Sylvia began to sing “You Go to My Head,” thinking of her wait on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Lewis hummed along, out of tune.

“No,” Margaret said, as she leaned against Phil in the cab.

“Yes,” Phil insisted. “No way.”

“Yes. Why would I make up something so stupid?”

“I believe you but I can’t believe it. Sylvia and Fire?”

“You’re not going to tell anyone, now are you?”

“Who’s there to tell?”

“C’mon, Margaret, promise.”

“Why should I have to, Phil? You can trust me.”

“You don’t sound sincere.”

“I am.”

“If I ever found out that you told someone I’d be very upset.”

“Lewis would flip if he should ever hear this.”

“Look, drop it right now.”

“Okay it’s dropped.”

chapter nine

About two weeks after seeing Margaret and Phil at the Blue Note, Sylvia received a message from a Jane Smith—a familiar name that she couldn’t immediately place.

“Did she say what it was about, Boogie?”

“Only that it was important.”

Something told Sylvia she should call.

“Q&A magazine.”

She knew the publication. An oversize, black-and-white arts and culture monthly with lots of one-on-one interviews. It was hugely successful in Britain. The U.S. edition was three years old. They used good writers. Martin Amis. Henry Louis Gates. Wole Soyinka.

“Oh, hi, Sylvia,” Jane said when she came on the line. “I’m a little frazzled here, bear with me, darling. Diego Peña referred me to you, by the way.”

“Oh, yes, I know Diego very well.”

“Well here’s the story, darling,” Jane continued. “I’d like to talk to you about doing an interview for an upcoming issue. The assigned writer called me last night from rehab, telling me he had to check himself in. God, I didn’t even know he was doing heroin. He’d always seemed more cocaine to me. But anyway, I just happened to be speaking with Diego when I got the call. He’s gonna be our March cover. And he said I should call you. Said you’re absolutely brilliant. What’re you doing for lunch today? Do you wanna meet at around say … two? I know it’s really short notice, but we’re running crazy here—there is just so much drama—and I must go now. But I must talk to you some more.”

“Aah … lemme check my schedule.”

She put the phone down and leaned back in her chair. Q&A was the kind of magazine she wanted to write for. But if she took the assignment she’d have to use a pseudonym. “Two sounds good. Where do you want to meet?”

“How about Café Beulah?”

“Café Beulah at two then.”

Jane’s purple Blahniks swept her into the southern bistro a half hour later than they should have. A fiftyish peroxide blond with short, spiky hair, she had a pale, bony face whose angles weren’t softened by horn-rimmed glasses. Wearing a camel-colored smock over black suede leggings, she toted a big leather pouch that contained, among other cargo, bottles of organic vitamins and minerals, and something labeled “Spirit Water,” which she explained to be H₂O filtered through the ashes of a long-departed Navajo medicine man.