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who hadn’t reached her the day before at home. She shuffled the pile twice, pulling off her running shoes and sliding the Rolodex toward her. It was 8:58. Perfect. None of the agents would be in until ten at the earliest. She dialed the first agent gleefully, leaving her name after his taped message and crumpling the paper with his name on it. Soon she had a pile of crumpled messages in balls adorning the bottom of her trash can and the knot that had already formed in her stomach upon walking into her office was half the size it had been. Not a single argument, cajoling request for money or hard-sell job: and it wasn’t even 9:30.
    â€œDon’t ever abandon me like that again,” her assistant Kevin warned, poking his head into her office. He wore a short-sleeved shirt with wild green aliens on an orange background, plus an orange tie; his hair was still damp from the shower.
    â€œGreat tie,” Louey said. “Did you miss me terribly?”
    â€œTerribly, and without a moment’s relief. Queen Daisy was on the warpath the whole day. You couldn’t have picked a better day to play Camille.”
    â€œWho was playing?”
    She smiled at Kevin fondly; he was twenty-one, fresh out of college and smarter than she had any right to expect—smarter than most of the editors, right up to their fearless leader, Daisy. (Not that this was saying much; there wasn’t anyone at Regent Books who wasn’t smarter than its publisher, messengers included.) Louey knew she was lucky to have an assistant like Kevin: hardworking, brilliant, humble. Most of the male assistants resented the subservient tasks the females generally seemed to take as their due, but Kevin served her as if she were his royal liege. “What was Daisy on the warpath about?” she asked.
    â€œPick a number. Basically it was because she found some mistakes in the Berkman copy and hit the ceiling, threatening to fire the whole copywriting department.”
    â€œNaturally she’d initialed the copy herself, mistakes and all.”
    â€œAn irrelevant detail, Louey, you just can’t get good help these days. So she simply had to throw a few tantrums or it wouldn’t seem as if she really had the company’s interests at heart.”
    â€œMillicent get screamed at?”
    Kevin nodded. “It was gruesome. Everyone came out of the cover-art meeting looking like slaughtered sheep, and Millicent was beet-red. Then Daisy followed her into her office.”
    â€œNo exit.”
    â€œAnd continued where she’d obviously left off. Millicent just sat there and took it.”
    â€œShe always does. Did all these people really call me yesterday?”
    â€œDamon called four times.” Kevin raised his eyebrows at her meaningfully. “The man has difficulty understanding the phrase ‘sick in bed.’ I should have told him you were dead.”
    â€œHe got his proofs?”
    â€œI messengered them to him yesterday afternoon, as soon as they came in. He said he doesn’t like the typeface.”
    â€œHe specifically asked for that typeface.”
    â€œHe also mentioned that he hadn’t seen the cover proofs yet—”
    â€œThey don’t exist yet.”
    â€œâ€”and that he hadn’t seen the back-cover copy set in type yet—”
    â€œHe just called them in Monday.”
    â€œâ€”and that he doesn’t want the cover to be quote typical soft-core idealized faggot shit unquote.”
    â€œHe said that? Into your virgin ears?”
    â€œNo, wait. Maybe it was ‘faggot slime.’”
    â€œI’m the only one allowed to talk to you that way.” Louey ripped the paper with Damon’s name on it into tiny shreds. “I can see I’m going to have to kill him.” Louey sighed. “And what did Rifkin want?”
    â€œShe was livid. Said her book’s in the stores and why hasn’t she seen a copy yet?”
    â€œIt’s