Fall from Grace

Representatives of both agencies are awaiting the results of the financial audits and are meeting to work out details such as benefits, job descriptions, and -- one assumes -- a company name and location. If Siclari's current $60,000 salary or the $43,000 for the next-highest-paid CRI employee are any indication, some HCN staffers may have to take a cut in wages. And then there is always the possibility that the merger will lead to more layoffs -- a nonprofit version of corporate downsizing.

"It's going to be a struggle," concedes Michel, who recently got home from a ten-day hospitalization for a blood infection related to AIDS. When she's feeling better, Michel says, she'll resume her appearances before community groups and schoolchildren, in which she relates her own story as a lesson in AIDS prevention, life, death, and perseverance.

She's not too interested in the questions about HCN's management; she just wants its work to continue: "I do know the people at HCN will fight to keep the agency above water. I don't know if they'll win the fight or if it will just die of