“Let me guess. Raising money, pro bono, for juvenile diabetes?”

“The only time, young lady, you’ll hear the phrase pro bono around this office is if someone is expressing a favorable opinion of an Irish rock star. No, I was doing talking points. For our Brazilian client.”

“The one who wants to relocate the Indian tribe to make room for the gold mine?”

“Uh-hum. Were you aware that in 1913, this same tribe—I can’t pronounce the name—killed two Mormon missionaries?”

“Well, in that case, obviously they deserve whatever they get.”

Terry frowned at the screen. “I know, needs work. Maybe if they fed them to piranhas or something. I’ll massage it. Want to get a pop? Defaming indigenous people always makes me thirsty.”

Ordinarily, Cass loved going out for a drink with Terry. Listening to his war stories about defending the tobacco industry with Nick Naylor.

“Can’t tonight. Gotta go back and blog.”

“?‘Gotta go back and blog.’?” Terry shook his head. “I’m offering martinis and mentoring. But if you want to go home and blog . . .” He looked at Cass with his “kind uncle” expression. “Excuse me for asking, but do you by any chance have a life?”

“It’s important, what I do.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t.” He reached out and typed. Onto the screen came the blog’s home page.

Concerned

Americans for

Social

Security

Amendment

Now,

Debt

Reduction and

Accountability

“How many hours did it take to come up with that acronym?”

“I know, bit of a mouthful.”

“She was a goddess of something.”

“Daughter of the king of Troy. She warned that the city would fall to the Greeks. They ignored her.”

“And? What happened?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Just educate me.”

“Troy fell. It was on the news last night. Cassandra was raped. By Ajax the lesser.”

“Is that why they called the other one Ajax the major? He wasn’t a rapist.”

“Whatever. She was taken back to Greece by Agamemnon—you remember him, right?—as a concubine. They were both killed by his wife, Clytemnestra. In revenge for his sacrificing her daughter, Electra.”

“A heartwarming story. No wonder Greeks look unhappy.”

“Cassandra is sort of a metaphor for catastrophe prediction. This is me. It’s what I do. During my downtime. When I’m not media-training our wonderful clients.”

“It’s none of my business—”

“Whenever you say, ‘It’s none of my business,’ I know I’m in for a five-minute lecture.”

“Just listen. Your generation, you’re incapable of listening. It’s from growing up with iPods in your ears. I was going to say, Kid, you’re young, you’re attractive—you’re very attractive. You should be out, you know, getting . . .you know . . .”

“Laid? Thank you. That’s so nurturing.”

“You look so, I don’t know, oppressed. You work your butt off here—by the way, I’m giving you a bonus for the Japanese whaler account, good work, sales of whale meat in Tokyo are up six percent—and then you go home and stay up all night blogging with people who look like the Unabomber. It’s not healthy.”

“Finished?”

“No. Instead of staring at a computer screen all night and railing against the government and shrieking that the sky is falling, you should be out exchanging bodily fluids and viruses with the rest of your generation.”

Copyright © 2007 by Christopher Taylor Buckley