Jack knocks Peter away from me violently enough that he almost falls. “What the hell are you doing?” he roars at Peter.

Peter hisses an urgent whisper to Jack: “He’s here! The doorman! In the living room, looking for her. He wants to kill her. The only way to hide her is to change her into what she really is, which is what she never is. If you stop me she’ll die!”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. We were watching Adam on the video just a minute ago. I look at the screen. The lobby is now empty. And that’s when I remember there’s a slight tape delay on the doorman channel.

As for how the doorman ended up inside my apartment, that’s harder to fathom. Probably a guest let him in, hoping he was some literary agent or editor.

Georgia scream-whispers at Jack, “Help him, Jack!” And she dives into my closet and grabs some items, crying desperately, “Conceal by revealing!”

My friends are upon me now, like a pack of wolves tearing at me, destroying my painstakingly artificial self—all in an effort to save my real one.

Jack strips me of my fake-fat jacket. Penelope seizes my glasses and chucks them in a corner. Peter unbuttons my pants and begins wrenching them down, both pairs at once—not the most effective method.

Behind me, Jack hooks his arms under my armpits to hold me up while Peter, changing tactics, peels off my huge jeans and then my gel pants. Penelope hides them in two filing cabinets along with my shirt and fat jacket.

I’m in my panties now and Georgia loses no time threading my legs through a black miniskirt—the one I always wear under my disguise when I go to bars for my ritual. She slips my feet into high-heeled pumps I’ve worn only once, on Halloween.

Georgia sticks her fingers in my mouth, and says, “Spit them out!” She extricates my ugly fake teeth and slams them in my desk drawer.

At Jack, she barks, “Help me with her eyes!”

Jack holds my left eye open while Georgia plucks out my brown contact and flicks it over her shoulder. They do the same with my other eye.

Georgia then grabs my face and rubs her lips against mine, spreading her lipstick onto me and wiping off what smeared around my mouth.

I’m now in my white undershirt, which can pass as a sexy top, so my friends leave it alone.

They are done with me.

Teetering in my pumps, I feel like a decorticated fruit, ready for consumption.

Peter is gazing at me, looking mesmerized, lost in some incapacitating fog of useless admiration. Georgia’s publicist, her editor, and the guy with the manuscript no longer in his bag still have not moved, transfixed.

The door flies open. The doorman looms at the threshold, staring at all of us. “What a bunch of assholes in there!” he says, pointing to the living room. “I mean, is my gun invisible? They are so blasé. Don’t they care about life?”

“Not as much as they care about their careers,” Georgia says.

He sneers. “Why does it not surprise me that these are Barb’s friends? See, that’s why I’m here—to kill the Queen of Jade, presiding over her jaded subjects. Where is she?”

He stays in the doorway keeping an eye on the guests in the living room.

“They’re not her friends. They’re mine,” Georgia says. “They’re not even my friends. They’re my enemies.”

“Why would you have them over if they’re your enemies?”

“Grim fascination. Unwholesome addiction.”

He scoffs. “Typical.”

“With the present state of the book publishing world, you can’t blame them for being desperate.”

“Where’s Barb? I was told she’s in here.”

He studies us, and his gaze stops on me. “You. Come here.”

I don’t move.

“You!” he yells, pointing his gun at me and waving me over with his free hand. “Come! Here!”

I am terrified. I walk toward Adam.

There’s a slight smile on his face as he ogles me. “Wow. You’re spectacular. I would have remembered a knockout like you coming into the building.”

I stare back at him, as expressionless as I can manage. My heart is racing.

“That would be naughty, if you snuck past me.” He smiles broadly and winks. “Should I spank you?”

I wouldn’t want him to recognize my voice, so I say nothing.

“Are you always this stupid or are you just having a blonde moment?” he asks. Then, slowly and loudly, he says, “Do you speak English?”

I shake my head.

“Dumb bimbo,” he mutters, looks at the living room, and then at us. “Okay, people, where’s Barb?”

No one says anything.

Sticking to his post in the doorway, he scans the room for places where I could be hiding.

“You,” he says to me, “open the closet. I’m sure Barb is hiding in there.”

I do nothing, at the risk of annoying him—which is still better than infuriating him by revealing I lied about not understanding English.

He repeats his order in mime.

Obeying, I walk to the closet and open it. The inside is visible from where he stands. Thank God my friends didn’t throw my fake fat in there.

“Push the clothes out of the way,” he says, miming again.

I do as he says. He can see there is no one hiding in the closet.

Then he says to everyone, “I’m going to ask you guys one more time, and if I get no answer I’ll shoot one of you randomly. Where is Barb?”

“She went to get some apples,” Peter says. Not bad for someone with no imagination.

“I don’t like liars,” the doorman tells him. “I didn’t see her leave the building. And though I did miss this spectacular bimbo when she entered the building, I would never miss Barb. I don’t miss her when she comes, I don’t miss her when she goes, I won’t miss her when I’ll shoot her, and I won’t miss her when she’s dead.”

“She’s getting the apples from a neighbor in the building,” Peter says.

“What neighbor?”

“She just said a neighbor upstairs.”

The doorman flashes another look at the living room. “Come here,” he says to Peter.

Peter approaches him.

The doorman tells him, “I only wanted to kill one person: Barb. But if you are lying to me I will kill you, too. Come closer.”

Peter obeys.

The doorman presses the barrel of his gun against Peter’s heart. “I’m giving you one last chance to tell me the truth. Where is Barb?”

A second passes, and Peter says, “I have told you the truth.”

The doorman looks at the rest of us. We nod, except for me, careful not to contradict the impression he has of me as a foreign bimbo.

“Fine, I’ll wait for her, then. Hands up, everyone. I want you all in the living room. No touching of cell phones.”

We raise our hands and file past him into the living room. The guests are chatting quietly among themselves. They watch us as we join them.

The doorman addresses the whole crowd: “I want everyone’s hands up, even the jaded people’s.”

Everyone’s hands go up. At least somewhat up. Some hands don’t go up past waist level. A few people are finishing their conversations. I happen to hear the tail end of an exchange between two men standing close to me.

“His last novel sold very well. I’ll send you his manuscript.”

“No need. I only acquire literary fiction now.”

“Ah. Well, I’ve got some literary authors, too. Here’s my card. Could we have lunch some time?”

The doorman stares incredulously at the few people who are still talking. “I have a gun, folks!” he wails. “Are you blind?”

Finally, everyone falls silent with hands at least up to chest level.

While the doorman waits for me to return from getting the imaginary apples, he cuts himself a piece of goat cheese. “Mmm,” he says.

To my astonishment, Penelope takes a few steps toward him and says gently, “Excuse me.”

“What?” he growls.

“Why do you want to kill Barb?”

“Ah,” he says, sounding pleasantly surprised as he puts down the cheese knife. “Thanks for caring. Come a little closer.”

Penelope takes another step toward the doorman. They’re no more than two feet apart.