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Honestly, I’m starting to both marvel at this new manuscript and feel a pinch of terror whenever I think of the condition of the manuscript I sent to Claire before. This is so much better. So much so that it’s humiliating to think about what I sent before.

I reach the last of his notes and check the time. The room is luminous. The gray clouds swirl outside the purple- and green-tinted glass panes. This place feels so cozy I wish I could stay all day.

But it’s time for our monthly pub meeting. Time to tap out from my turn in the magical room. Time to go.

Just before I do, though, I take out my pen and write a note in the margin of chapter 15.

So, Mystery Editor. Why are you helping me?

The question is simple, but still, I feel my heart race as I write it. I’ve wondered so many times as I’ve read his notes through the pages, but have never summoned up the bravery to ask.

Part of me has feared he would read my inquiry and think, You know? Why am I helping her? And then he’d drop me and leave me to my hopeless fate. But the longer we’ve gone along, giving it 100 percent over the hours, over the days, the more I feel like I’m not so alone while doing this. We are a team. Somehow, remarkably enough, I sense he wants this manuscript to succeed just as much as I do.

It doesn’t make sense. But I really feel it.

Fifteen minutes later, I’m sitting in the Magnolia Room at the oval table as the room slowly fills. My feet are tapping the floor as I review the last of my notes, a tick Olivia has truly helped create. I’m at four thousand steps for the day, thanks to one drizzly walk to work, but for the third time this week, I’m still lagging behind.

Some new girl is sitting in Giselle’s old seat, looking quiet and uncertain of herself as she sits beside Brittney, Ms. Pennington’s PA. The new boss, no doubt. Although . . . that’s a bit quick, isn’t it? Certainly it’d take more than a couple of weeks to find any truly worthwhile replacement for her job. And why couldn’t Will have hired from inside the publishing house? These are all just issues stacked on top of existing issues in a load that’s building against him.

His demeanor has grown harsher over the past few days. People have been calling him a chip off the old block—which, to everyone except Ms. Pennington herself, is the opposite of a compliment. In the span of three days, Will has dropped the night janitor—poor Robby of over twenty-six years—down to part time and given all of us more cleaning responsibilities, taken away three people’s company credit cards (that I know of), and cut the cord on the new espresso machine, replacing the station with grocery store–brand coffee.

And to be honest, I don’t know how I feel about it all.

I don’t blame people for getting their feathers ruffled; I nodded vigorously when Maggie declared during one lengthy tirade, “If we’re going to be living in 1984 conditions, you’d think they could at least let us keep our coffee!” And I certainly fought on Yossi’s behalf. But at the same time, whenever I see Will’s exhausted face as I pass him in the hall or go past his door—always cracked open, always with the light on no matter how late in the day—I can’t help feeling for him. He’s the boss making the calls and yet he looks more miserable than the people he’s letting go. On the bright side, at least Yossi is still here today.

Maybe I made an impact after all, I think. Maybe part of the reason he’s still sitting here today is because of what I said to Will. And no one will ever know.

Lyla scurries to my side and bends toward my ear. “I just got a call!”

“Rob, close the door, please,” Will says, and the feel of the room shifts as the meeting begins.

Even from this distance, I can see Will’s tense face as Ms. Pennington stands just as he himself starts to rise. She moves a foot to the left to command the head of the table. “Okay, everyone,” she says, her voice higher than usual. “Let’s begin.”

Ms. Pennington is like that. Always wanting to be in the middle of things, knowing everything that is going on. Micromanaging. And while that may have worked to a degree with Harry, the last publisher of the Pen division, who always acted less like a boss and more like a microphone for Ms. Pennington’s will, it’s clearly a point of tension now that Will is running Pen. As we all feel and see. Every day.

“From whom?” I manage to whisper to Lyla.

“Frank Stenneti Entertainment! FSE!” Lyla whispers back as though it should have been obvious. It’s been fourteen days since she played at the Polar Star, and since then we’ve had a dozen meetings, one issue with the warehouse for shipments, one livid agent conversation, three blasé agent conversations, and two suck-up-to-agent conversations. That night is about as far from my mind as the load of wet laundry forgotten in my washer the past three days.

“Quit dawdling, everyone,” Ms. Pennington continues.

“No one is dawdling,” Will says quietly. “Everyone’s clearly seated and ready.”

Both Lyla’s and my attention snaps to Will. I have the urge to press my lips together to keep from saying, “Ooooooh,” like kids do when watching a fight forming in the halls.

Now that I look at him, he does look even more taut than usual today, like he’s on the back end of a really long argument that didn’t go well. Who knows? Maybe they’ve already been going at it behind closed doors.

Ms. Pennington, looking sharp in her red suit, pretends not to hear him.

“Yossi,” she says, “I haven’t seen an updated proposal. I was expecting that in my in-box two days ago.”

“As I’ll remind you from our previous conversation,” says Will before Yossi can speak, “you haven’t received it because he sent it to me—his publisher—and I rejected it. The proposal wasn’t worth pursuing.”

At this, I see Ms. Pennington’s jaw clench. There’s an ire in her icy blue eyes as she meets his matching ones. “The concept was riveting.”

“It was outdated. The public’s attention is not on the great harmonica players of the nineteenth century.”

“Then we draw their attention to the topic. That is our duty. We create a culture. We enrich society.”