Bernadette pushed the lock of hair that had fallen in front of her face behind her right ear with her index finger, and continued to page through the large folio volume on her desk. Her chin was in her left hand, and she turned the heavy, glossy pages with her right. Behind her, the lights of Manhattan burned in a picture-postcard skyline view so dazzling to out-of-towners that it was hard to believe one could become accustomed to it. But one could. Bernadette hardly even noticed it anymore. To her, a city view was merely synonymous with being in her office. With ... work.

It was a catalog of stock photography that Bernadette leafed through. Stock houses mailed these enormously expensive catalogs of available images to ad agencies for use in advertising and promotion projects, and Bernadette was on the mailing list. She would pass the catalog on to the art department in the morning. But right now, Bernadette scanned the sample photos, the perfect-looking people in perfect-looking situations, in photographs organized into sections: "Prime of Life," "Mature Couples," "Rest and Recreation," "Family/Holidays," "Business and Industry." There were shots of happy, gray-haired senior citizens biking through fall leaves, multicultural volleyball games of movie-star-handsome men and model-gorgeous woman on the beach, and endless pages of happy, chubby babies and puppies and kittens.

Images of perfection. Why is it that working in advertising can be so ... depressing? Because the visual depictions of happy, fullfilled, perfect worlds that make up the imagery of advertising can be cruelly fake. At least that's what Bernadette thinks in her "down" moments. Like now.

It was nauseating, Bernadette thought bitterly. And yet, part of her wished dearly that life itself could be organized as neatly -- and as attractively -- as the images in a stock photo collection. Even a new hairdo couldn't pull her out of her deep-blue funk. "Evening, Miss DaCapo," a male voice boomed, coming from the direction of Bernadette's closed door. Bernadette jumped with fright and closed the stock photo catalog as though she'd been discovered looking at a secret diary. "Oh, Gilbert, it's you!" she faked pleasantly, relieved. Being in the office suite alone at night always gave her the creeps, and put her on edge. "Is it that late already?"

"'Fraid so. You're outta here! Go home! Get a life!"

Gilbert was an aspiring actor who worked for the service that cleaned the building's offices nightly. In time-honored New York "theater people" tradition, he spent his days auditioning and evenings running a vacuum cleaner in a midtown skyscraper. But he was always cheery, and Bernadette thought of him as a sort of favorite nephew.

"I'm trying to get a life, Gilbert. Honest. If you only knew. What about you, speaking of getting a life? What's up?"

"I'm in the running for the role of Mark in the road company of Rent, Gilbert said, sticking the feather duster he'd been holding in the back pocket of his jeans so that it stuck out like a rooster's tail feathers. He picked up the black wire mesh trash can next to Bernadette's desk and emptied it into the large dustbin on wheels that he'd rolled into the office. It was full of newspapers, which Gilbert knew that, technically, he was supposed to collect for the recycling bin. But he'd long ago decided life was too short for that.

"That's great," Bernadette said, encouragingly.

"Yeah," Gilbert said, spritzing Bernadette's glass coffee-table with a large, economy-size bottle of Glass Plus. "I've been taking singing lessons with the same guy who coached Madonna for the Eva Peron role in the movie version of Evita. And honey, if he can help that poor child, he can do anything!"

"Well, good luck. But you don't need it. I'm sure you'll get the part," Bernadette replied absently. She pulled on the jacket to the tailored Versace knockoff suit she'd bought on a sale rack at Loehmann's -- which, on Bernadette, looked better than the real thing on most women -- and walked toward the office door, patting Gilbert on the shoulder.

"You okay, Miss DaCapo?" Gilbert asked, concerned, sensing her sadness.

Bernadette couldn't believe how close she came to confiding to this ... this child ... that -- on top of absolutely everything else in her life ... she was three weeks late. Bernadette was sure she was pregnant.

"Sure, I'm fine. But Gilbert? Do me a favor. Don't call me 'Miss DaCapo.' It makes me feel so old. Okay?"

"You got it, girlfriend!" laughed Gilbert, hitting the "On" button on his Hoover upright with his foot. Bernadette walked down the hall, the roar of the vacuum cleaner fading as she neared the elevator lobby. It had been a long day, and it wasn't over yet. She was meeting her lawyer, Harold Schwendt, at a local hotel bar for drinks. It had been Agnes's suggestion that Bernadette get some confidential legal advice about how to proceed with the Hollis Burns matter. Hire a detective? Write off the $100,000? Call the police? None of the options were pleasant -- but Bernadette had to do something. The elevator reached street level, dinged open, and Bernadette stepped onto the polished green marble floor of the lobby at 475 Madison Avenue.

You think YOU'VE got problems? Bernadette, try living on $7.50 an hour in New York -- a town where a gym membership cost more than your first CAR!

"Night, Miss DaCapo," Bernadette heard echoing from the far corner of the lobby. She looked up. "Night, Angelo," Bernadette waved to the 3-to-11 p.m. concierge she knew by name, from way too many late nights than she cared to remember.

In a light misty rain that actually felt good on her face, Bernadette strolled the single block to Park Avenue, and entered the hotel bar where she was meeting Harry. As she looked around at the overwhelmingly male crowd in this posh, after-work Manhattan watering hole, Bernadette mused that there was a time in her career when she would have been self-conscious walking into a bar alone. Unfortunately, though, she had much bigger problems these days than petty gender-based insecurities.

Her eye caught Harold Schwendt waving to her, motioning for her to join him at an upholstered sofa that he was coveting as though it were the last lifeboat on the Titanic. She crossed the thickly carpeted room, elbowing her way in among the suits, and kissed Harold lightly on the cheek. He'd been her lawyer so long -- he'd helped her buy and sell every co-op she'd ever owned, dealt with her father's estate, drawn up her own will -- that he was like family.

"Grapefruit juice, seltzer, and a dash of cranberry juice, please," Bernadette said to the cocktail waitress. "I'll have a Cosmopolitan," announced Harold, ordering the drink of the moment. "Thank you."

"Bernie, I've got it all figured out. I know exactly what to do about this guy. Relax."

At the sound of Harold's soothingly legalistic and eminently practical, no-nonsense words, Bernadette, almost immediately, began to do exactly that.