Duncan bent down and scooped up my backpack from below the table. “Can’t be overdue for Mr. Shoup. ” He checked out me back as I walked down the corridor on legs that felt like they’d been bring to an end a useless individual and stitched onto my hips. “Do you've any substantial spring-break plans? ” “Not really,” I stated, and pasted Amber Gross’s smile on my face and walked down the hallway wishing there have been an Amsterdam for almost-thirteen-year-old ladies, a spot i may run to and consume pancakes with apples and raisins, a spot the place i'll move, and alter my identify to Annika, and not come domestic back. 11 Peter kissed me see you later and dropped us off at 30th highway Station on his strategy to paintings Thursday morning. contained in the cavernous, echoing, high-ceilinged chamber, I slid my bank card into the automated price ticket computer. as soon as it spat out 3 tickets, i purchased a wide iced espresso, cakes (one blueberry, one corn), and the newest Us and InStyle and other people. At ten-fifteen pleasure and Elle and that i boarded the Acela, which might get me to manhattan urban in lots of time for my one o’clock lunch with my agent and writer, and for pleasure (currently on spring holiday) and Elle (currently on a hiatus of unspecified period) to spend the afternoon buying. the 2 of them took seats part via aspect, grew to become down my truffles, and spent the hour and fifteen mins of the journey with their heads bent over Women’s put on day-by-day and trend, whispering to one another, marking the pages with Post-it notes and infrequently having a look sideways at me and laughing. i used to be too preoccupied to care. regularly whilst I went to my publisher’s, my editor, Peyson Horowitz, referred to as in for sandwiches, and we obtained sodas from the merchandising laptop down the corridor. at the present time, even though, I’d be eating with my agent at Michael’s, unofficial cafeteria of the media international. it'd be the 2 people, she’d instructed me, plus Patsy Philippi, the writer of Valor Press, which had released all of the sci fi I’d written for the final ten years, in addition to giant women Don’t Cry. I acknowledged see you later to my sister and daughter at Penn Station, and that i walked slowly to the eating place, figuring out that no matter if I dawdled, I’d be embarrassingly early. I browsed at a newsstand, had one other iced espresso, and marveled on the girls passing via, all gym-tight our bodies and ideal hair. within the espresso store rest room, I washed my arms and studied myself within the reflect, wishing that I’d swiped Joy’s straightening iron, the only I’m now not speculated to learn about, or that I’d borrowed her lipstick (not purported to find out about that, either), or that I’d accredited Elle’s supply of a few aid with my make-up and outfit choice, as the outfits that had seemed completely applicable that morning in Philadelphia—the instantly black skirt and occasional black heels, the grey cotton blouse and the necklace of faceted jet-black beads—now appeared dowdy and boring. My agent, Larissa, waved to me from beside the maître d’s stand and kissed me on either cheeks, a contemporary affectation, i presumed. I air-kissed again, making an attempt to not stare on the aged girl broadcaster ensconced at a desk for 4 by way of the window, whose well-known face were lifted such a lot of instances that her eyebrows and her hairline have been roughly within the comparable position.