Lauren would just demur and shrug her shoulders. She didn’t want to blurt out that they knew her from TV. She thought that would make her seem like too much of an asshole. Lauren was the kind of ultimate success story I envied. She started at MoreTV as an intern the summer before she graduated from college and managed to get hired on as staff. After a year of learning the business, she was made a producer for the news. Someone in the news department, as she put it, “had a hard-on for her” and also gave her a shot on camera. She never felt bad talking about the guy in news because, as she put it, “Everyone had to blow someone to get a job in the business, and at least I didn’t screw him.”

Lauren was already at a table and waved to get my attention. I leaned in and she pecked me on the cheek.

“How’s the Fonz?” was the first thing I asked her.

Lauren had been dealing with her overly attentive and slightly amorous new female boss, who bore a striking resemblance to the Fonz. Or as my mom would put it, “She sure wears a lot of pants.” Lauren’s new boss was Cheryl Fox, a ball-busting executive whom the corporate powers brought in to get the cable network running, as they put it, “firmly in the black.”

“Cheryl is a freak, as usual.” She rolled her eyes.

“What’s going on now?”

Lauren took a deep breath. “Yesterday I had to go into wardrobe for a fitting for an evening gown to wear for a gala charity dinner I have to cover for work, and the girl who was doing my fitting told me Cheryl had called down to see when I would be in for my fitting.” She sighed. “So there I am, half naked, and she walked in with a ‘Hey, Lauren, I didn’t know you’d be in here.’”

“Why don’t you complain to Human Resources?”

“Because I don’t want to be thought of as being uncool.” She took a big gulp of her wine. “It’s not like she’s a guy who’s also my boss trying to get me in the middle of changing.”

“But that’s just it. If it were a man walking in on you, you wouldn’t think twice about reporting the guy.”

“I know, but I don’t want to come off as being homophobic. Maybe she just wanted to talk to me.”

“What did she ‘talk’ to you about when you were standing there half naked?”

“She was all hot about some guy she had just met and was starting to see.” Lauren made a face.