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Jonathan groaned and shook his head.“Oh shite.”

Well, that was that. There was no way the agency would be able to get away withanotherbrochure full of fake employees. Not now and probably never again. Which meant the shoot tomorrow was off and no work for their six contractors.

Kennedy immediately began to plot out a damage-control strategy. “Well, it’s better it happened now than after they put out the brochure that could lead back to us.” Although, they did a pretty good job in covering the tracks that connected the freelance contractors to the agency.

“In that case, disaster narrowly averted.” Jonathan hastily made a sign of the cross. He was agnostic.

“Tell that to Ainsley Fields,” Mina said. “She’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”

Given Ainsley was looking to diversify her client list, the timing of the story couldn’t have been worse. Not that there was ever a right time for a business to be discovered cooking their diversity books.

“I’ll give her a call in a few. In the meantime, Jonathan, I need you to contact all our HBCU alumni groups and let them know we’re looking for experienced literary professionals for upper-and middle-management positions.”

Kennedy had advised Ainsley that diversity required a top-down and everywhere in between approach. It wasn’t enough to simply bring on a few diverse faces as junior agents and clerical staff, and put out a company brochure that resembled an old Benetton ad. The publishing industry had changed since the former executive editor had hung out a shingle seventeen years ago. Ainsley had agreed but was dragging her heels when it came to the more senior positions and management.

Kennedy bet she’d be more amenable to her recommendations now.

“Got it. I’m on it, boss,” Jonathan said with a brisk nod, and he made a beeline for his office.

Kennedy turned to Mina. “I need you to call Timothy Black and see if you can move up Claudia’s and Jamal’s interviews. The sooner we can get them in there, the better.”

“I’ll call him now,” Mina said before hurrying off to do her bidding.

Squaring her shoulders, Kennedy returned to the conference room to give the contractors the news.

12

Minutes after dismissing her class, Kennedy, earbud in place, paced her office as she did her best to calm her panicked client. “Ainsley, listen to me. It’ll be okay. I’ve got this. Leave the reporter to me.”

“No, you don’t understand. Dawn Robinson’s manager called yesterday. Dawn is looking forliteraryrepresentation andImade her short list. They want a meeting.”

Wow! Okay.No wonder Ainsley was in a tizzy.

Last year, Dawn Robinson became the first Black person—man or woman—to take home an Oscar for best director. The win jettisoned her into the spotlight, and in a recent interview, the normally intensely private director revealed she was working on a memoir. Within days of her announcement, offers from publishing companies began flooding in. The bidding war for her book was shaping up to be one for the ages, and there was already talk of a movie deal. Needless to say, the forty-eight-year-old Oscar winner would be any literary agent’s dream come true.

During another aimless trip from the door to the window, Kennedy came to an abrupt stop. She had an idea. If Hollywood was as small a world as everyone claimed, maybe Ainsley still had a chance at catching the biggest literary fish to come along all year. Or at least meeting with her.

“Take the meeting. I’ll deal with the reporter and whatever press the story generates when it comes out. But you have to take the meeting no matter what.”

“There won’t be a meeting when she cancels,” Ainsley stated mournfully, as if it were a foregone conclusion.

Kennedy might not be able to pull a rabbit out of a hat, but she did know a few people in the industry who had clout. “Well, my goal is to make sure she doesn’t, and then the rest is up to you.”

By the time Kennedy hung up the phone, Ainsley needed Tylenol instead of Valium and agreed to interview candidates for senior and management positions as soon as Jonathan could get them in the door. The diversitytop-down and everything in betweenapproach was in full swing.

Next on her to-do list was the reporter. Her conversation with him was cordial and intended to disarm. She gave him a spiel on how the use of stock images for marketing purposes was once common among businesses and colleges. Unfortunately, Fields Literary Agency got caught in the fuzzy transition between acceptable and frowned upon. In other words, unless he planned to take every other institution to task, this was a nonstory.

Expounding on that, she suggested perhaps the story would be better served as a compare-and-contrast piece. He could detail the changes society had undergone since the days when the use of stock images for that purpose used to be commonplace—a mere six years ago, in the case of the Fields brochure.Who knows, your paper may have used them once too,she offered guilelessly.When he didn’t dismiss the idea outright, Kennedy knew she’d given him something to think about, and she hoped he thought about it long and hard.

After finishing up with the reporter, Kennedy sought out her partner in business and crime. She found Aurora in her office at her computer, her hair done up in a sophisticated ponytail.

“Morning,” Kennedy said as she took a seat in the guest chair and made herself comfortable.

Aurora tore her gaze from the monitor and stopped typing. “Hey, I heard what happened. You were on the phone when I came in, so Jonathan filled me in. All I can say is, we really dodged a bullet with that one.”

Kennedy let out a dry laugh. “Don’t I know it.” The whole incident had begun to leave a bad taste in her mouth and she wondered, not for the first time, whether the carrot approach to attracting clients was the right way to go.

“So what now?”

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