“Things are not looking good, bro,” Mark continued, leaning toward the screen. He looked healthy, ruddy, as if he’d just come back from tennis or a beach vacation. “You are way over budget. Way over.”

Eric picked up one of the smartphones—he supposed it was meant as a kind of softening-up, a toy to distract him, but its expensive heft gave him a sick feeling. He set the phone down again. “We can cut back on photocopying. We can advertise more, get more applicants. Getting more applicants would be great—”

“That doesn’t touch the kind of deficit I’m talking about,” Mark said. “We’re gonna have to think bigger here. Leveraging what we do have.”

“Okay,” Eric said, straightening and blinking. “I can go see Frances. She believes in our—”

“It’s beyond her means. Way beyond.”

“How can we be so behind? I mean, I know we went over budget on some things, but looking through all the paperwork, I just don’t get—”

Mark leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Eric, you’ve uprooted your whole life, right? You quit your job, you moved to a shitty motel. In Florida.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Sure, but sometimes opportunity knocks, and you get a chance to make up for all that effort. I’m talking about the chance to make real money here. It’s like payback—like karma.”

“Karma,” Eric repeated.

“Right, but first we have to show that this thing is scalable, a good return on investment for GWGW.”

“Yeah, about them.”

“About who?” Mark had turned away from the screen and was clicking away at another computer.

“GWGW,” Eric said, louder. “I don’t know that they fit the mission Marianne and I have for the school. Our instructors are asking questions.”

“The mission you have for the school, hmm, let’s see if I can remember it,” Mark said, turning theatrically back to the screen in his rolling chair. Eric wished he had another computer to be busy with, or even a chair on wheels. “Was it, let’s see, exploiting the Christian literary market?”

“Mark—”

“Was it also financing the renovation of our great-aunt’s busted hotel so that she doesn’t lose it in foreclosure? Something like that? Rescuing yourself from total financial meltdown? Getting ahead, for once in your life?” Mark said. “Also, your instructors: they are your employees. You ask the fucking questions. Not them.”

“Got it,” Eric said. It was pointless to argue with Mark when he got all Glengarry Glen Ross.

“Eric,” Mark said, looking directly at his laptop’s camera. “This was your idea. Christian creative writing program. Remember? Taking money from religious nuts? Remember that?”

“It was Frances’s idea, actually.”