The notes for which she’d handed over as part of the divorce settlement. “I do indeed.” He refrained from growling, but it was difficult.

“While we were working on that project, I started thinking about Alice B. Toklas, who was Stein’s longtime partner. Stein willed her all this priceless art—she owned Picassos and Matisses and all that since she palled around with all those guys. But because her relationship with Toklas had no legal standing—it couldn’t have in that time, obviously—Stein’s relatives claimed the paintings. They stole them, basically, and Toklas struggled to make ends meet and later died in poverty. What must that have been like? To lose this great love but also these beautiful images she left you.” She shrugged. “I don’t know where I’m going with this. It’s just this idea that won’t let go of me. A lot of the themes of Toklas’s life overlap with what I’ve done academically. And she was a writer, too. So I could write a critical thing about her, but this feels like . . .”

“A novel,” Max finished.

“It really does. Actually, I owe you for getting me started thinking about fiction again. I’d idly thought, before, about doing something, but when you told me that wild Karina Klein story in the car on the way home from The Nutcracker, it was like something opened up in my brain.”

Well. Max very much hoped he was not blushing.

“When my lawyer floated giving up the Stein notes in exchange for Max Minimus, I thought well, I don’t have to give up what I learned doing that research. Sure, my name isn’t going to be on the book Vince writes, but no one can stop me from making up a story.”

“This is sounding better and better.” Not only did Max like the idea of all her work not being for naught, he really liked the notion of her writing a cooler, better, more popular book than Vince. He would cheerfully admit to being petty that way.

“You really think so? I admit I was feeling kind of weirdly embarrassed about telling you—which is why I haven’t. Vince thought it was a weak idea.”

“Well, Vince is a weak man,” he said dismissively.

“The problem is I have no idea how to write a novel. I write about literature; I don’t write literature.”

“Well, does anyone know how to do something until they do it?”

“No?”

“Don’t sound so confident.”

“I’m not confident.”

“Well, you should be.”

She stopped and turned again to look down at him. “I already wrote the first chapter. Will you read it?”

“I would love to.” He was flattered to be asked.

“Tonight?”

“Yes.”

She smiled almost shyly, which was unlike her. “Okay. And then I want you to read me your grandmother’s letters so I can nag you about writing a book, too.”