“You know, havin’ a good Christian face walkin’ around here.”

“What’s wrong with your face? You’re a good Christian.”

“Sonny thinks I’m a hillbilly.”

“You are a hillbilly,” said Jimmy Joel, “but you’re a good Christian too.”

A week later Sonny Lieberman added three more employees. One of the three was a young secretary named Billie Berry.

Billie Berry was thin, excitable, a tad bucktoothed, and borderline pretty. She wore her hair short, flapper style, and spoke with a slight Southern accent. (The accent was fake.) She thought she had a sexy smile (in truth it was faintly cruel) and great legs. She was convinced she was a movie star waiting to be discovered and acted accordingly.

The rest of the office pegged Billie for a former bartender.

Except Billy Constable. He fell head over heels in love with Billy Berry.

Billy, too smitten to detect the fake accent, thought she was the prettiest girl walking. To him, Billie Berry was a Southern belle right out of the ol’ y’all mint julep South. (South Manayunk, Pennsylvania, is where Billie Berry was really from.) Billy’s heart skipped a beat or two every time Billie Berry walked into his cubicle.

“Wanna get somethin’ to eat after work tonight?” Billy Constable would constantly ask Billie Berry the minute she stepped up to his desk with a new interoffice memorandum.

“Not with you, Billy Constable. You’re not rich enough to take me out,” Billie Berry would answer.

Billie Berry had come to New York City from outside Philly to find a rich husband. And by God a rich husband was what she was going to find. Not a damn hayseed like Billy Constable. I mean, come on, she was the cat’s meow. A real heartbreaker. A family buster-upper. A si-reen, as she was secretly fond of calling herself while staring endlessly at her naked bony body in her bedroom’s full-length mirror.

The brazenly conceited Billie Berry never gave heartsick Billy Constable the time of day. She ignored all the notes he sent her signed Billie & Billy inside the outline of a heart. Billy drew his heart outlines with a red pencil. One night, after everyone had gone, Billy Constable found a collection of his red-outlined hearts with their names inside torn to shreds in Billie’s wastebasket. He was devastated.

A month after Billie Berry joined the company, Sonny Lieberman gathered his employees together in his office so that he could make an announcement. “Our company, International Boxing Promotions, has acquired the rights to the next heavyweight championship fight!” he said.

His employees let out whoops of joy.

“The fight will take place September the fourteenth of this year, a little less than two months away. It will be the biggest sporting event of 2012.”

More whoops and lots of clapping.

“At last,” he said, “my lifelong dream is going to come true.”

More whoops and clapping.

“We’re going to use out-and-out flag-waving patriotism as the draw for this fight,” Sonny told his troops.