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“I’ve just got to . . . freshen up,” I say, putting more dots beneath both eyes. And I can’t miss those two dark shadows on each temple. And my forehead—I grimace at my reflection and begin dotting every area like my face is a polka-dot rug.

“Easy, Sav,” Lyla says, observing my actions with the same expression of horror one would make watching someone eat a dozen hot dogs at a county fair.

I rub at them all vigorously until it’s all blended in.

Oh no.

Now I look like some pale, lifeless, overworked ballerina who still somehow has bags under her eyes. Why can’t I be rid of them?

“We’ve got to go,” Lyla says impatiently, checking her watch. “Why do you care all of a sudden anyway?”

“It’s a competitive house,” I retort, starting to slap my cheeks. “There’s a lot of pressure to be professional.”

“Well, you’re really nailing it,” Lyla says, eyeing me as I repeatedly smack my cheeks.

But sure enough, two little rosy spots start to form. “There,” I say, standing back and admiring myself. “See? It worked.”

Lyla nods. “Yes. Throw away the blush, ladies. Savannah Cade has solved all our makeup problems of the twenty-first century.”

“Okay,” I say, breezing past Lyla. “Hurry up, then,” I add in my most professional tone. “We don’t want to be late.”

I’ve walked halfway down the hall by the time Lyla chimes in beside me, “Hey, Ms. Professional. You forgot your laptop.”

I wince, looking down at my empty hands, and march back with as much dignity as I can.

Wednesday-morning Pennington Pen meetings are always held in the Lilac Room. There are a few reasons for this. It’s one of the bigger rooms we have, plus it’s one of the few technologically advanced spaces in the old building. And the walls are thick—which we need, because you wouldn’t believe how heated conversations can get over color-code teal level #2C4952 versus virtually identical teal level #7CADA2 on a cover design.

There are eight members of the Pennington Pen division. Two rather personality-lacking acquisition editors, Rob Orren and Yossi Jacobs, and myself. One editorial director, Giselle Shaw, who apparently snagged a job as a young editorial assistant back in college via her good looks and Daddy’s checkbook. One marketing manager, Clyve Prinz, who is sixty-five and has yet to nail down the purpose of a Google calendar. One publicist, Marge Dippolito, whose ability to get our titles into some truly incredible prints has led a number of us to wonder if she’s not working some sort of shady, back-alley business. One graphic designer and digital marketing wiz, Lyla, ironically the most talented and least enthused of the lot of us.

And now, Will.

I haven’t seen Will since our last meeting on that beer-stained, cowboy boot–scratched floor. He wasn’t at LOA the following morning, and word spread that he had left for New York—on business, presumably, although nobody knew for certain. All we knew was that decisions had once again fallen into Giselle’s hands, thus explaining why I, specifically, had been pinpointed for the task of reorganizing every piece of paper in the filing cabinets dating back to 1970, and why the coffee breakroom had a shiny new pink espresso machine.

“Let’s get to it, everyone. Settle in.”

Lyla and I hurry into the room, and I set my stack of papers and laptop down on one of the remaining seats at the oval-shaped table. Lyla, meanwhile, drops her bag in the seat beside mine and veers for the doughnuts. Ms. Pennington stands at the head of the table, her pen tapping impatiently at the lot of us. Her blue eyes are piercing, her permanent frown is firmly in place, and her blazing red pantsuit is impeccable.

Her frown deepens as her eyes dart to the utilitarian-style clock, a match to the others that adorn every room in the building. She pauses.

Lyla slides into her seat with a doughnut in each hand.

We wait.

And as the second hand strikes the top of the hour, Ms. Pennington drops her eyes to us. “Let us begin. Yossi, we’ll start with you. Did you get the ASMI report back from Rogers?”

Yossi, who despite twelve years in the company jumps every time at the sound of his name, grabs for his papers. “Well, Pam has been very busy this week, what with traveling here from Louisiana for the conference—”

“You’ll have to cut to the point, Yossi. I have another meeting—”

“Uh, no,” Yossi stammers, taking off his glasses and rubbing them furiously against his tweed coat pocket. “She did say she’d send it to me by next week, though, and—”

“Failed to receive report,” Ms. Pennington interjects, giving a short nod to Brittney, seated closest. Brittney, the delicate twenty-three-year-old assistant who spends every day trailing after Ms. Pennington with a notebook and pen, begins scribbling feverishly. The poor woman writes everything by hand because Ms. Pennington is so traditional. Pennington loves all old things—wallpaper, handwriting . . . It took ages for her to grudgingly agree to computers, and that, I hear, didn’t even happen until the early nineties.

“Rob. Tell me about”—she glances down at her paper—“the developmental edits for Sonya. Has she received them, and how did she take it?”

And as Rob begins his own winding, skittish answer to her question, I take a moment to survey the room. Snow is drifting down outside the two windows facing the small yard beyond, and a cardinal sits on a nearby branch. Inside, the table is one giant mass of laptops and coffee cups, doughnuts and papers. And two seats to my left, at the foot of the table, is Will.

I feel a slight jump in my stomach and blink quickly back toward Ms. Pennington, not daring to let my eyes linger on anything but her. Rachel, our former marketing manager, was caught distracted by that cardinal out the window not too long ago and was fired on the spot for insubordination.