I glanced at the clock. Eleven already. Geez, I’d slept half the day away. Curse you, tequila.

“Ten minutes,” I said, downing the rest of my coffee.

I took the fastest shower on record (even though the hot water on my hangover brain felt like heaven), then quickly dressed in a pair of jeans, pink converse, and a stretchy black top with purple rhinestones spelling out the words, “Yes, they’re real,” across the chest. I grabbed my notebook and purse and was ready to go just as Millie walked in.

“Sorry I’m late today,” she said. “The bus wasn’t running on time.”

Last year Aunt Millie had driven her boat of an Oldsmobile right up onto the front lawn of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, nearly taking out the bronze statue of St. Mark himself in the process. To her credit, she promptly got out of the car and apologized to the statue. That is, until he didn’t answer back, and she thought the rude man was giving her the cold shoulder, at which point she whacked him on the arm with her purse and started questioning what his mother would think of his ill manners. Needless to say, after this incident the DMV had decided that her twenty/one-fifty vision was not entirely safe for operating a motor vehicle. Since then, Millie had been riding the bus, and the rest of us on the streets had been breathing a little easier.

I quickly directed Millie to the kitchen and made for Cal’s Hummer before Felix decided that the Informer could get along with one fewer gossip columnist on staff.

Luckily, by eleven thirty there was little to no traffic on the way into the Informer’s offices. Unluckily, the talent agency on the third floor was holding auditions for a role in the latest Spielberg movie, so there was no parking to be had for two blocks in either direction. Cal circled twice, finally finding a space six doors down. By the time we’d hoofed it back to the office, I was sweating from places I didn’t know even had sweat glands. I hated Indian summer.

Finally we rounded the building, cutting across the parking lot to the back entrance. We were halfway to the doors when I spotted my Rebel bike, parked in a space to the left of the entrance, just where I’d left it. Only, unlike the shiny, clean state I’d left it in, it was now covered in large splotches of white birdie doo-doo.

“Shit!” Literally.

I looked up to find two pigeons perched on the fire escape directly above my bike, looking innocent as anything. Damned birds.

“My bike is not a bathroom!” I shouted to them. I thought I heard Cal smirk behind me but chose to ignore him, taking my anger out on the stupid pigeons instead. “Stay the hell away from my bike. Got it?”