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scented candles, she worried that something was horribly wrong with her.
    Daily, she caught sight of lady attorneys and execs furiously crunching numbers and barking demands into phones. None seemed to possess some progressive enlightenment. Theirs no longer seemed like the road less taken. Penny sought a career path beyond the knee-jerk strictures of gender identity politics.
    Over the dessert course, Penny Harrigan admitted that she didn’t know what she wanted.
    Becoming a lawyer wasn’t her life’s dream. As a teenager in high school she’d been told by everyone—her parents, her teachers, her minister—that a person needed a long-term goal and a plan for achieving it. Everyone said she needed to devoteher life to something. She’d chosen a career in law as blithely as if she’d plucked the vocation, unseen, from a hat. President Hind notwithstanding, being an attorney was no more appealing to Penny than wearing a sable coat and walking two afghan hounds in diamond collars to hear Verdi at the Met. No, to be honest Penny said she didn’t know what she wanted, but she knew something … soon, some glorious destiny would reveal itself to her.
    Maxwell hadn’t asked about any of this, but he listened intently. He watched as if he were memorizing her. At one point, between the appetizers and the salad, he took out the small notebook in which he’d been jotting notes when she arrived. He opened it to a blank page. He removed the cap from a silver fountain pen and began to write, seemingly transcribing her fears. Penny couldn’t tell for certain, because his handwriting was cramped, almost microscopic. Scribbling continuously, he was either remarkably rude, or Maxwell was enormously empathetic and caring.
    Having her words recorded made her feel self-conscious, but it couldn’t silence the overflow of her pent-up anxiety. She’d never expressed this to anyone, but her life seemed to have stalled. After twenty-five years of getting good grades and behaving politely, she’d reached a terrifying dead end. The full extent of her potential. Even as she talked Penny was aware that she’d most likely never see this man again. That made him a safe confessor.
    Her relief was evident. Under his rapt gaze Penny glowed. She preened. Emboldened by his attention, she shook her head to make the piñata-shaped earrings dance. She lifted one hand to her bosom, trailing her fingertips over the sinuous curves of the jade dragon. Both accessories reminded her how blessed she was with girlfriends.
    Max’s blue eyes seemed fascinated by her every gesture. Hesmiled but didn’t interrupt. His eyes never left hers, but his hand continued to write.
    He almost looked in love. This was more than infatuation. More than love at first sight. Maxwell seemed enchanted by the sound of her voice. With his entire body, he seemed to lean forward with yearning. Something in his expression said that he’d been searching for her his entire life.
    Penny wanted this kind of attention from the world. She wanted people everywhere to know her name and to love her. There, she’d admitted it aloud. But she couldn’t do anything that would justify such massive public acclaim. She just needed a mentor, a teacher, someone to discover her.
    Standing outside the locked department store doors, Penny held the garment bag high, lest it drag on the sidewalk. She recalled each delicious course of the meal she hadn’t enjoyed. She’d been too afraid of dropping food into her lap. One itty-bitty stain, and she’d spend the next five years paying for her own sloppiness. When the store’s doorman turned the locks she rushed straight to the department where she’d bought the gown.
    Waiting at the register was the saleslady who’d helped her less than twenty-four hours before.
    Offering the garment bag, her voice as firm as she could make it, Penny said, “I’d like to return this.”
    The saleslady took the bag by the hanger. Laying it on the counter, she