High fit

Brightness is about whether you see the hopeful or the dark side of a situation. Esther McManus went through the whole night after sending the croissants oscillating between despair and hope. The version that won out — enough to call Julia's phone call a miracle and the croissants' performance a triumph — was the hopeful one. She had put everything she had into preparing for this, including practicing batch after batch every day until the moment of submission. She didn't talk herself out of trying. She leaned toward the possibility that it could work.