I should be feeling one hundred percent confident. In the portfolio resting beside me are my originals, ready to be displayed on the conference table, the same way I’d done yesterday during my practice run in the cozy familiarity of the shop. On top is my tablet and the adapter I purchased especially for this, ready for the projector I’d gotten an e-mail confirmation about two days ago from a Make It Happyn assistant (who was not Daniel). On my body is a trendy, dark denim A-line dress, accessorized with a sunny yellow belt and brushed-gold bangles on my wrist, hoops in my ears. And most importantly, in my head is the pitch itself, practiced and refined, praised by my small audience of friends in the shop.

But something is off.

Not for the first time today, I’m tempted to break a promise to myself, to pull out my phone and check my messages. But over the last two days, ever since South Street Seaport, all it’s been is a distraction, a preoccupation, almost a compulsion. I’ve been checking it too regularly, staring at the messages from one particular person, looking for something hidden in the bland, polite words that have come through.

Each time I’ve gotten one, I’ve felt a creeping sense of dread, familiar to me from months of similar polite brush-offs from Sibby. I cling to the two phone calls Reid and I have had in between these messages—one yesterday afternoon right after my practice run, and one at 7:05 this morning, precisely five minutes after my alarm had gone off. During both, he’d told me how sorry he is for having to work. He’d told me he misses me. He’d asked if I was ready, if I was nervous, if I’d been stretching. He’d deflected when I’d asked him if he was all right. “Busy,” he’d said. “Tired.”

Last night, when I’d been doing a final run-through alone in my apartment, my intercom had buzzed, and my heart had skipped a beat in hopeful excitement. But it’d only been a delivery—a dozen yellow roses, a card with unrecognizable handwriting. Meg, it had read, in the messy script of some flower shop employee. You’re ready for this. We’ll celebrate your pitch tomorrow, I promise.—Reid

But I’m not reassured about that promise. We still haven’t gotten to the other one, after all.

I’d tossed the card, kept the flowers.

Nothing’s off, I reassure myself, plaiting my fingers in my lap. You are ready for this. You want this. Don’t get distracted. Don’t let yourself get blocked.

I concentrate on my breathing, counting out my exhales. Briefly, I close my eyes, taking Cecelia’s suggestion from yesterday that I visualize myself in the room, presenting confidently.

“Meg?” a woman’s voice says before I get all that far in my visualization.