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even been aware of Craig’s presence until Lucy introduced him. He was fairly easy to miss, so fair and slight he practically faded into the wall behind him. Craig looked as if he hadn’t had a decent meal or a good night’s sleep for some time. His eyes were sad and brown and his clothes hung lifelessly from his bony frame. So I was shocked when he said, “Nice to meet you, Angel,” in a rumbling baritone. Craig had a radio star voice trapped in a milquetoast body. Just one more in a growing list of peculiarities here, I thought.
    â€œWell, why don’t we sit down and get started?” Lucy said, gesturing for me to sit on the couch. Craig positioned himself on a chair next to me, holding a legal pad on his lap. Lucy sat down next to me, so close our knees were almost touching, holding a small pad of her own.
    â€œNow, where’s your résumé?” she said to nobody in particular. “Nora!” she yelled toward the door. “Can I have this woman’s résumé please?”
    Nora appeared at the door and said, “It’s on your desk, Lucy.”
    â€œIt most certainly is not.”
    Nora shuffled over to Lucy’s oversize glass desk, removed a sheet of paper, which I immediately recognized as my résumé, and handed it to Lucy.
    â€œNora, it would help me a great deal if you didn’t
hide
these things, don’t you think?” Lucy said. Nora simply sighed and left the room.
    â€œOkay,” Lucy began, “Angel Robinson. What a name! Surely that’s not your real name. You must have changed it, yes?”
    â€œNo, no, that’s my real name. From birth.”
    â€œThen maybe you
ought
to change it. I mean,
Angel
of all things. Quite a title to live up to, I’d think.”
    â€œWell, my mother…She saw me as her little angel, she said, when I was born, and so she thought, I mean…” I trailed off into an awkward silence. The truth was, I’d always been embarrassed by my name. It didn’t help that the mega-bestselling book
Freakonomics
listed Angel as the number one “white girl” name that best indicated parents who were uneducated. I hoped Lucy hadn’t read
Freakonomics
and resisted the urge to wipe my hands on my dress. My palms were slick with sweat and I could feel the prickle of perspiration on my lower back.
    â€œNames are very important,” Craig said suddenly. Again, I was startled to hear such a deep, sensual voice coming out of such a mouse of a man. I didn’t know if I’d be able to get used to it. “My wife decided to hyphenate our names so that she could keep her own identity,” he added.
    â€œHyphens are even worse,” Lucy said dismissively, and then stopped short as if something important had just occurred to her. “Do you have a
husband
?” she asked me, her tone making
husband
sound a lot like
herpes.
    â€œNo, no. I mean, I have a boyfriend—fiancé, actually—and he…” He what? I cursed myself. Is writing a book? Would love to be represented by you? How was it possible that I had spoken no more than a handful of words and was already in such a deep hole? And why had I referred to Malcolm as my fiancé? The two of us hadn’t even come close to making any official plans to wed.
    â€œAre you planning to get married sometime soon, then?” Lucy asked. “I mean, I’d hate to offer you a position and then have you disappear on a honeymoon or something. Or get pregnant. You’re not planning
babies,
are you? Little Angels, as it were? Because we can stop right here if you are and not waste any more time. Time is money here and I don’t have nearly enough of it to squander.”
    â€œActually, we haven’t really set a date.” I could hear my own voice getting smaller in my throat. “And I haven’t even begun to think about children.”
    â€œGood,” Lucy said, “because this is an