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Etta was recognizable to these people; her parents were artists and collectors. They'd "revived modernism," whatever that meant, and apparently their signature sketches of glorified Venn diagrams could fetch upward of six figures, at least according to the internet. Sometimes, Etta liked to ramble about her parents, as if they were canonized saints, divulging the details of their days living in SoHo during the late seventies and early eighties, exaggerating their struggles and ignoring the fact that they had attended New England boarding schools and descended from families steeped in tradition, so their decision to live in SoHo when the neighborhood was an artists' enclave was one of free will and not circumstantial. To most people, Etta's deluded tone could be a turnoff, but to everyone else, to the other twenty people in this very room, it was normal, even cute.

It didn't take long for me to understand why Etta had insisted on the spontaneous sojourn to Brooklyn. We knew each other too well, could predict the patterns of each other's thoughts, knew which buttons to push, and when to stop, so when she floated across the room to a nondescript man with a thin, unironic mustache and greasy, dark blond hair and tapped him on the shoulder, I thought, This makes sense. This was the "new guy," the latest DJ she'd been texting. Just as quickly as we'd zoomed over the Brooklyn Bridge to get here, they veered down a hall and left me alone in an apartment full of strangers.

I crossed and uncrossed my arms, made small talk one beat too long with Sam, the owner of the apartment. I learned it was him not because he introduced himself, but because I heard someone shout "Sam!" and he responded. I thanked him when he reappeared with another round of drinks, noticed how he peered around, searching for my counterpart and the person explaining my presence here, and when I said, "I don't know where she went," he shrugged and downed the drink he made for her. I started to ask how he knew Etta, but someone else called, "Sam! Come here!" and soon, I was alone again.

It was in the kitchen area that I noticed Archer, approximately twenty minutes after I lost Etta, not that I was keeping track. Archer was Etta's older brother and a semi-established artist for someone who just barely scratched the surface of his thirties. There were his shows here in the city, plus Miami and Los Angeles and abroad. At one point it felt as if everywhere you turned, there was his photograph, or some article either praising or eviscerating his work, and then, nothing. Two years passed. He'd supposedly been living out in the country, followed by a friend's houseboat. Etta said he was "burnt-out," that it happened all the time with artists, this endless cycle of creation and expectation, feeding the public's appetite for something new, something exciting, something that had never been done before. But it had all been done before, that was the problem.

"Sounds intense," I had said, but she did not comment further.

Archer was still tall and thin, like Etta, with an angular face and pale green eyes that matched his sister's. The last time I'd seen him, his hair was long and he could tuck it behind his ears, like an imitation Kurt Cobain, but now it was cropped closer to his head. Of course he had a perfectly shaped skull, I thought, as he grazed his fingers across his scalp, eyes flitting about the room.

Then, his gaze landed on me.

I focused on my drink, mulling whether he could have any recollection of our brief series of encounters, whether he recognized me, or more realistically, thought I looked like someone he knew. I was always told I "looked familiar," or that I "looked like someone." It was always "that actress" no one could name, or a friend of a friend, though a few times, people said I resembled a young Jennifer Connelly and I thought, Okay, I'll take it, thank you very much.

When I glanced up from my drink, he was there in front of me, smelling of musk, or maybe that was his cologne, I wasn't sure. He looked tired, but tired in an appealing way, like his life was one big sleepless night, like he had stories and multiple lives and tonight, this moment, was only one iteration. I wished then that I'd changed after work, out of my black slacks and striped cotton-blend sweater and into something that didn't reek of corporate America and J.Crew.

"Have you seen Sam?" he asked. I wasn't even sure if he was talking to me, except that there was no one else around.

I said, "I think he went that way," and gestured behind me.