Jane was truly a horrible waitress. She rarely made it through a shift without spilling a drink or dropping a tray, and today was no different. She had only been on the floor an hour, and she had already dropped a mug of coffee. She had been carrying the mug to Table 4 when it struck her that she needed to go into more detail about her protagonist's past before the murder occurred in chapter 4.

Luckily, it mostly splattered onto her blue skirt, and not on a customer.

Jane used to like her old-style diner outfit, but after more than a year on the job, the charm had worn off. She would have tried to find work elsewhere, only she was pretty sure she would have been fired long ago from any other restaurant.

But Dawn, the owner, liked her. And, lo and behold, the customers liked Jane too. One way or another, spilled coffee or not, people usually liked Jane.

Maybe that was why she was struggling with her villain in her current detective story. Jane was too likable. She didn't know what it was like to be detested, reviled, abhorred. How could she depict a realistic murderess if she herself had such limited experience?

The diner was in a lull, and Jane pressed her head against the window. It was a dreary day, and it had started to snow, only it wasn't the light magical snow of December. It was the wet slushy snow of February.

"Blegh," whispered Jane.

She knew it was far too soon to give up on her dream of being a writer. She knew every writer struggled. They had to struggle and struggle and get rejected over and over before greatness struck. That was what it meant to be an artist. Failing and never giving up. And Jane had no intention of giving up. None at all.

She just wished, on days like this, that Skye was around to ask her if she was a man or a mouse.

Although Skye had it easy. Skye's dream was so structured. She wanted to be an Astrophysicist, well, that was challenging, Jane would never say it wasn't, but the path was clear. Just go to school and study and research, then go to more school.

Meanwhile Jane was out here in the school of hard knocks.

Jane's phone buzzed right then, and as if Fate had heard Jane's plaintive thoughts, it was from Skye.

Call me when you're on break.

Jane sighed and thought for the millionth time how her older sister in all her brevity was truly a wealth of mystery.

"No phones, Miss Janie," Dawn snapped from the kitchen. "Focus on the humans, not the robots."

"Sorry," Jane said. "I'll put it in the back."

Liz, the other waitress on duty, rolled her eyes when Dawn turned her back, but Jane shrugged. Dawn had a point. It depressed Jane to see all the customers who came in with friends or family, only to spend the whole meal with their eyes glued to a phone.

Then again, technology was the future. Maybe Jane could write a story about a dystopia when the robots took over. It could explore the ultimate question of what it meant to be human.

Jane adjusted her waitress pad and nodded to herself. It had potential.

Nothing Jane had written recently had been terribly good. All her friends and family told her she was being too hard on herself, and Jane knew that it was natural to produce bad drafts, but it was hard. All her best ideas just weren't panning out. She had started, then abandoned two novels because she realized halfway through they weren't good enough, would never be good enough.

Her most recent endeavor had promise. Detective stories offered ample opportunity for a range of characters. But Jane kept wondering if there was too much action. Then she would try to layer in more detail and background, and then there would be no action.

Jane decided she would send some recent chapters to her dad that evening. He was always the most honest yet constructive critic. Rosalind was always too nice, Batty always got caught up in a peculiar paranoia over whether particularly annoying characters were supposed to be based on Batty, and Skye often never got around to reading anything. Although when she did, Jane had to admire that Skye didn't pull punches. Jane lost count of how many times Skye had insulted the sappiness of old Sabrina Starr, the heroine of Jane's youthful writings.

"Psst, Jane," Liz muttered. "Customers, that's your table."

"Right," Jane said. "Customers. Right, right, right."

When her shift ended, Jane pulled the hood of her coat up over her head and began the walk home. It was almost twenty minutes to her apartment, but Jane enjoyed the time to stroll the streets and think. Sometimes the most compelling bits of dialogue would strike her on this walk to and from work, and Jane would sit down on a bench and quickly jot down some notes. Once she had been over thirty minutes late for work because she came up with the most astounding exchange between her two characters embroiled in a lover's quarrel. That was when she was with Leon. She thought much of lover's quarrels back then, before she swore off love and romance.

That afternoon, Jane pulled out her cell-phone and called Skye.

"Hi," Skye answered on the second ring.

"Sing to me, oh sister, of the California sun," Jane said. "I am languishing here in the bitter cold of winter."

"Um, sun is the same as it was yesterday, and the day before," Skye said. "How are things?"

"Oh, things are plodding along," Jane said. "The life of a writer. Although I guess I can't call myself that, I'm technically a waitress. Just a really bad waitress. I spilled coffee today, and I seriously don't think this stain will come out of the skirt. Iantha told me she had a foolproof stain removal strategy, but I can't seem to master it."

"You're a writer," Skye said.

Jane smiled. Skye had a way of announcing things as if they were fact. Grass is green. The Earth is round. Jane is a writer.

"I've been thinking," Skye said. "And I've pretty much decided that I'm going to move back to Boston. To get my doctorate at MIT."

"What?" Jane said.

"Well, MIT has a great program, and I applied just to have options, and I got in," Skye said. "I thought I would stay here for my doctorate, but now I've changed my mind. I'll start in the fall, which means I'll just finish up a few projects here and probably move back by summer. Live with Dad and Iantha for a while, and then find an apartment in Boston."

"Skye, that's wonderful," Jane said. She felt a lump in her throat. "I've missed you."

"Oh, don't cry," Skye said.

"Well I have missed you, and so has Rosalind and Batty, and Daddy will be so happy," Jane said. "And it will be nice to see you and Dusek more often."

Skye went silent on the other end. Jane's eyebrows shot up. The one bright side of Jane's heart having been broken twice now was that Jane was exceptional at sniffing out heartache in others.

"We broke up," Skye said. "About a month ago."

"A month ago?" Jane cried.

Perhaps not that good at sniffing out heartache. She had spoken to Skye at least four times in the last month. Then again, no one was better than Skye at dodging emotions.

"It just wasn't working," Skye said. "I got impatient."

Skye was impatient. Which was why everyone had been so pleasantly surprised that she and Dusek stuck together for three years. That was practically an eternity where Skye was concerned. In college, Skye had a string of flings and a few one-night stands. She never saw the point in anything more serious, until Dusek.

Dusek had been so perfect for Skye. He was studying marine biology, and he was calm and polite to counteract Skye's intensity and occasional surliness. And he adored Skye. So when they stayed together for three whole years, all the Penderwicks figured that was it.

"Skye, why didn't you say anything?" Jane asked. "All this time, you've been desolate in California."

"I haven't been desolate," Skye said. "Please, let's drop it. When are you next home? I want to sort out a few things here, and then I'll tell everyone when you're together."

"I could go up week after next," Jane said. "I'll make sure Rosalind can make it, and Batty is on Spring break then."

"Perfect," Skye said.

"Anything else?" Jane asked.

Jane knew Skye like she knew the back of her hand, three thousand miles between them or not, and so Jane knew that if she asked for details about Dusek outright, Skye would clam up.

"Nope," Skye said. "Just looking forward to this summer."

"Hmm," Jane said.

"Gotta go," Skye said.

Jane entered her tiny studio apartment and sighed. She did like her studio, even if it was small and dingy, and often lacked hot water. Jane thought it was wonderful. She had taped postcards to the wall, and her bed was covered in a cheerful quilt she had picked out with Iantha. Jane was positive her studio was just like the garret Hemingway had in Paris.

She plopped down at her table and opened up her laptop.

"At last," she whispered.

And Jane began to type.