“Freezing my ass off, thanks. You gonna let me in?” She laughed again and rapidly pressed the buzzer, and a moment later she could hear him bounding up the stairs. When he arrived in her doorway, Charles Peterson looked more like a lumberjack than the art director of Crane, Harper, and Laub, and he looked more like twenty-two than thirty-seven. He had a full, boyish face and laughing brown eyes, dark shaggy hair and a full beard, which was now dusted with sleet. “Got a towel?” he said, catching his breath, more from the cold and the rain than from the stairs.

She rapidly got him a thick lilac towel from her bathroom and handed it to him; he took off his coat and dried his face and beard. He had been wearing a large leather cowboy hat that now funneled a little river of ice water onto the French rug. “Peeing on my carpet again, Charlie?”

“Now that you mention it… got any coffee?”

“Sure.” Sam looked at him strangely, wondering if anything was wrong. He had come to visit her once or twice before at the apartment, but usually only when something major was on his mind. “Something happen with the new account that I should know?” She glanced out at him from the kitchen with a worried look, and he grinned and shook his head as he followed her to where she stood.

“Nope. And nothing's going to go wrong. You've been on the right track with that all week. It's going to be fabulous, Sam.”

She smiled softly as she started the coffee. “I think so too.” The two exchanged a long, warm smile. They had been friends for almost five years, through countless campaigns, winning awards and teasing and joking and working till four A.M. to coordinate a presentation before showing it to the client and the account men the next day. They were both the wunderkinder of Harvey Maxwell, titular creative director of the firm.