She planted a kiss on Michelle’s cheek, and took off for her casting call.

Michelle stood in place on the corner of Fiftieth and Broadway, watching her friend march with a purpose down the street, her silhouette mingling with a sea of other New Yorkers, all coming and going, heading in and out of revolving doors, to work, to meetings, to lunch.

All with purpose. All with a plan.

Except her.

She huffed out a defeated sigh, then shrugged. Maybe Jack was free. Maybe he could come out and play. Entertain her for a spell. She dialed his number, but it rang and rang and rang. Clutching her phone in her hand like a lifeline, she walked towards Times Square. Perhaps she could people-watch for a while. A few minutes later, a text popped up.

J: In a meeting. Thinking of you. I’ll call you back soon, OK?

She wanted to kick herself for having been so needy, for having bothered him during the day.

Somewhere in this gigantic beast of a city was Jack, sleeves rolled up, chin down, focused on running his multimillion-dollar business. Meanwhile, she had nothing to do but stare at everyone else, and hope that someone, somewhere would need her.

“Take ten and then we’ll go through the scene one more time,” Davis said to the trio of actors on stage at the Belasco Theater on Forty-Fourth. After an hour of wandering, she’d found her way here and was waiting for her brother in the back of the Broadway theater where he rehearsed the play he was directing. As the actors walked off stage, he joined her in the seats.

Row P. Seats 101 and 102.

He ran a hand gently across her shoulder, then asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Should I take the job in Paris?” she blurted out.

He didn’t need details. He didn’t ask for them. He had his answer. “Yes.”

“But wouldn’t I just be running away, then?”

“You need a breather, Michelle. You need time and space to recover from this. Go to Paris, take the job, and let this all blow over.”

“I’ll miss him,” she said softly.

“I know,” he said, his voice soft and kind too. “But you spend your whole life taking care of people, and it’s what you love. You’ll be unhappy without it.”

She flashed back to how she’d felt in Paris. On stage. Delivering the keynote. Talking to her colleagues. She had been energized, alive, and firing on all cylinders. Here, without her anchor of work, she was drifting.

They talked more, and soon Davis gestured to the stage. “I need to get back to work. But join me later. Jill’s back in town. We’re all going to meet for drinks.”

“Sounds good,” she said, and as her brother rejoined the cast at the edge of the stage, she returned to a blank day, knowing as hard as it was, and as much as she’d miss Jack, she really ought to say yes to the job in France.