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Black Panthers.”
    â€œI didn’t get to Tom Wolfe till Bonfire of the Vanities .”
    â€œRadical chic, Wolfe called it,” I said. “These upper-class Manhattan liberals—this is how it goes—they had so much money they could afford to feel guilty about how lousy it is to be black in America. So who do they identify themselves in public with? The most radical and maybe violent edge of the black movement. The Panthers. But it was their money that made the posture possible.”
    â€œThe way you’re putting it, that comparison, Cameron Charles sounds like a dabbler.”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “He’s consistent, give Cam that. His clients, for one thing, and a couple of years back, he went on some kind of task force to El Salvador. And he’s in the Globe every five minutes with letters about the Palestinians, the Tamils, black South Africans. All of a piece, the minority thing.”
    â€œThat makes the Alternate Festival make sense.”
    â€œThere you go, honeybun,” I said. “That the background stuff you were looking for?”
    â€œAnd so charmingly done.”
    Annie’s drink was trickling down the sides of her wine glass and soaking the paper coaster underneath. She looked at the pocket watch on the chain around her neck and read the time.
    She said, “Charles’s press conference and lunch is getting going about now.”
    â€œBeats me how you can read that thing upside down.”
    â€œPractice,” Annie said. “First couple of months I had it, I used to turn up an hour early or an hour late for appointments.”
    â€œWhere’s the lunch?”
    â€œIt’s a press conference too.”
    â€œMatter of priorities.”
    â€œBoth are steps from here.”
    Annie dropped her notebook into a cloth shoulder bag knitted in greens and blues. The notebook disappeared. Prince Edward Island would have disappeared into the shoulder bag.
    I said, “Whole world’s steps from here. You have that impression?”
    Don and Karen had attained the moment of decision.
    â€œNo changing at the last moment,” Karen said to Don.“Once I mark it, this is final. The David Lynch, okay?”
    Annie looked at the two kids.
    â€œAre you talking about Sunday morning?” she asked.“David Lynch’s new movie’s on when the Truffaut series is running?”
    â€œIt’s Stolen Kisses on then,” Karen said, a little tremor in her voice. She seemed awed to be addressed by the woman who had sat with Roger Ebert. Guess she’d changed her mind about the boring press.
    â€œAnd you guys are choosing the Lynch?” Annie said.
    â€œWell, yes,” Karen answered. “But, like, there’s arguments on both sides.”
    â€œStick to Lynch,” Annie said. “Good choice.”
    I paid the bill and kept my mouth shut.

6
    A NNIE SAID , “Cameron Charles goes first cabin.”
    The long tables in front of us had starched white cloths that were covered in goodies fit for kings and press. Platters of fat oysters in crushed ice. Little squares of quiche in chafing dishes, smoked salmon. Three or four salads, one with hefty chunks of avocado. Two guys in tall white chef ’s hats and long white chef ’s aprons were standing behind the tables. One was slicing a roast of beef cooked rare, and the other was slicing a roast turkey cooked tender. The champagne wasn’t domestic and it wasn’t the ersatz Spanish bubbly. It was Veuve Clicquot.
    Forty or fifty invitees were munching and slurping and milling around the room. It was the largest of the conference rooms that open off the west corridor in the Park Plaza Hotel. There was thick green carpeting on the floor, and down at the far end of the room, a lectern and a microphone waited for someone’s use, probably Cam Charles’s. Cam was nowhere in sight, but a sextet of tall and immensely chic young women