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“Can you hold for Mr. Bass, please?” he asked.

Kate was between classes, seated at a picnic table in the law school’s courtyard. The semester was two weeks old, though she had missed everything through Labor Day, a few days for her mother’s funeral, the rest for grieving and general inability to function.

“Sure,” she answered. “I guess so.”

“One moment, please.”

Kate hadn’t given her script much thought since reconnecting with Noah at the coffee shop. Even if she’d wanted to recycle it, so to speak, there’d been no time. Her father would have been content to create an algorithm—Medieval Scribes 2.0, perhaps—to generate “handwritten” responses to the boxes and boxes of expressions of sympathy he and Kate had received. Kate made it her job to give each the truly personal response it deserved.

Bass’s assistant apparently had a long definition of “one moment.” She was still on hold, seated on a bench, when she saw the dean of the law school walking across the courtyard.

“Congratulations on the internship, Kate,” he said as he hurried past her.

It was the responsibility of all third-year law students to keep the placement office apprised of their employment status. Law schools loved to tout the fact that one hundred percent of their students had a job upon graduation. Kate had accepted the internship at Buck Technologies during her final semester, but the obvious assumption of the administration was that it would turn into a full-time position. Judging from the smile on his face, the dean was obviously delighted to have one less unemployed member of the December graduating class to worry about.

Kate was checking to see if the call had dropped when she heard that unmistakable voice of doom in her earbuds.

“This is Irving Bass.”

Part of her wanted to say “whoop-de-doo,” but she composed herself. “Hello, this is Kate.”

“Kate, you’ve inspired me.”

He definitely had her attention. “How so?”

“When I read your mother killed herself, I decided to check into rehab.”

There was no “I’m sorry for your loss, Kate.” Straight to the point, and it was all about him. Typical.

“I’m glad you were ‘inspired,’” she said, using his word. “I hope it works out for you.”

“But that’s not why I’m calling. Your script inspired me.”

“The one you said was—”

“Forget what I said. I was talking about the first ten pages, which were awful. My assistant forced me to read the rest. You’re on to something.”

“You really think so?”

“Kate, I’m a busy man, which means there are a limited number of questions I can take from playwrights. You’ve just wasted one of yours with a dumbass question like”—he shifted to his ditzy girl voice—“‘You really think so?’”

Kate was certain she didn’t sound anything like that, but she let it go. “Sorry. My bad.”

“I’ll be unreachable, in rehab, for thirty days. That should be enough time for you to do the first rewrite.”

“A rewrite?”

“Damn it, Kate, you did it again. Knock off the dumb questions and meaningless jabber. If you talk that way, it will find its way into the dialogue of the characters you create. Yes, we are doing a rewrite. Many rewrites. I said you were on to something. I didn’t say youhadsomething.”

“What are you looking for in the next draft?”

“Good, that was a much better question.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me! I don’t want your thanks. I want a script I can produce.”

“You—you want to produce my script?”