Alex：Happy birthday.
Kate：Thank you.
Alex：I hope it's a great year for you.
Kate：Thank you.
Alex：I'm Alex. The lake-house guy.
Kate：Oh, yeah. How you doing?
Alex：May I?
Kate：So you're gonna - You're gonna find us a place on the lake, huh?
Alex：I hope so.
Kate：Yeah.
Alex：lf I can.
Kate：You're a real-estate agent?
Alex：No, I-- I just have a lake house.
Kate：Is it nice?
Alex：Yeah, you'll love it. You're gonna rent it after I move out.
Kate：Oh, really?
Alex：Kate, have you read Persuasion?
Kate：What?
Alex：By Jane Austen.
Kate：I know who it's by. Yeah, it's...It's my favorite book. Why did you bring something like that up? What made you bring that up?
Alex：I just - a friend of mine gave it to me recently, and I was wondering what it was about.
Kate：It's... It's wonderful. Yeah.
Alex：Yeah. It's about....
Kate：About waiting. These two people, they...they...they meet. They almost fall in love, but the timing isn't right. They...they have to part. And then... years later, they...they meet again. They get another chance. You know, but they don't know if too much time has passed. lf they waited too long, if it's...you know, too late to make it work.
Alex：Why do you like that?
Kate：I don't know.
Alex：Don't get me wrong. It's beautiful in a kind of...
Kate：No, it's terrible.
Alex：It's terrible. That's terrible.
Kate：It's terrible.
Alex：That's...
Kate：Yeah, it's...that's terrible.
Alex：It's a personal question...but have you ever been through anything like that?
Kate：Me? No. No, no.
Alex：No.
Kate：When I was...When I was 16...I was completely in love with this guy. He played guitar
...and I ran away from home... and went to San Francisco so I could go live with him. Yeah, he convinced me I had a beautifuI voice...and I dreamed of becoming a singer.
Alex：I love San Francisco.
Kate：Yeah, he was... He was my first love. Probably the only one.
Alex：He must have been a great guy.
Kate：I don't... I don't know, I...He may have been. lt didn't last long enough for me to find out. Yeah. Truth is, I...I can't even remember what he looked like.
Alex：Really?
Kate：Yeah.
Alex：Then that's too bad.
Kate：My dad... My dad showed up, actually.
Alex：You were in trouble.
Kate：He came in. Yeah, I was in trouble. He yanked me back to Chicago. Yeah. And he was sick, and he...He had these...these dreams of me becoming a doctor, you know? You know, and eventually, they became my dreams too. He was right. You know, I...I feel good helping people. Then he died.
Alex：Kate.
Kate：What?
Alex：l...
Kate：You...?
Alex：I just...
Kate：What?
Alex：Do you know this song?
Kate：Yeah.
Alex：Do you sing?
Kate：No. No body wants to hear me sing. You don't wanna hear me sing.
Alex：I... I didn't mean, you know...
Kate：But...
Alex：Yeah...
Kate：But I can dance.
