“Hello.”

It was Jane. Sylvia sat on the edge of the bed with her elbow on her knee, her forehead in the palm of her hand.

“Oh, hi,” she said. “How are you?”

“Well, not so good.”

“I sense some less-than-good news.”

“Where’ve you been? I’ve been calling you all morning. I’ve left lotsa messages on your machine.”

“I’ve been out.”

“Well,” Jane began, “there’s a slight problem.”

“Just go on with it. I can deal with anything right now.” She didn’t really believe this.

“I spoke to Adrian Heath this morning, just firming everything up. And as soon as I mentioned your name he said he was no longer available.”

“What?”

“Yeah … it was quite weird, actually. I’m not saying it has anything to do with you. He never said that. He just said something about scheduling problems and apologized. He was very apologetic. Very sweet. Said he’d been meaning to call us.”

“Oh.” Sylvia lay on her side and curled into herself.

“But don’t worry,” Jane said. “You’ll get a kill fee. And I want to do some more work with you down the line. But I have to go now. Call me in a coupla weeks. Let’s go lunching.”

“Okay.”

She flopped over on her back, feeling simultaneously heavy and light—heavy in the head but light in the body. She would have never thought this would feel this way. He probably hated her. That’s what. It was a shame that things should be this way, she thought, as she began to experience a kind of reverse crying—tears being pulled from their ducts back into her head, drenching her thoughts, shorting out her ability to think, causing her senses to shut down; and she began to feel that she was running on emergency power. Soon she could barely think. She could just take things in. She couldn’t react.

Jane had said she’d left many messages. Sylvia felt for the play button and stared at the ceiling, absorbing the messages as if through her skin, rather than hearing them.

“Hi, Sylvia, this is Jane … there may be some bad news about Mr. Heath. Call me ASAP.”

“Sylvia, Jane here. Need to talk to you.”

“Hi, this is Jane. It’s official. The piece on A. J. Heath got canned. Sorry about this. Call me as soon as you can.”

“Shaquita … I’m not even sure if this is your number … cause I lost the piece o’ paper that I wrote it on … Anyway, this is Shamar that you met at the Sound Factory … gimme a call, okay? Peace out.”

“Sylvia, you fucking little bitch, this is Lewis. I’ve been talking to Margaret … remember her? The little whore? I’ve been talking to her and I told her your opinion of her, and you know what? She had a coupla things to say about you. But not just you, though … you and Fire, or maybe I should say ‘A. J. Heath.’ You played yourself, Sylvia. I shoulda slapped the black offa you when I had the chance. Lemme tell you, Virgil will be very happy to know how you lied to him. Bitch, you’re history. Fuck you! Was it fucking worth it, Sylvia? Was all that fucking worth it? If I were you I would just move outta New York, cause you’re fucked here. As long as I live here you’re fucked. After all I’ve done for you … Do you know how many people you wouldn’t have known if it wasn’t for me … how many circles you wouldn’t have cracked … how many contacts you wouldn’t have made? And this is how you turn around and fuck me! Fuck you, Sylvia! Fuck you!”