When she got to work, her secretary Boogie Boo brought her breakfast. As usual, carrot juice and a bran muffin. This morning she couldn’t have it though. She was in the mood for some cornmeal porridge.

“Syl.”

“Yes, Boogie Boo.”

“You need to be with Virgil in ten minutes.”

She checked her watch. Twelve-fifteen. What had she done all morning? She glanced around her office, a big space with gray carpeting, black cabinets, and stackable chairs piled high with papers. What had she done all day? Nothing. Nothing except think about her weekend. Lewis. Ian. And Fire.

Boogie Boo—it was not her real name but she insisted on being called that—knocked on the door and entered.

“Which Virgil do we have today?” Sylvia asked. “The good one or the bad one?”

Boogie Boo twirled one of her orange braids and wrinkled her upturned nose. Slim-hipped and dark, she was twenty-four and counted among her “things” music/dance/performance poetry/acting/modeling and aerobics instructing. This was just her day job.

“Come on, it’s a Monday. Whadyou think?” she replied, leaning against the door. She was dressed in thrift store crimplene—a sky blue leisure suit—and white platforms to match her nails. “I heard—and I can’t say who told me, so don’t ask, cause you know I’ll tell and that would just be wrong—that he’s really pissed about that New Orleans feature. That whole Congressman DeVeaux thing. Didn’t I tell you it wasn’t gonna fly? But you don’t listen to me. Nobody listens to me around here. Y’all people just don’t like to listen. It’s the man’s magazine. Why argue? He’s the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief, not to mention Führer, Il Duce, and Pope.”

Sylvia sucked her teeth and fanned Boogie Boo away before she made her laugh.

Boogie Boo raised her brows and shrugged. “By the way,” she said, as she was about to leave, “if you’re not gonna have that muffin, can I have it? I have the serious munchies today. I got so fucking blunted this morning, you wouldn’t believe.”

Sylvia took a minute to relax, then went down the hall to the publisher’s office, taking care to announce herself before taking a seat in one of the red leather wing chairs in front of Virgil’s giant oak desk.

Virgil was standing by a huge picture window behind his desk, smoking a cigar and looking out on Rockefeller Center, his hands clasped behind his back, black wool crêpe suit draping from his shoulders, his bald pate swelling out of the collar of his white shirt like a bare bulb extruding from the socket of a plastic lamp. Imperious, he let Sylvia’s greeting hang in the air a bit before acknowledging it. Then he turned around, sat in his chair, balanced his bifocals on his Roman nose, and trained his icy stare on her.

“Everything looks great about the Black New Orleans feature,” he began in his low mumble. Furrows raked his forehead. “Except for one thing—we can’t fuck with Congressman DeVeaux like this. If we run this, niggers’ll lose their minds.”