She felt a terrible wave of pride swell up inside her, and she leaned her elbows on his desk with as much casual arrogance as she could muster. “Let me guess,” she said. “The announcement we’ve been waiting to hear for the past twelve months: Dinner Conversation is on the way out. Correct?”

He glared at her, not even grateful that she’d done him the huge favor of making this unhappy announcement. “Correct. I’m truly sorry.”

She tossed it off. “The only surprise is it didn’t come sooner.” Her legs were beginning to feel peculiarly heavy in the chair, and the strange gray light was making her slightly dizzy. “When?”

“We figure we’ll do the last show sometime in early January.”

That was a blow. In the last few seconds, she’d done some calculating and had concluded the show would probably run for another six months. “That obviously means you have a replacement lined up.” She nodded, trying to look impressed by his skills and foresight. “What is it?”

“We’re working on a few ideas, nothing final. I’m sorry, Jane, I know how much this show has meant to you over time.”

“Granted, it has a certain nostalgic appeal, but I’m not about to shed tears over it. I’m going to need more time to devote to the series, so it all works out pretty well. How’s Mara?” Toss her into the conversation just to remind him that he had problems, too. Just to balance things out here. Just to change the subject.

“I’m afraid I have another bad piece of news for you.” This time he got up and went to the window where unpromising slashes of rain were beginning to strike the glass. “I heard last night that the funding we’d been counting on from the station has been turned down.”

“Oh, really? Well, I’m not . . . shocked. I’ve got proposals out to about thirty-five other foundations, so this was really just a small bit of seed money.” The small but essential seed money, the money she’d been counting on to pay back her loan from Dale.

David leaned against the window and folded his arms across his chest, telling her, without actually saying it, that the meeting was over and she should get up and leave now. There was some kind of new and awful selfconfidence in this gesture. All the years they’d been working at the station, he’d been her boss, but somehow, she’d always felt she had him in her pocket. She thought for a moment that perhaps she should just sit there and make him all the more uncomfortable, but he didn’t look uncomfortable at all. She’d be reassigned to another show, but unless it was her own, unless it was the series, she’d be starting at the bottom again.