“Donna,” Clare called after her, wishing she could chase her friend.

While she was still trying to process what she should do next, Brian rounded the side of the stage, his face pinched and pissed off. “What the hell are you doing?” He threw his hand in the air. “Get the fuck on with it already. We don’t have all night.”

Feeling trapped, Clare took a breath and turned back to the stage and the spotlight. As she stepped up to the microphone with the list in hand, she scanned the audience, who didn’t appear to be in any particular rush as they sipped drinks, talked, and in general appeared to be having a good time. At the bar, Simon Reamer was turned toward her, his face alert and his body leaning slightly forward in his stool as he waited attentively for what was to come next.

Toward the front of the bar, someone was pushing through the crowd, parting couples and groups, creating momentary gaps of space in the overstuffed room. It was Donna, her ratty messenger bag slung over her shoulder, head down, scurrying for the exit as fast as the sea of human bodies would allow.

Clare leaned into the mic and, for the briefest of moments, considered calling Donna’s name, telling her stop, come back, wait…it’s not too late. Instead she watched as Donna yanked the right half of the double doors toward herself, then disappeared into the flow of the Brooklyn sidewalk at rush hour.

Clare raised her list to eye level. “Okay, folks, up next we have…”

It was nearly two in the morning when Clare finally announced the last reader on her list. Most of the bar had cleared out, and her eyes were scratchy and raw from hours spent in a cloud of cigarette smoke. She walked down the stairs for the last time of the night and headed for the bar to collect her purse from Rachel, still washing glasses behind the bar.

When she saw Clare, Rachel tilted her head sideways toward the single booth, where the agent now sat along the opposite wall. He was one of only a handful of people still in the room. “What’s his name?” Rachel asked. “Simon? He wanted me to tell you he’d like to talk to you.” She raised her eyebrows suggestively.

“It’s not like that,” Clare said. “It’s just business.”

“Sure it is. But I was standing right here watching that guy lose his shit every single time you got up onstage to just read a name and title. I also fielded no end of questions from him about your own literary pursuits, of which I know not, and after several highballs, your personal, ahem, commitments, of which I know a little.” She smiled.

“The only reason he’s even here is because of Donna,” Clare added.