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Leah entered my office the morning after the introduction of the Peaches series posted and set her tablet on my desk before she said good morning.

“Whatever you’re reading, it’s wrong,” she said. “The platform updated its figures an hour ago.”

“Wrong how? Overnight looked good.”

“It’s low. The new numbers are current.”

Leah was my deputy director. She ran the publishing schedule, did first review on edits, and got answers out of people who habitually waited until the last minute.

I read the new figures twice. Six hundred thousand views in less than twenty-four hours.

“We didn’t promote this,” I said.

“Zero paid reach. I checked in case anyone upstairs asks.” She pulled a chair around to my side of the desk. “The number of views isn’t the interesting part. Look at completion.”

I looked. Most people who started the episode had watched it to the end. Three minutes was a considerable amount of internet patience.

“And the shares come with comments,” she said. “Full sentences. Look.”

I scrolled through the comments. People remembered the chair. Several wanted to know whether Peaches had ever gone back for the mouse. One person had written two paragraphs about the way Trier lifted her onto his lap, waiting until she asked.

“They like him,” Leah said.

“They like her.”

“They like her, and they’re asking about him.”

She sipped her coffee while I read another comment.

“What do the suits think?”

She had it sorted already. Partnerships wanted a meeting. The website team wanted a permanent home for the episodes instead of a link on the news page. A VP wanted to know whether we could post daily.

“I haven’t answered the last one,” she said.

“Good instinct.”

“I assumed you’d want to say no personally,” Leah said.

“We could put a camera in front of her window.”

“And publish nineteen hours of an empty bed?”

“You’ve met our talent.”

“I’ve seen the footage.” She made a note. “The answer to that one is no.”

“Two a month, like the proposal says. Tell the website team yes. I’ll take the partnerships meeting and manage their expectations myself.”

She already had the next two proposed releases on the calendar. We booked the small conference room for the afternoon to work out the rest of the schedule.

I’d spent late July and half of August persuading people that Peaches could support a series. Now the job was stopping them from giving her a network.

***

The conference room was cold enough that Leah brought her cardigan. She spread the hockey schedule, Priya’s availability, and my notes from Trier across the table.

“October’s crowded.” She tapped a proposed shoot. “They land from the West Coast at two in the morning the night before the tentative date.”