The novel jumps forward to 1974. Virginia Clay, a recently divorced woman in her forties, arrives at Grand Central Terminal for her first day as a temp legal secretary at Penn Central. She has falsely claimed to have prior secretarial experience, misrepresenting nearly two decades as a corporate lawyer’s wife as sufficient preparation. Her new boss, Dennis Huckle, an in-house attorney, quickly proves her wrong; she has no stenography skills and cannot take dictation. After Huckle complains, Kathleen, the head of human resources, tells Virginia bluntly that she is wasting everyone’s time. Virginia has a mental health crisis as she recalls the moment she and her ex-husband, Chester, told their daughter, Ruby, that they were getting a divorce.

Kathleen, also divorced, takes pity and offers Virginia a position that requires no typing. While searching for the bathroom, Virginia takes a wrong turn and stumbles into the abandoned Grand Central School of Art, sealed on the terminal’s upper floor. The studios are fully intact but layered in dust. The easels stand upright, supplies remain in place, and crates are filled with old course catalogs. In a storage area, a wall of decaying artwork overwhelms Virginia, and she cries. A drawing of confident, fashionably dressed secretaries, signed by Clara Darden, catches her eye; the central figure stares outward with unmistakable self-assurance. Virginia mimics the pose, and the small gesture restores enough courage to carry her through the rest of the day.

Kathleen reassigns Virginia as a trainee clerk in the information booth at the center of the main concourse. Inside the cramped booth, Virginia meets the head clerk, Terrence, who has worked at Grand Central since 1942; his acerbic brother, Totto; Winston, a warm and exceptionally knowledgeable Southern man; Doris, a caustic woman in an ill-fitting wig; and Ernesto, a part-time clerk who accesses the booth via a spiral staircase. Terrence explains the distinction between a station and a terminal and recalls a wartime story about Nazi saboteurs discovered in the building. Totto adds that the art school is rumored to be haunted by a teacher killed in a train crash. At the end of her shift, Virginia realizes she forgot her coat. Taking the wrong elevator, she ends up in a deserted, trash-filled corridor and encounters three threatening men who begin to close in on her. She turns and runs.

The novel shifts back to 1928, picking up right after the faculty exhibition. Outside the terminal, painting instructor Levon Zakarian catches up with Clara and invites her to join him and his students at a Greenwich Village restaurant. Wanting to exhaust her anger before returning home, she agrees.

At the restaurant, Levon and a senior instructor, Sebastian Standish, debate the artistic legacy of the 1913 Armory Show. Levon champions Pablo Picasso and modernism; Standish defends classical technique. Clara holds back because she lacks the technical vocabulary the others deploy, but when Nadine dismisses a particular artist as no better than an illustrator, Levon challenges Clara to defend her craft. Clara argues that illustration demands more discipline than fine art and that many illustrators are more technically proficient than painters. The dispute hardens into a wager: Levon and Clara will each spend a day in the other’s class to see who can best the other at their own discipline. If Clara wins, Levon must persuade Lorette to keep her on next term; if Levon wins, he earns the right to paint her portrait.

Outside, a jealous Nadine confronts Levon for leaving with Clara; he brushes off her concern. Walking together, Levon and Clara continue sparring. Clara accuses him of simply imitating Picasso; he frames it as homage. He then invites her to his studio near Union Square.

The studio is meticulously ordered, a degree of control that surprises Clara. Levon uncovers an unfinished portrait of himself as a young boy beside his seated mother: a self-conscious child and a woman whose expression is both accusatory and hopeful. He explains the backstory: his family fled Turkish Armenia and traveled to Yerevan, where his mother starved to death after giving her food to him and his sister. He and his sister later immigrated as orphans to Providence, where he attended art school before coming to New York. Clara encourages him to finish the painting. He advises her to put her own work before her students, then slides back into pomposity, warning her not to feel embarrassed when she underperforms in his class.

Clara arrives early for Levon’s life-drawing class. Nadine, acting as class monitor, seats her in the front row with a scowl. Levon opens with an energetic lecture on modern art, quizzing students and tearing down their responses. When the model disrobes and steps onto the platform, Clara recognizes him as Oliver, the poet. She is momentarily thrown off, but Levon is watching her, and she forces herself to focus.

As Levon works through the class, at one point drawing directly over a student’s work, Clara grows to overcome his expectations. She begins sketching, moves to oil paints, and gradually loses herself in the task. Seeing Oliver’s form as physically ideal, Clara finds the assignment freeing. When she finishes, the entire class, Levon included, has quietly assembled behind her. Levon’s careful study of the finished painting, and his subsequent praise of how she captured the model’s character rather than just his anatomy, confirm that Clara has more than held her own in the challenge.

Over the weekend, word of the bet circulates through the school. When Levon takes his turn in Clara’s class, he arrives late. She assigns the group to modernize Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party by inserting a bottle of Coca-Cola into one figure’s hands, a practical exercise in adapting fine art for commercial use. Levon reacts with exaggerated outrage, calling it a desecration. Clara holds firm. He eventually begins painting. At the end of class, his work is a failure; the Coke bottle is misshapen and indistinct. He is genuinely furious, insisting that he did not throw the bet. He tears the painting in half, dismisses watercolor as a child’s medium, and accepts defeat with a curt nod when Clara asks whether he will now speak to Lorette on her behalf.

The novel shifts back to 1974, picking up after Virginia encounters the threatening men. As Virginia flees, a door opens and Dennis Huckle steps out. He confronts the three pursuers, who turn out to be teenagers; his physical presence is enough to send them backing away. He escorts Virginia to the legal offices to retrieve her coat and then insists they report the incident.

At the Metro-North Police office, Virginia chatters nervously while they wait for an officer. Dennis, far warmer now than during their last encounter, reveals he is divorced and lives near his mother in Yonkers. He explains that Penn Central is fighting a lawsuit with the Landmarks Commission over Grand Central’s protected status; if Penn Central wins, they will demolish part of the terminal and replace it with a 55-story office tower. This victory would also earn him a promotion. He flirts lightly with Virginia, who notices but is unsettled, uncertain how she would ever disclose the surgery she recently had to a new man. After filing the report, Dennis walks her to a cab and suggests he might stop by the information booth the next day.

That evening, Virginia meets her longtime friend Betsy for drinks and performs the role of a satisfied working woman. The performance falls apart when Betsy casually mentions that Chester recently held an estate sale at their former country house and is selling the property, which Virginia is hearing about for the first time. The idea that neighbors had picked through the physical remnants of her family life leaves her distraught and makes her feel like she is barely managing with her life after the divorce. On her way out, she recalls a slant of sunlight she noticed at the information booth that afternoon, which on closer inspection had turned out to illuminate nothing but suspended smoke and dust.