As Virginia prepares for her first post-divorce date, her 19-year-old daughter Ruby pleads for $100 to help set up a darkroom with an art collective. Virginia refuses, worried about the neighborhood and her own financial difficulties. She needles Ruby about having withdrawn from her studies at Sarah Lawrence. Ruby storms off.

At dinner near Grand Central, Virginia meets with Dennis, who gifts her a can of Mace and explains his legal campaign to overturn the terminal’s landmark designation. He admits his team has manipulated financial data to strengthen their court position. To outdo him, Virginia mentions a ghost haunting an abandoned art school on the seventh floor. Dennis persuades her to show him.

Using a bathroom key, Virginia and Dennis infiltrate the school. In one of the dark studios, Dennis embraces her, and Virginia, still anxious about revealing the scar from her breast surgery, redirects him into a sexual encounter. Afterward, while Dennis sleeps, Virginia spots a cobalt-blue sheet of paper wedged behind a storage cabinet. It bears a pencil sketch of a woman signed by Clara Darden on one side and a violent, colorful watercolor on the other. She also notices the displayed artwork has been rearranged since her previous visit.