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That's also science.

The teakettle whistles, and a minute later Clem joins me outside. "Wait. Fourth date?" she asks as she sits next to me on the porch swing.

"Well, sort of," I say and smooth the hem of my dress over my knees.

"There's no way you broke out the sacred dress if you're not a hundred percent sure there's a date. Who is it? I don't remember the third date." Clem raises her dark eyes to me. They're kind and tired. She moved in with me last year after the World's Shittiest Divorce. Of course I'm sorry about her terrible financial situation, but coming home to a house where another person lives has been the best change of my thirties. Clem was a godsend of a college roommate and is now a full-time geriatric nurse and a part-time bartender. She makes a living tending to human frailty.

"The date's not a who," I say. "It's a script. I've decided that today I'm having a fourth date with my career."

"Oh God, Jane. This sounds like YouTube self-help."

"No, this is coming from me. I have a meeting with Nathan this morning, and I am a hundred percent sure this script is the one that's finally going to get made. I can feel it." I don't say what I've been thinking: that this script is like an Aquarius or the number eight, just exactly right. I don't say that the universe has sent it to me to save me from the rumored round of fall layoffs. Which it totally has. I've lived in Los Angeles my whole life, and I know enough to know when I sound like it.

"And it's worthy of that dress? Wow. I hope you two will be very happy." She gives me a sideways smile and sips her tea.

"I swear I have a crush on this script," I say. "Like I might be madly in love with it." My voice cracks a tiny bit when I say this. I don't know what my problem is. There is something about this script that scares me a little. Just the heart of it. It's like I've swallowed the world's tiniest crowbar, and it's floating around inside me prying my closed bits open. To be clear, I don't actually believe in true love. I'm a grown-up. But if this script can affect me this way, then normal people are going to lose their minds.

"Is this the one where he puts his hand on his heart at the end?"

"Yes," I say. "And then she knows." I have my hand on my heart as I say it, and I swear I feel something move. "You'll see. This movie is going to make me legit."

*  *  *

I pull  out of my driveway, turn on the radio, and it's Jack Quinlan playing his number four single, "By My Side." I change the station, and it's Jack Quinlan playing his number two single, "Purple." I switch to a reliably country station and, you guessed it, Jack Quinlan. I turn off the radio. I knew Jack when we were teenagers. The whole thing was embarrassing. This wouldn't be such a big deal if we weren't two people who started our careers in the same spot and only one of us is a recently minted megastar. The other one, incidentally, is me. I have it in my head that by my age I should be doing whatever my forever is going to be. Making big career strides with a partner by my side. I should have a pet. I thought by now I'd know Spielberg and how to use my oven.

I arrive at the office before nine o'clock. The lobby is nearly empty, and I have the sense that this place is entirely mine. Pantheon Television, where I spent my adolescence on camera accidentally sitting on nachos, is a half mile away, but inside this building, I'm an executive, calling the shots. I am not told where to stand or how to act. I am a decision-maker. I check the integrity of the square knot on my dress and then say it out loud: "Decision-maker."

The elevator doors open, and no. No, no, not today. Not when I'm about to turn literally every single thing around.

"Good morning, Jane," he says.

"Don't jinx me. Just press twelve. No, I'll do it. Don't touch anything." I am supremely agitated. It's stupid Dan Finnegan, with his mop of black hair, presumably coming up from the underground parking where he's crushed his clove cigarette next to his unicycle. Of course it's freakin' Dan Finnegan. I have no proof that he travels by unicycle, but he's the kind of above-it-all, know-it-all jerk who probably pays up for cruelty-free cashew butter and then blogs about it. I've seen him around the studio, of course, since he called my last project "trash" and set in motion the events that would have it murdered, dead on the floor. He thinks I'm a little unhinged, so he puts his hands up when he sees me, in mock fear of an outburst. Oh, it's hilarious all right.