Jack walks on the pier. Seeing a shell caught in a net, he flashes back to the moment he gave Marin the shell she's been wearing as a bracelet, but just when you think his heart is growing three sizes this day, he takes the shell currently in his hands and hucks it, like, a mile out into the water. Easy, there, Joan Crawford.

Marin meets Stuart at a cloth-napkin restaurant. He starts out by making with the compliments, quoting her a line from her story that made him want to take a cruise to Alaska. Marin says she's flattered, and Stuart spreads his hands: "Sign with me." She chuckles, and he asks, "Too pushy?" She says she likes it. Stuart orders some fancy-pants wine (the name of which I recognize from a Beastie Boys song, hee), and then asks Marin how she ended up writing about men in Alaska. She tells him about her last book contract dying along with her engagement from Graham, which left her in Alaska, writing about something else. "Cold feet," muses Stuart. "Yeah, he was warming someone else's," cracks Marin. Stuart says he was actually just suggesting a title (which: taken). Marin's embarrassed (by that, and not by the sordid tale of Graham cheating on her --whatever), and Stuart tells her not to worry about it; he likes to know all about his authors' personal histories. Marin asks if that means Stuart thinks she's going to be one of her authors, and Stuart smarms that she should be somewhere she feels safe and understood. Marin says that's why she's moving back to New York. Stuart fishes for information, asking if she isn't with Jack anymore, and Marin says that she and Jack "were never anything." Stuart says that makes her an even better writer than he thought: "That was quite a love letter you wrote to him." Marin shrugs that she's not dating, since she's still trying to get over Graham. Stuart says he's surprised that Marin's not staying in Elmo, since it seems to be where she gets her inspiration. "Everyone seems to want me back here," says Marin intensely. "But what do you want?" asks Stuart. You to shut up should be high on that list. Man, this dude is a wheel of cheese.