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hostility, we are left to speculate. We are left to theorize about his parents (weak father, domineering mother), his childhood (fodder for bullies), his stature (Napoleon complex) and his sex life (nonexistent). The hostility he feels toward his fellow human beings can only be explained one way: He’s a short man with unresolved rage issues who isn’t getting any. Since Keller has never come out of his burrow to dispute this conclusion, the tales have grown more and more fantastic over the years. A mythology has sprung up in place of a person, and we are so intimately acquainted with the details that sometimes we forget that they are entirely fictional.
    This is what happens when Sarah, Kate and Allison formulate their plan. They fail to take into account the fact that Alex Keller might not be an angry dwarf looking to avenge himself on an emasculating mother figure.

The Plot
    I don’t think respect is the word to describe how Jane feels about me but I keep that to myself. I want to hear what their plan is, and they are on the verge of telling me.
    “It was Allison’s brilliant idea,” says Kate, “so she should decide.”
    Allison smiles and blushes. She’s not used to her ideas being called brilliant. “I don’t know,” she hedges, turning to her fellow fashionistas. “We said earlier that we’d only tell her if she agreed to help.”
    “But she will help,” insists Kate, who is all for spilling the beans. In a room full of cautious conspirators, she is a fool ready to rush in. “Once she knows the plan, she’ll help. I’m sure of it.”
    Sarah doesn’t look convinced, but she has ceded responsibility to Allison and is quite happy with her abdication. “I’m cool with whatever you do.”
    Allison breaks under the weight of autonomy and turns to me. “All right, but you have to swear that if you don’t want to help that you won’t tell anyone about our plan.”
    I consent to this because I’m reasonably sure that their plan amounts to nothing more than putting Nair in Jane’s shampoo and waiting for her to resign from the humiliation of being bald.
    “There is a show coming up, in a gallery in Soho,” Allison says slowly. She’s still not sure she’s doing the right thing. “It’s by one of those young British artists, Gavin Marshall. He’s the sort who fills plastic inflatable furniture with cow entrails and calls it art. His newest work is a series officially entitled Gilding the Lily, but the British press called it Jesus in Drag. It’s exactly what it sounds like,” she explains. “He dresses up Jesus statues in women’s haute couture. Although the show was a huge success in England, it was highly controversial and no style glossy over there would touch it. But we’re going to convince Jane to do a story on it anyway. There will be an uproar and calls to boycott, and the publisher will have to fire her to appease our advertisers and religious conservatives.”
    “How are you going to convince Jane to do the story?” I ask. Their plan is actually interesting and creative, but I have little faith in its successful execution. Jane McNeill might be a tyrannical egomaniac, but she didn’t fall off the turnip truck just yesterday. She’s put out enough magazines to know what makes dangerous copy. She’s worked in this business for enough years to realize that most celebrities won’t relish being in the same issue as Christ in Christian Dior.
    “That’s where you come in,” says Sarah.
    “Me?”
    “You,” Kate says.
    “Me?” I repeat, almost appalled. I can’t imagine why they think I have influence over Jane.
    Allison nods. “You’re the linchpin.”
    I’m tired of hearing about my linchpinness and stare blankly.
    After a moment of silence, during which she debates how much of her plan she wants to reveal without my acquiescence, Allison continues. “We need you to get Keller to agree to stick Gavin Marshall’s opening party on the schedule for November