Eleanor goes into the office early, to prepare something to make her case to Mercedes that she deserves a real job, one that pays. She never knows when Mercedes will come in, so she ges to work right away. She already had her show review she wrote at Mercedes' command: now she sets to work on reviewing some gallery shows she attended recently on her own.

Mercedes doesn't come in all morning. After Eleanor has written a review for every gallery show she's seen in the last month, she keeps going, setting them up in cool fonts, making the articles visually interesting and adding graphics, until she's created an impressive 'local gallery reviews' section for the magazine. If only Mercedes would make some editorial decisions about other content, she could produce the first issue.

When Mercedes finally does show up, shortly before it is time to leave, she wants to talk about her charity art event, about making it the cover story for her first issue, which she is suddenly all fired up about. She's clearly had a few drinks today, maybe it's the liquor that has her suddenly enthused about the magazine she rarely has the time to think about. Whatever the cause, Eleanor uses the opportunity to show her the review section she built today, ready to back up this cover story about her upcoming event. Once Mercedes admits herself impressed, Eleanor explains her situation: since she won't be going to school now, the internship over. "If you want to hire me full time, I'd love to stay on, I think the magazine has a great future & I would love to be a part of it, but if you aren't interested, I need to move on," Eleanor finishes, getting just the right mix of flattery & self-promotion.

Mercedes drops the employment issue altogether & starts questioning Eleanor further about her situation. Though Eleanor would have preferred not to have to explain why she is suddenly being yanked from the school, why she actually needs a real income, Mercedes' questions are sharp & direct & demand response, "Was it a boyfriend thing that upset your parents? Or do you like girls, and they found out?" she asks, and Eleanor admits her parents disapproved of her boyfriend. Mercedes laughs throatily, "My father detested Bill, back when. Bill was nobody then, but I knew he had 'it', that he'd climb his way to the top. Thank God they didn't cut me off over it, though they threatened several times. But surely you have a trust fund, they can't completely cut you off?" the olderrr woman asks confidentially. Eleanor cringes inside to think how much she actually has in common with this woman, but again admits to the truth. Of course there's a trust fund....

Mercedes looks her over for a minute, and then tells her she's serious about wanting to get this magazine out, she wants it to be influential. Since Eleanor already did such a great job with the reviews section, Mercedes would like her to do the article about her charity event. And she offers Eleanor a decent salary, promising raises if she does well. Eleanor promises to do that & she knows of a few other art gallery openings happening soon, too, that she could write up.