THE DEVIL WEARS OPRAH.

     Office of  “O Magazine.” Like a hive filled with female drones, it’s     unnaturally busy. Oprah Winfrey, wades in and all activity stops – then starts again, focused on her. The eponymous “O,” she is, quite naturally, the queen bee.

         

     “I’m glad you’re here,” says the editor, “We’ve got a terrific idea for the cover of the next issue. Something very different.”

         

     “Great. ‘Cause I’m running out of hairstyles.”

     The editor is a small, slight woman vibrating with the intensity of an impoverished divorcee making herself up at a cosmetics counter.

         

     “We were thinking - for a change, that’s all - of putting someone else on the cover.”

         

     “Why? Are sales down?”

         

     “No, but maybe we can sell even more.”

         

     “I’m the brand. My name is on the magazine.”

         

     Exactly. What if - keep an open mind - we just have your name on the cover. One issue only – as an experiment.”

         

     “I’ve got a movie out now. You need my picture. What if I wore something different?”

         

     “African?”

         

     “No, really different.”

         

     “Tefillin?”

          

     “Something body conscious. Michael Kors?”

          

     “We don’t want to get too glamorous or we’ll lose our base.”

          

     “How about a wrap dress? That’s a classic – and I have twenty-five that I haven’t worn.”

           

     “What about someone who’s glamorous and accessible?”

         

     “Who?”

         

     “Beyonce.”

         

     “I’m sick of her. She’s everywhere.”

         

     “Just a notion.”

         

     “And I’m sick of the guy she’s married to.”

         

     “Jay Z? He’s very big right now.”

         

     “He’s always big. He ought to lay off the candy bars.”

Oprah turns to the woman closest to her, a striking blonde in her twenties, wearing, to great effect, eight thousand dollars worth of the latest fashions and hiding, with equal success, an education that cost twenty times that.

“Make a note. Send our last ten diets to Jay – what is it?”

“Z.”

“Jay Z.”

“That’s only one issue.”

“Send him ten issues.”

“Think about it,” says the editor to Oprah, “That’s all I ask. Think about Beyonce.”

“Why? She hasn’t made one movie and I’m in the biggest movie of the year.”

“With all due respect, she’s still pretty famous.”

“But I’m the star of Lee . . . Butler’s?

“Child.”

“Lee Butler’s Child? No.”

“Lee Child’s Butler.”

“Lee Child doesn’t have a butler.      He’s lucky to have a cleaning woman. Steven Spielberg has a butler. He probably has ten.”

    “The name of the movie is Lee Child’s The Butler.”

“That’s an awful name. No wonder I can’t remember it.”

“You should write it on your hand.”

“On my ham?”

“On your hand.”

Oprah turns to her blonde assistant. “Note. Make hearing aids incredibly cool. Just in case.”

A stunning brunette in her thirties, laced into a leather dress that fits like     the cover of a baseball, rises from her desk.

“Why don’t we put you both on the cover together,” she proposes.

“Oh, yeah,” replies Oprah, “great idea. And we should both wear the same dress. No? Then why don’t I put my Chanel boots on and kick you all the way back to Vassar?”

The woman sits down as Oprah, the color purple, scans the room for other brave souls. “Any more bright ideas?”     The editor assumes her decisive pose, a matter of jutting her chin out.

“It’s settled. Oprah will be on our next cover. Hair and clothes to be determined.”