“That’s pretty funny,” I said, though the ease with which she spoke to me about Chris made me uncomfortable.

“Mortifying is more like it.” She shook her head as if clearing it of unnecessary debris. “OK. Less talking, more sleeping. Let’s do this.”

I checked the levels on the camera, gave her a thumbs-up, and pushed “Record.”

She slid down into the bed, turned onto her side, and closed her eyes.

Less than a minute later she flipped onto her back, lay there for another few minutes, and sighed. “Remember when I said I could sleep anywhere? That only works if I’m actually tired.”

As a joke I said, “Here, maybe this will help,” and I played “Dancing in the Dark” on my phone. That cracked her up, which, in turn, cracked me up. After that we tried to right ourselves back into work mode, but we couldn’t. October would settle back down, and I would stifle a laugh; then I would settle, and she would laugh. Finally she threw a pillow at me and said, “You’re ruining this selfie!” But she wasn’t mad, she was being playful. And right then I had a sense I was going to remember the night in some meaningful way for a long time.

I handed her back the pillow and she said, “What time is it?”

I looked at the clock above her head—it was one of those big digital ones you’d imagine a fancy advertising agency or the NYSE might’ve had on the wall in the 1980s. I’d found it in a consignment shop in San Anselmo.

“11:09.”

She sat up against the headboard again and said, “Tell me when it’s 11:11 so I can make a wish.”

I waited until it was 11:11 and said, “It’s 11:11.”

She closed her eyes, presumably made a wish, then opened them and looked at me in a way that tugged at my body.

I imagined Cal’s voice in my head: More or less, Harp?

I asked her what she’d wished for and she said, “If I tell you it won’t come true.”

We looked at each other some more.

“Now what?” I said.

“Well, since you derailed the work, it’s your responsibility to come up with something that makes up for it. This night can’t be a total bust.”

More or less, Harp?

I shut off the camera and the lights. The only illumination in the room was the soft glimmer coming from a floor lamp near the front of the studio and the weird red glow of the large digital clock above our heads.

I walked toward the bed, watching October’s face for signs I was making the wrong move. I saw none. I felt daring. And since I didn’t normally do daring things, the rush filled me with an audacity so foreign to my body it was as though I were watching a movie with Joe Harper as the star—only the Joe Harper in the movie was a hero.

I sat down on the edge of the bed, hands shaky, throat dry, wishing I had a shot of tequila. But I met October’s gaze and held it.