Fortunately, Rona was well practiced at preventing Si from stuffing up the everyday running of the magazine. It wasn't too hard: his involvement was ordinarily restricted to making a couple of poorly-thought-out suggestions and then retreating to his desk to write his editorial (which had been growing in size and prominence within the magazine while simultaneously lessening in interesting content - no mean feat). Rona was dreading having to steer Si away from interfering in her work today because she was loathe to let anything drag her mood down; but to her delight, it was very easy to persuade Si to go off and write his editorial and leave everyone else alone. As a matter of fact, Si had accidentally suggested the subject of this week's editorial himself: after his equivocation over the use of the term 'guys' in a mixed-gender workplace, he was suddenly inspired (as he insisted on calling it) to fulminate at length on the power of words in a socio-political sense. He ruminated aloud - very loud - to himself about this for a while, before Rona suggested that it might make a good editorial (she just barely managed to avoid gritting her teeth over her use of the word 'good') - to which he hastily and enthusiastically agreed, and rushed over to his desk (almost choking on his bagel in his hurry) to start up his computer. (He was, of course, the only person at the magazine with a computer all to himself.)

Rona found, to her astonishment, that she was deliriously happy. For all her low-key confidence about not caring one way or another about boyfriends or relationships or "any of that stuff", she had taken it hard when she thought she'd been stood up. Of course, she'd blustered about it to make it seem as if it was just a matter of etiquette - but she knew, and all her friends knew, that that was just talk. She was only human, and she'd taken it personally. She'd been furious and now it amazed her how her fury had melted away as if it had never even existed. For god's sake, she had a date! She didn't dare to think how long it had been. Well, except for that one blind date . . . But it was best not to think of that. No, she was without question in a good mood - so much so that when she started writing her weekly round of C.D. reviews she found herself revising her previous judgements: what had originally been deemed painfully boring became, in her current frame of mind, merely a little uninspired; the slightly intriguing became fascinating; what she'd previously thought tedious she now decided was probably just a little too long. She almost felt embarrassed at herself for being so cheerful.

She wasn't the only one who felt a little odd about it: there were mutterings heard throughout the day of "What's she so fucking happy about?" - but then, many of the more self-centred of the magazine's regular contributors assumed that whatever it was, it was all to annoy them. Which of course it duly did - it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Rona noticed this, anyway - but decided to ignore it. Fuck 'em, if they wanted to be miserable then they could. She was damned if it was going to let it ruin her fun.