OK, not a stupendous epic or anything. However, the red column on the bristol board has finally and not by accident but sheer muleheadedness butted up against the top line on the chart. The fact that this has occurred just in time for the e-submission is no accident. She has one day for the final edit. Maxine, who has not pulled an all-nighter since the Hamlet paper for Professor O’Dell in first year, plugs away throughout the day and into the night with section-by-section revisions. At eleven pm there’s a knock at the door; by the time Maxine answers, Gail’s car is pulling away but a bag on her doorstep is full of plastic containers of snacks to keep her going. At four she pretends it’s morning, which it is, and has a shower. At eleven-thirty (four in the afternoon, Paris time) Maxine hits send. She’s quietly sure she will win. She is experiencing that moment of euphoria that comes with the completion of a piece of writing, the moment during which the writer believes it possible that this could be not just the best thing s/he has ever written, but, remotely possibly, among the best things anyone has ever written.
