I liked to be earlier than my interviewees, but I had missed the boat on that end. The maître d’ pointed me toward my usual table, the corner booth by the window, and as I approached, a blond girl in her early twenties wearing a red dress stood up to shake my hand. She was as tall as I was, and I was over six feet. After we had made our introductions and sat down, she said, “I know what you’re thinking.”

I smiled, amused. She was confident, no doubt about it. I motioned to the waiter for a black napkin instead of a white one so I wouldn’t go back to work with lint all over my pants, and said, “Please enlighten me, Lindsey. What am I thinking?”

“You’re thinking that I don’t have enough experience for this position.”

I pulled a piece of bread from the basket and buttered it. I nodded, glancing down at the résumé she’d slid in front of me. “Wow,” I said. “Mind reader isn’t on your list of skills.” I paused. “Although I’ve told you that no fewer than a dozen times, so it’s not really a stretch.”

“Look, I know I haven’t had years and years of job experience, but I think that’s a positive. I have ideas. I can bring a fresh perspective. I can do things differently.” She paused, searching my face, as if deciding whether to forge ahead. “I can shake this position up like Greer did.”

No one, ever, in the history of the world, could do things like Greer did. My face must have changed, because she stumbled.

“I mean, no. Not like Greer did. I don’t mean I could replace her or anything like that. I just mean that she brought a fresh vision to McCann Media, and I have a new perspective that I could bring, too.”

She was clearly flustered, and I almost felt sorry for her. The waiter came to the table, and I ordered a bottle of wine, something I rarely did at a meeting. I felt the smile come back to my face naturally. I had forgiven her already.

She put her hands to her face and said, “I’m mortified. God. This is not how I thought this was going to go.”

I shook my head. “It’s going fine,” I said softly. “No one will ever be Greer, but, unfortunately, we all have to move on.”

It was like the words were coming from somewhere else. The phrase rolled around in my head: We all have to move on. I almost wanted to stand up on the chair and shout, WE ALL HAVE TO MOVE ON. I hadn’t moved on an inch in the past three years. Not a centimeter. Everyone and their brother had told me that. But Lindsay’s faux pas—plus, I had to admit, Mason’s unexpected wisdom—had made me see it.

We both ordered the catch of the day, and we talked about Lindsey’s ideas. Her face changed when she talked about McCann Media. “Greer is the reason I went to journalism school,” she said. “I followed her career for years. I reread her books every six months. I admired her, not just as a journalist, but as a woman, more than words can say. She inspired me so much.”