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says, “The time to strike is now. We’ll never have such an excellent opportunity again. Think about it.” Then she straightens her shoulders and returns to the morning paper, the picture of innocence.
    I sit down at my desk and try to focus on the piece I’m working on. It’s an article about engagement rings for the wedding issue, which is fast approaching. Harry Winston, always willing to have their diamonds shot on either the red carpet of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion or the pink burlap of a Fashionista layout, has turned oddly shy. When we requested pictures of several stars’ engagement rings, they wrote back with descriptions only. The result is an awkward feature that reads like an anthropological study. Scientists are reasonably sure that Madonna’s Edwardian ring resembles this one pictured here. Jennifer Aniston’s ring with 4.5-carat emerald-cut diamonds may have looked like this ring from Tiffany’s. It’s as though these rings are dinosaurs and we’re piecing together the historical record from their bones.
    I’m trying to make the description of Anne Heche’s ring seem like something more than pure speculation when Dot calls my name. She is standing at the entrance to her office with a pile of magazines in her arms. “Your Next Meeting— Eleven O’clock,” she says, before disappearing behind a closed door.
    I sigh, bored with conjecture, and reread Jane’s memo. Although it’s a long way from agreeing to sponsor a highly visible and controversial gallery exhibit, changing her name is a prime example of irrational behavior. For the first time, I think that their plan might work. Their plan might prevail, evil might be deposed and Fashionista might one day be a happy place to work.
    Allison is right. I am wavering.

Drinks at the Paramount
    M aya orders a cosmopolitan tumbled. The bartender stares at her uncomprehendingly until she scoffs and says, “In a tumbler. I’d like a cosmopolitan in a tumbler.” He gives her another look before walking away to put vodka, Cointreau and cranberry juice into a cocktail shaker. “And no sugar on the rim,” she calls after him. “In my ongoing quest to identify, isolate and eliminate the elements in my life that are no longer working for me, I’ve recently settled on white, unrefined sugar,” she says, cutting a sliver of brie and putting it on a cracker. “I’m slowly letting carbs back into my life.”
    The bartender places the tumbled cosmo down on a napkin in front of Maya, puts a gin and tonic in my general vicinity and disappears. We are in the bar at the Paramount hotel. We always seek shelter here when bad things happen to Maya. Cosmopolitans are her comfort food.
    The last time we stepped foot in the dark, low-ceilinged room was scarcely a month ago. Maya, whose agent, Marcia, was moving to a new agency and not taking her with her, had been in serious need of comfort.
    “Yes, those are actual tears of frustration that you often hear about but rarely see,” she had said then, pathetically handing me her dear-Maya letter.
    But it wasn’t just dear Maya. “Who’s Dylan?” I ask, although I have a suspicion. I have a reasonable idea what happened. Marcia, in her haste to dump old, unproductive clients, had been remiss in tailoring her form letter. The part where it assures its reader that it has been a pleasure working with her was suppose to assure Maya, not someone named Dylan. “Can you believe that?” she says, her voice a sad whine. Her head dropped forward, depositing amber curls onto the bar. “I wasn’t even given the dignity of my own letter.”
    “At least you know you’re not the only one she dumped,” I pointed out.
    “That’s true,” she said, not prepared to laugh but no longer teetering on the edge of tears.
    Although I’m not that good at comfort, I recognize success and continued in the same vein. “And it turns what should be an out-and-out tragedy into an absurdist comedy.”
    “It is a tragedy,” she