We shared the joint as I described my work with Bruno, his illness, and the ticking clock. And Cortez. She said she knew of Cortez (who didn’t?), but she hadn’t heard anything about the Lucy Foundation. It so happened that she’d begun work on a long-lead piece about the New Philanthropy. She had interviewed Bill and Melinda Gates and George Soros, among others, but had been looking for a smaller foundation as a point of contrast. She seemed to think the Lucy Foundation might be what she’d been looking for.

Maybe it was the pot, maybe it was the margaritas kicking in (or the mixture of both), and maybe it was an effort to avoid what was up on the home movie screen, but I felt an almost giddy sense of hope. Here was a reporter—young, eager—who wanted to make a mark, and she wanted to make a mark with me.

We agreed to exchange numbers, but during our mutual search for pen and paper, we were distracted by what was up on the big screen.

Claudia: “Now watch how much she uses, because apparently, you want to lubricate his asshole real good . . .”

“Can we watch something else?” someone said, laughing.

The man reached back to help spread open his butt cheeks.

“Look how bad he wants it!”

The room grew eerily quiet as the blond wife slowly worked the head of the dildo into the man. When the woman gave a sudden thrust, only Claudia cheered.

Lacey to me: “You were saying.”

“Oh, I don’t know, something about the future.”

Later, as we were leaving, Lacey asked for my card. She said she’d be calling me Monday morning. “And Katie?”

I liked that she called me Katie.

“I know you think I’m drunk, but actually, I think very clearly when there’s more booze in me than blood. And what I’m saying is, I’m going to write about you and your foundation.”

“It’s not my foundation,” I protested.

“Yes, but you know what I mean!”

I was happy when I got home. Tim was still up, back from his boys’ night out, sitting at the kitchen table working, or at least pretending to. He asked how it had gone. I started to drunkenly tell him about my day, and I was fully intending to compliment Debbie’s margarita mix and even render in detail the porno movie experience when he interrupted with a simple “TMI.”

TMI was an acronym he’d picked up from his students. Too much information. “Oh, right, so I don’t have to tell you everything?”

“I’m actually asking that tonight you don’t.”

“Okay, then. The upshot? The Wall Street Journal is going to write about my work. Can you believe it?”

“That is terrific,” he said, genuinely excited.