“Guess what!” she enthused.

“I have no idea.”

“Go on, guess!”

“I don’t want to guess,” I told her, hoping the tedium in my voice would send out a few warning bells. It didn’t.

“No, you must guess!”

“Okay,” I sighed. “You’ve got some new beads or something.”

“Wrong,” she said, producing a paper bag with a flourish. “I got you the bacon roll you wanted!”

“I never would have guessed that,” I replied, sitting before a desk that seemed to be flooded with new memos and reports, adding, in an unthinking moment, “How are things with you?”

“I didn’t sleep very well last night.”

I rubbed my forehead as she sat down and stared at me intently, hands clasped nervously in front of her. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that my inquiry over her health was merely politeness. I didn’t actually want to know. Quite the reverse, in fact.

“Really?” I said, trying to find a memo that might be vaguely relevant to something.

“No. I was thinking about the Minotaur incident yesterday, and I want to apologize—again.”

“It’s past history. Any messages?”

“So I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted. Now: Any messages?”

“I wrote you a letter outlining my apology.”

“I won’t read it. The matter is closed.”

“Yes…well…right,” she began, flustered that we weren’t going to analyze the previous day at length and trying to remember everything she’d been told that morning. “Mr. Buñuel called to say that he’d completed the refit of Pride and Prejudice and it was online again this morning. He’s got Northanger Abbey in the maintenance bay at the moment, and it should be ready on time as long as Catherine stops attempting to have the book ‘Gothicized.’”

“Good. What else?”

“The Council of Genres,” she announced, barely able to control her excitement. “Senator Jobsworth’s secretary herself called to ask you to appear in the debating chamber for a policy-directive meeting at three this afternoon!”

“I wonder what the old bore wants now? Anything else?”

“No,” replied Thursday5, disappointed that I didn’t share her unbridled enthusiasm over an appearance at the CofG. I couldn’t. I’d been there so many times I just saw it as part of my duties, nothing more.