The next day Lori squeezed me in for a meeting a little after eleven. I was to meet with my writers at noon. As she looked over my list of writers, she said, “How did you get this many to come?”

I answered, “I said anyone who didn’t attend wasn’t going to work on Care Bears anymore.” It was a half-truth, my having omitted I also threatened that if they didn’t attend they wouldn’t work on any future DIC projects.

Lori waited. Acknowledging my omission and knowing a writer must have called to tell her about the rest of my empty threat, I asked, “What did he say when he called?”

“He asked ‘Who is this Olesker-guy and I said you’re the Care Bears’ story editor and you’ve got my, Jean’s and Andy’s complete confidence.” I feigned relief, putting on a show of ‘nervously’ wiping my forehead.

Lori let out a laugh. She spent forty-five minutes going over my list of writers. She told me two writers were a team. “Not the most cre

ative and you’ll have a lot of editing to do on their scripts. But they’re fast and they’re reliable.”

The other writers, who Lori named one by one, ran the gamut from dazzlingly creative to full of themselves, from easy-to-work with and difficult-to-work with. Sighing, she ended with, “And then there’s Howard Cohen…”, her words trailing off.

I looked at her questioningly. Her eyes went to her watch and she said, “You’ve got a meeting to get to.”

“I do.” I stood and left for the conference room.