Chapter 7: Two A.M.

"Your nephew's a grown man," I told Norma. "Tell him yourself."

I walked out of the HR room before she could answer.

Pip was waiting by the studio door with two coffees.

"Well?"

"I'm off the line. You're on it."

She nearly dropped both coffees.

"Del, no."

"In the daytime, you're on it," I said. "At night, it's mine."

It took her about one second to understand.

Then she grinned.

That was how the night shift started.

By day, Pip ran the Thursday line.

She sat in the meetings, answered the emails, and went to the old man's office at seven to report to Leon, alone, with her lipstick freshly done.

By night, I came back.

I left at five so the guard's log showed me going, and came back up the freight elevator at nine.

And I wasn't alone.

Two artists showed up the second night with a space heater and a speaker.

By the end of the week there were six of us every night, and the studio smelled like ink and pad thai.

We were building the whole show, down to a sign for booth 1958 that Pip lettered in gold.

The junior writer came every night.

She was twenty-four and so quiet I sometimes forgot she was there.

Then she'd say one sentence and fix a card I'd been stuck on for an hour.

"This one's too nice," she said on Thursday night, holding up "Congrats on leaving him."

"It's supposed to be nice."

"No. It's supposed to be true. Nobody's nice about leaving him. They're relieved."

She was right. I rewrote the inside.

Thursday night.

I noticed it at midnight and didn't say it out loud.

At ten to two on Saturday morning, everyone had gone home except me.

I was at my desk with a pen behind each ear and a blank card in front of me.

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