“Okay, I’ll do the promotional copy,” I answered, my hands sweaty on the glass tabletop. Below the table, I glimpsed my colleagues’ ugly shoes: cheap rubber, Roman sandals, the editor in chief’s leather boot, firmly planted while he spoke—“Great, Marcè, I feel better knowing you’re on top of this”—his elbows on the table, that Treviso accent, his posing, with Roman slang and Anglicisms. He was small and round, and dressed casually, in tans and grays. He did have his charms—he was confident, polite—and over the years he’d perfected his style, understanding that with his secure position, all he had to do was try not to crush anyone. I removed my hands from the glass table and looked down at my own shoes, through the condensation left by my palms.

Eleonora’s legs, across from mine, were stretched out, relaxed and open, like a man’s; she was wearing a pair of turquoise capri pants and elaborate sneakers with white soles and black, synthetic-lace uppers. There was a love story going on between her sneakers and mine, in among all those other ugly shoes, like two lovers in a puppet show. Meanwhile, above the table, Eleonora was tapping her left index finger on the glass, her tic: slowly tapping, like there was a gratification button there. She pushed down, pushed down again, with hypnotic longing. She deserved to succeed, I thought, and this hurt even more; looking at the round face of the editor in chief I added to myself, I hope she ruins your life, buddy—but I knew she wouldn’t. Eleonora’s gift was in holding all of life’s demands in balance, moving straight ahead, focused and strong, without distraction, through time’s everlasting night, toward the great literature of the future.

We left the office together as a group and the commuter shuttle picked us all up in the spot out front, near the automatic doors. The asphalt was already beginning to dry. The driver dropped us off at the metro station at the edge of Milan, and Eleonora headed for her usual escalator, along with two older colleagues. The rest of the group scattered and I called Barbara, my girlfriend, then strolled around the bus terminal, reading a newspaper article on my phone. It was rush hour and the Milanese didn’t linger: immigrants hauled their bags of merchandise; I focused on the girls and boys from the fashion world, their haughty gait in their expensive sneakers, and I envied the streamlined, violent way they lived through their beauty, never locking it away.