows before, been kept away from them because of content, things she didn’t want their young eyes seeing—nakedness, the suggestion of blood. So there had been a precedent for that. Ruth would call them around six to check in, see if they needed anything. And Deb would be home by eight.
    Of course, she had thought about not going herself. But she wasn’t going for him. She was going because she thought the girl might.
    —
    In the lobby of the gallery, people were starting to gather, bodies in black or white. Plastic cups of wine hovered, deep cherry and blond, catching the light. The warmer days were taking everyone by surprise, and the AC was not quite strong enough, so that the show cards were fanned and fluttered, made to produce small currents. The receptionist girl was there by the door, her hair slicked back with dark grooves, bite marks from a comb’s teeth, the furrows deep and clean and even. Here, too, was art.
    Jack mingled.
    “I thought the show was called
Bait,
” said the woman from
KIOSK,
“like with an
i.
” They all said the same things. Jack laughed and touched their elbows, if they were women, refreshed their drinks if they were men. He laughed and looked to the door and continued to not see her.
    —
    Deb pulled out her phone, checked the time. Walking was taking longer than she thought it would, but she was in no hurry. Let him wonder. She knew how he got, wired, before an opening. So in a small way she was surprised, how this time he had gone through it alone, that he had not even tried to enlist her. Though if he
had
—she imagined the things she would have said to him, if he’d come to her now with that worry. Sorry, buddy. Not my problemo. You should have thought about that before. She would have especially liked that part, saying that.
    —
    “Hate to tell you this,” Stanley said. “I know Deb’s running late, but we gotta open up.” Stanley had been director at the gallery for more years than Jack had known him, and Jack had known him a long time. They stood shoulder to shoulder, facing out, Stanley’s eyes running inventory of who had come, how long the most important people had been waiting.
    “Oh, yeah,” Jack answered. “Sure, that’s fine,” and turned toward the room.
    For the first eight or nine minutes, only Jack would remember, the show was well received.
Bayt
was a home in no specified country. It could have been an Israeli home or a Palestinian home. It could have been in Iraq. It took people longer to realize that it could have been in America, too. The books flung from the upended bookcase were blank, and the art knocked from the walls, photographs of fields that Jack had taken years ago in Houston, were of no discernible nationality. The house was filled with things that could have come from anywhere. The target was from no place and every place, and so the enemy too.
    When people saw the house they became reverential, as though something really had happened there. Heads poked through the broken windows and holes in the walls. The bolder ones began to climb through the larger opening, exploring. Let them. Others followed. They looked for clues in the way the teacups were painted. Let them.
    Jack was by the door when the last explosive went off toward the back of the room, a large bang. A woman screamed. He thought at first that something had been knocked over. Then he saw the smoke and heard another scream, and people were leaving the house, trying not to run, or else they were gathering around one woman, who held her arm strangely. Stanley motioned to security. People were ushered out. An ambulance was called and the woman, five or eight years older than Jack with hair she’d let mostly gray, sat on the ground,