Most of it was good. Her health wasn’t a problem, he said, and as usual her ratings would soar. He saw some kind of production deal in the Far East, possibly a line of furniture, that would be advantageous for her, and it was obvious as he read for her that he genuinely liked her. She was honest, direct, and fair. Some people said she was tough, but it was mostly a standard of excellence that she applied to herself and everyone else. Valerie drove herself and everyone around her hard. She hadn’t gotten to the top of her field by accident. She had crawled up the mountain for thirty-five years, with sheer hard work and a certain kind of genius and unfailing instinct about what she did. Alan admired her for that. He loved how straightforward she was. She didn’t play games, or hide. What you saw was what you got. And he didn’t need the cards to know how upset she was about her age today. Valerie said several times that sixty just seemed so goddamn old, and now everyone was going to know. He could see that the very thought of it made her want to cry.

As Valerie listened to Alan’s reading in his West Side apartment, Jack Adams literally crawled across his bedroom floor with tears in his eyes. He had never experienced pain like this in his life. Never. Well, maybe once or twice while playing professional football in his youth, but not since then — and surely not in recent years. He felt like someone had planted a tomahawk in his back. The shooting pains went straight up to his brain and down his legs. He couldn’t stand up or walk. He made it to the bathroom and pulled himself up slowly, clutching the sink. He grabbed his cell phone off the counter and sat down on the toilet seat with a scream.

“Oh my God,” he said, as he found the number in his phone. When he saw himself in the mirror, he looked like he’d been shipwrecked, and felt a thousand years old.

Jack had been to a Halloween party the night before and had met an incredible girl there at the bar.