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runny, just the way I like it.
    I plopped the egg on the toasted bagel and took a bite. The yolk broke, slid through the bagel hole, and ran down my suit. The rest of the day was going to slide down a hole, too. I just didn’t know it yet.
    I got dressed again and drove to work, still convinced that it was a good day. It had to be. It was fifty degrees in February, and I swore I could smell spring—along with the city blend of smog and freshly brewed beer.
    I found my desktop piled high with mail from readers. Another sign things were going right. Ilove my mail. There’s always something to make me laugh. Today, a seventy-seven-year-old woman had sent me a photo of her cat watching
Wheel of Fortune.
A group of outdoorsy guys invited me once again to go on their annual February float trip to the Ozarks. They know my idea of roughing it is a hotel with no room service.
    I was in such a good mood, I even laughed at a letter addressed to “Francesca Vierling, Whore of the
CG”
on my desk. Jeez, I always thought I was fairly discreet. The envelope had my name printed in black letters with SS lightning bolts. The inside wasn’t quite so funny. The lined notebook paper was covered with homemade lightning bolts and shaky swastikas. The writing was more black printing, underlined with three colors. All sure signs of a nutcase. Yep. The letter was signed by the “Aryan Avenger.” It began formally. “Dear Whore of the
CG
: You liberal bitches are all alike….” I didn’t bother to read the rest.
    I wrote my column on the female impersonators and liked it so much I called my friend and mentor, Georgia T. George. Georgia was fifty-five, a small, smart, elfin blonde who wore the ugliest, boxiest gray suits money could buy. At a successful paper, she’d be managing editor. But the Gazette papers had never had a woman ME, and I didn’t think they ever would. Not without a lawsuit. The
St. Louis City Gazette
was one paper in a chain of mediocre multimedia money-makers owned by a Boston family. The publisher kept a mansion in St. Louis for his rare visitshere, but lived in the East. Decisions came out of corporate headquarters in Boston.
    Corporate headquarters made Hadley the managing editor. He belonged to the right clubs, wore the right clothes, could talk culture with the Harvard-educated publisher—when he condescended to come to town—hold his coat and tell him what he wanted to hear. Hadley was no leader. The paper was hemorrhaging circulation. Morale was poor. The staff sniped at each other instead of working together. The
Gazette
was hated in its own community as aloof and arrogant. But Hadley was a genius for two reasons: First, he convinced the snobbish publisher that these problems were the fault of the stupid readers, not the stupid editors. Second, he kept profits high by cutting expenses and staff and hiring inexperienced young reporters and copy editors. Then he overworked them. They made a lot of mistakes, but it cost nothing to run a correction.
    Georgia tried to explain to the publisher that this way of operating hurt quality, and ultimately, profits. Her career suffered for her candor. She could have transferred to another paper or a TV station in the giant Gazette chain, but she stayed in St. Louis because she loved the easy, comfortable life here, and the fourteen-room penthouse overlooking Forest Park for the price of a one-bedroom co-op in New York. At the paper, she was equally comfortable. As assistant managing editor for features, Georgia rated an office on Rotten Row, the string of private offices for newsroom execs. Each one was thesize of a shower stall and had about as much charm. But in an overcrowded open newsroom, privacy was a coveted perk. I didn’t want to be seen running into her office too often, so at work we usually talked on the phone.
    She answered her phone with a sharp bark. “Georgia George.”
    “Got a minute? Call up my column for Tuesday and let me know what you think,” I