Two months earlier, Clare and her daughter, Sadie, are playing hide-and-seek from imaginary monsters in a closet at the East Hampton home of in-laws. A noise frightens them, and Clare’s husband, Jed, reveals its source: a rabbit he has secretly bought for Sadie’s birthday. This both confuses and annoys Clare, who notes how Jed rarely cares about domestic things like birthday presents and how difficult it will be to care for the rabbit.

During cocktail hour, Clare interacts with Jed’s parents, the aloof Abe and the critical Dorothy Bast. Jed’s sister, Lauren Paulson, already at the house, comes outside with her husband, Grant, and their two daughters. Lauren mentions running into Cassandra Yang, a fellow Columbia student who started the same year as Clare and is now a curator at the New Museum. Although Clare is technically still a PhD student, her thesis has stalled for years by her marriage and Sadie’s birth. She is adamant she will one day continue working on it but struggles to find the focus to do so. Later, Jed presents the rabbit to Sadie. Though initially hesitant, she warms up to the animal and names him Noodle.

Clare attends an anniversary party at the opulent Park Avenue apartment of Jed’s boss, Alec Wolfe, and his wife, Tasha. While waiting for Jed to arrive, Clare is unimpressed by much of the Wolfes’ art collection and audibly scoffs at Damien Hirst’s work and his use of dots. She is overheard by a man who introduces himself as Gabriel Prévost. They strike up a charged conversation about art, and he leads her to a dimly lit room with a pool table on the third floor—where a handful of other guests and a bar are also located—to show her a Ruscha painting. Afterward, on the terrace, they share a cigarette, and Clare feels an intense, unfamiliar surge of desire. Later, Tasha, a board member at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), tells Clare that Gabriel is a prominent art dealer doing consulting work for Alec. When Jed finally arrives, Clare rejoins him.

The next morning, Clare wakes early and finds herself googling Gabriel Prévost. After dropping Sadie off at Saint Mary’s nursery school with its headmistress, Mrs. Dwyer, Clare has coffee with Mina, another mother from the school. Mina announces she is pregnant with her second child and asks if Clare plans to have another. The question prompts Clare to confide her feelings of alienation, describing how she feels like a stranger to herself who must wear a “mother mask” to hide her true emotions. She laments that her life has become a monotonous routine, but Mina seems not to understand and changes the subject.

Tasha unexpectedly picks Clare up and insists she accompany her to Gabriel’s art gallery. At the gallery, Clare and Gabriel discuss the exhibition and her stalled dissertation on the artist Blake Webley. During their conversation—while Tasha is occupied on her phone—Gabriel reveals he is in temporary possession of a famous Webley painting, Longfin. Clare is shocked, as she knows the painting belongs to MoCA’s permanent collection. Gabriel explains that the museum secretly deaccessioned it in a quiet, private sale. After Tasha departs, they go for coffee, and Gabriel invites Clare to his nearby house to see the painting. Clare declines, saying she has to pick Sadie up from school, and leaves feeling his eyes on her as she walks away in the rain.

The following day, Clare goes to Gabriel’s gallery, using the pretense of returning his umbrella to see him again. She then admits she cannot stop thinking about Longfin and agrees to accompany him to his townhouse. In his home, she is captivated by the painting and, with his encouragement, reaches out to touch its textured surface. The charged atmosphere between them becomes overtly sexual. Gabriel kisses her, and they have sex on the couch in his living room, beginning an affair.

In a taxi heading uptown after leaving Gabriel’s house, Clare is overwhelmed with guilt. She reflects on the events that have led her to this point, thinking about her marriage to Jed, the constant undermining from her mother-in-law Dorothy, the trauma of Sadie’s premature birth, and the death of her own mother, Nessa. She recalls how these experiences extinguished her passionate, visceral connection to art—an inner “hum” that once defined her. Deciding that telling Jed would needlessly destroy him, Clare resolves to keep the affair a secret. She justifies her actions to herself as a desperate attempt to feel alive again and reclaim her lost identity. That evening, Jed returns home late from work, too distracted to notice anything is wrong.

Clare’s affair with Gabriel becomes a regular arrangement. During their meetings, Gabriel tells her about his past, including his amicable divorce from his ex-wife, an artist named Beatriz Barros, and his growing restlessness with the art business, which he feels has lost its vitality. He jokingly suggests that Clare take a part-time job consulting for him, which would provide a convenient cover for their trysts. Clare dismisses the idea but agrees to continue seeing him.

While Clare and Gabriel are walking together on the High Line, they are unexpectedly spotted by Jed’s sister, Lauren. Thinking quickly, Gabriel tells Lauren that he owns a gallery nearby and is trying to convince Clare to do some work for him. To prevent Lauren from mentioning the encounter to Jed first, Clare tells her husband that night about the supposed job offer. Jed is surprised but agrees to support her decision. He then confides in Clare about his own work-related stress, revealing that his hedge fund, Gatepost, is dangerously dependent on a single major client.

Clare accompanies Gabriel to an Edward Hopper exhibition at the Whitney Museum. As she views the paintings, she is overwhelmed with emotion and feels the deep, visceral connection to art—the “hum”—that she thought she had lost forever. Completely absorbed, Clare loses track of time and realizes she is late to pick up Sadie from school. She races to the school to find the classroom empty. The headmistress, Mrs. Dwyer, informs her that after being unable to reach her, the school called Jed’s mother, Dorothy, who came and collected Sadie. At Dorothy’s apartment, Clare reunites with Sadie, who reports that Grammy said she had probably just forgotten. Dorothy then delivers her own passive-aggressive commentary before Clare takes Sadie home.

Clare and Jed attend the annual MoCA fundraising gala as guests of the Wolfes. There, she and Jed encounter Gabriel, who is speaking with MoCA’s chief curator, Clement Rosier. Jed meets Gabriel for the first time, and the introduction is tense. Overwhelmed by the situation, Clare retreats to a quiet hallway, where Gabriel follows her. They share a passionate, reckless kiss before a noise startles them apart.

At dinner, Gabriel is seated at their table, and Alec Wolfe questions Clare about the consulting work she is supposedly doing for him. Gabriel smoothly covers for her, inventing a research project on overlooked artists. In the taxi home, Jed admits he is suspicious of Gabriel. He expresses doubt that the consulting work is what Clare really wants and suggests it makes more sense to finish her dissertation first.