There was nothing nefarious about Steph's withholding her association to Fiske. She hadn't mentioned it around the office out of a kind of embarrassed loyalty. Rich Hauser and others found the "grassroots"—he never used the term without air quotes—challenge to the MetroBuild development ludicrous. Though the proposed high-rise did trump Evanston's current tallest building by six stories, its location by the shore meant it wouldn't affect the skyline, and all agreed the resultant job growth would be substantial.

"Erosion?" the MetroBuild CEO had sneered. "Have they ever looked down the coast of Lake Michigan? It's nothing but skyscrapers."

Steph's initial take was similar, but she allowed for the possibility that her thinking might be clouded by the opinions of the bigwigs, whose motives were far from pure. So six months ago, she'd educated herself on the science of large-slab soil erosion. There were some concerns, people worried about downstream effects, but overall the evidence seemed thin.

Without telling anyone at Dunham & Prior, she met her old teacher.

"Of course it's a canard," Fiske said. "The building is a monstrosity."

Steph faced him across a wobbly bistro table of the Unicorn Cafe, Fiske's favorite joint. "They're calling it 'neo–Spanish Renaissance.'"

"I call it too much glass, which bleeds heat, which necessitates the burning of fossil fuels to maintain office worker comfort."

He looked at her frankly. Since her time at ETHS, his wiry hair had gone an impossible shade of white, Vermont powder.

"I know our client MetroBuild has pursued carbon credits in previous projects. And by other measures—"

"How forthright do you expect your client is regarding the environmental damage it inflicts when scheming with the people it pays to write its ad copy?"

Steph crossed her legs, feeling something like mental whiplash. How many sleights can you fit into one sentence?

"Ad copy is just a piece of what we do at Dunham & Prior. We advise on a range of issues. Strategy, community engagement."

Fiske laughed. "Yes, look at us engaging now."

This seemed to break the ice—crack it, at least—and they discussed the project in more measured terms. Fiske conceded the zoning committee had stayed on the sidelines for more egregious developments. Steph admitted she hadn't considered the traffic/congestion issue, focused on erosion. But the city was already planning to widen Sheridan to six lanes, right?

After twenty minutes, Fiske said he would give the data a fresh look.

This granted, he fixed his unruly eyebrows in sharp diagonals—a look he used to flash before unpacking a student's wordy answer. "Tell me, Stephanie. Do you find the work rewarding?"

She glanced around. The cafe had emptied out. "Most days."

"You're at the peak of your abilities. The absolute apex. These years do not return. Sand flows but one way through the hourglass."

There was no responding to statements like this, of course. Steph didn't understand why Fiske was lecturing her. Brad Urquel had ended up in Big Pharma. Alessandra Kaine had turned her federal clerkship into a job with ExxonMobil. Had either Winner gotten this treatment?

Had Eric Pinkersby? It was said Fiske had convinced him to leave Facebook and found Paladin Technologies. Why? How many orphans or pounds of CO2 was a data recovery start-up likely to save?

"I don't see marketing as an end point," she said. "I see it as a beginning."

Fiske nodded. "You were active in student government. President of your class."

"And today's politics, for better or worse, are very much driven by marketing."

"That was your calculus? Means to an end?"

"No, at first...well, my dad was in advertising. That put me onto it."

Steph had no memory of her father, who had died of abdominal cancer when she was three, but her mom always said that: he was "in advertising." Whether creating ads or as an executive (only twenty-nine, he couldn't have risen too high), Steph had no idea. This link to her father, together with romantic TV associations, had given the field an enchanted place in her mind. After majoring in humanities, she had surveyed the bewildering spread of campus recruiters and settled on Dunham & Prior, a Chicago firm in the industry she had admired as a child.

Now Fiske, who knew about her father, palmed his jaw. "It's a powerful thing. A life being ripped off the arc we expect."

"Yes. It—it is."

"Do you know what initiated the Winners list? Did I ever tell?"

Steph flinched. "I heard speculation. But never firsthand, no."

He raked a hand back through his wild hair, exhaling. "It also traces back to loss. My squad mates in Vietnam. So many died, and it—and though the magnitude of the tragedy is well understood, the experience in inexpressible by number. You train together, you prepare for the worst humanity knows together. You learn about their aspirations and plans—those who have plans.

"Then they die. Nineteen years old. Twenty. And everything you've learned is moot. That they played trombone. That their father-in-law expected them to join his concrete business but they were determined otherwise. The information meant nothing to you before, but now...dead...you comb back through memory and you're thirsty for it. Every detail feels vital—a thing to cherish, a thing you insist the whole world remember."

Fiske firmed his top lip. "When I returned home, I began teaching. My students vociferously opposed the war. This didn't bother me. By that point, every rational person did. What bothered me was their utter lack of seriousness about their own lives."

He recalled a cadre of outstanding students his first year, kids who could have excelled along any path but chose to waste their gifts on drugs and apathetic musing. "I wanted to seize them by the shoulders and explain about my squad mates, whose futures had been erased. I tried—a few heavy-handed lectures that only served to make me less relevant. Quickly it became clear that I need a positive message."

His first iterations of what became the Winners list had been clumsy. He tried requiring them to draft a "Life Plan," then to write letters to their thirty-, forty-, and fifty-year-old selves. Eventually he decided to place the onus on himself, pledging to do everything in his power to help them succeed, if only they would pledge in return to pursue success with reckless abandon.

Steph said, "And the rest is history."

Fiske hunched forward gravely. "My point in telling the tale is to impress upon you my urgency—and what I sincerely hope is your urgency—about the direction your life takes. You showed as much promise as any I've taught. And I've taught plenty. Poise. Effortless leadership. Acting, debate. The mentoring program for underserved communities—still thriving, incidentally."

Warmth spread through Steph's body. "I do think about other opportunities. Certainly within five years, I expect—"

"Five years?" Fiske interrupted. "Stephanie, time is our mortal enemy. Time leeches ambition. Never forget that greatness lives inside you. No matter how far off course you stray—no matter what you've done or have to atone for in the past—greatness remains. Greatness is never beyond salvage."

The sockets of his eyes quivered, the blue pupils inside fervent.

Atone?

Fiske was an English teacher; words mattered to him. Steph had a chilling suspicion they were no longer talking about advertising.