I wonder if he’s a legitimate sociopath. Would he be having so much fun if his entire career felt as tenuous as mine does now? Why doesn’t it feel that way to him? The light turns green.

“I need to go,” I say. I practically sprint across the street.

If I could only run back in time and never read a Noa Callaway book. But then where would I be?

The fucker is running after me.

“Maybe you should ask yourself why my gender is so disturbing to you,” he shouts. “Isn’t it aggressively heteronormative to assume I have to be a woman?”

“Goodbye, Ross,” I shout back.

“Lanie, please,” he says, surprising me.

I stop. I turn around. His tone and expression are more earnest than they’d been a moment before. I find this more unbearable than when he was being a pseudointellectual jerk. How can this be so uncomfortable? When there were two computers and the comforting labyrinth of the internet between us, Noa Callaway and I had such amazing chemistry.

“Will you come up?” he asks. We’re standing beneath a building’s awning, and he points at the door. “This is me.”

“I know. I’ve only been sending you packages here for seven years.” I glance up at the building, which I’ve speculated about so many times, imagining a very different Noa Callaway inhabiting its penthouse.

There’s no chance I’m going up there. I’ve been disillusioned enough for one afternoon. I need space from this man to figure out what the hell I’m going to do about him.

“No, thanks,” I say.

“Don’t you think we should talk about the book?”

His words jar me into seeing how far astray we are from any semblance of professionalism. This was all supposed to go so differently. And it’s not entirely his fault. Maybe only ninety-five percent. I take a deep breath, let it out. I think of everyone depending on me to deliver the new Noa Callaway book.

“I’m listening,” I say. “I don’t need to be in your penthouse to listen.”

“Fine,” he says.

“So? Talk.”

“Wow. You know, you’re different in person.”

“You did not just say that,” I say, shaking my head. “Are you finishing the draft, or what?”

He doesn’t answer right away.

I fill the silence. “We’re going to need a better title than Thirty-Eight Obituaries.”

“Oh, that,” he says, scratching his chin. “Yeah, I scrapped that idea. Didn’t I tell you?”

No, he failed to mention that. Among a few other key details he’s left out of our email exchanges. And just like that, my promotion goes from provisional to phantasmal.

“What’s wrong with the obituaries concept?” I say. Our sales team had loved the idea. Sue had loved it, too.

He shrugs. “Too New York–centric. I want to do something fresh.”