An affluent university invites Lotto and three other playwrights to be speakers at a symposium on the future of theater. Lotto makes a mess of his opinions on women, coming off as a misogynistic narcissist by commenting that women’s roles as wives running the households of creative geniuses, and having these geniuses’ children, are just as valid as the artist’s creative work. Lotto doesn’t care about the audience’s response but worries when he realizes he’s messed up with Mathilde, when he was actually trying to compliment her. She walks out upset in the middle of the lecture.

Lotto wanders around to escape the wrath of the luncheon feminists and finds himself starving at a strip mall, with a lost wallet and no phone. He discovers he is without money only after eating lunch and dines and dashes. Having only ever memorized his childhood home phone number, he is forced to call his mother and have her tell Mathilde he lost his phone. This contact sets Antoinette on a downward spiral, as she loves her son almost too deeply, even if Lotto is blind to it.

Lotto makes the impulsive decision to walk the thirty miles back to his hotel room in San Francisco.