Vernon Downs (8 page)

A boisterous foursome burst into the lobby, late arrivals for the party raging upstairs. Charlie lingered, eavesdropping on their excited chatter about meeting Vernon Downs, before catapulting out into the night, his senses ablaze with a privileged glimpse of the world Olivia must've dreamed of a thousand times over.

Charlie announced himself to the doorman, who registered a faint look of recognition. The doorman hung up the phone. “He's coming down.” Charlie had almost missed the message Vernon had left the day before at Obelisk, asking him to join him for lunch. He had spent most of the previous day uptown with Derwin, who had arranged a launch party for Jacqueline Turner, one of his oldest authors, at Bemelmans in the Carlyle Hotel. Derwin had advanced him his paycheck so he could buy a suit for the occasion, again with the assistance of the vanilla-laced salesgirl at Century 21, who remembered him, or pretended to. New York's reputation as a cold, heartless metropolis was unearned, in his judgment. Eastern Star, the former speakeasy on the same block as Obelisk, had become Charlie's local, and he was amazed at the disparate population he'd encountered at the Star's lacquered and pockmarked bar: faces from Florida and Texas and Oregon, or Canada and Europe and Asia—each as friendly as the last, always inquiring what had brought Charlie to New York. He always demurred and instead luxuriated in their answers to the same question, drinking in the various biographies and ambitions. The Vietnamese girl who was studying fashion at Pratt; the Australian couple who hoped to open an apiary somewhere in Brooklyn; the kid from
Detroit who had dreams of becoming a hatter. Their ambitions were endless and Charlie lamented only that he'd never know if any or all of them would come to fruition.

Charlie's stomach gurgled, reproof that he hadn't eaten since the Southern-themed launch party at Bemelmans the day before. The plate of leftover pecan-encrusted sliced chicken breast drizzled in honey and red-skinned mashed potatoes he'd wolfed down was a distant culinary event, and he hoped Vernon's plans for lunch were more than liquid. Jacqueline Turner had abstained from the delicious fare at her launch party, which Charlie ascribed to nerves. Leading up to the party, Derwin had been distracted with the details. What was left unsaid was that with Jacqueline being eighty, this would surely be her last novel, and even Derwin knew that it would not be remembered or read in the future. Charlie wondered if the same was true for her first novel,
Esque
. A framed enlargement of the cover hung over Derwin's desk, the author photo a stunning portrait of Jacqueline in her youth, her even features lending her an aura of grace. The knowing eyes bored out from the frame as Charlie considered the art deco design on the cover. The novel had won several of the major fiction prizes the year it was published, and Jacqueline had written two more in short order that sold well enough to her new audience, which thinned with each subsequent title, until she stopped publishing altogether at the young age of forty. Charlie bristled at the notion that it was possible to go from gracing the cover of
Time
magazine to obscurity within the same lifetime. Vernon Downs would be famous his entire life, probably post-humously, too. Jacqueline's death would merit an obituary in the
New York Times
, and Derwin would keep her work in print as long as he was alive, but it would probably suffer the miserable fate of being stacked in warehouses waiting for readers whose attention had turned elsewhere. The launch party for Jacqueline's new novel—sparsely attended by friends of Derwin's as well as a smattering of Jacqueline's contemporaries, and none of the press outlets Derwin had Charlie fax his carefully worded press
release to—telegraphed just such ignominy. Charlie had helped himself to seconds after the small gathering had cleared, the caterer's assistant eyeing the same prize. Charlie knew the hunger with which free food was devoured, and he imagined the assistant would be lunching on pecan-encrusted chicken sandwiches for weeks.

“Sorry, sorry,” Vernon said as he hustled into the lobby. “I have to go uptown.”

A black sedan Charlie hadn't previously noticed idled out in front of Summit Terrace. His hunger rose up against his inclination toward genuflection but was defeated. “No problem, really.”

“Ride with me,” Vernon said. “I read your story.”

The driver opened the door for Vernon and grimaced as Charlie skirted around to the other side, never having had a car door opened on his behalf. The leather interior was remarkably hard, and Charlie bounced in his seat as the car turned uptown, sailing up Park Avenue South. The landscape transformed dramatically as they sluiced through the tunnels at Grand Central, awash in the gilded moraine of centuries of wealth accumulation. Across Park Avenue, across the wide boulevard of landscaped tulips, a silver Jaguar gleamed heroically in a showroom window.

The interim between Charlie's handing over his story to now had been teeming with grand designs of becoming Vernon's protégé, fêted up and down Manhattan as the Next Big Thing, perhaps replacing the dull, aging Cyanin as Vernon's literary yin. If simply knowing Vernon was currency in Olivia's eyes, his becoming a protégé would make him richer by ten. The fantasies about celebrity-studded book parties and lucrative film offers were brought low now that he was cocooned in the sedan with Vernon. Charlie hadn't done more than transcribe his and Olivia's story, the pages likely rotten with florid language as a result of the seismic ache in his heart. That Vernon Downs would be remotely intrigued by the story suddenly seemed a severe miscalculation.

“I read it twice,” Vernon said, tapping his slender fingers on the armrest between them. “You're onto something, but it's not happening on the page yet. Nothing happens, for one. Characters need backstory, but Alice is down the rabbit hole on page one, if you get me. And action is borne from motivation. So for instance, the girlfriend doesn't just move back home. They're engaged and she breaks up with him to marry someone else. But even that is too boring. She marries the other guy because the other guy has money, which is important because the girlfriend's family fortunes are dwindling. Maybe the result of scandal. Etcetera.”

Charlie swallowed the revulsion he felt at the idea of Olivia marrying someone else, or marrying someone else for money. The offense was too grievous to consider, even fictionally. Vernon's advice called to mind those critics who had wondered where the emotional heft was in his work, complaining that his novels were too often peopled with ciphers meant to channel the author's ennui. One particular critic had called Vernon's work “everythingless.”

Charlie mentally argued against Vernon's critique but was distracted by Vernon adding, casually, “I think I know an editor who would consider it if you revise.” The hard truth that he needed Vernon's approval, craved the apprenticeship, stifled all his argumentative impulses.

“I'll definitely have another go at it,” he said. “Thanks. Really, thanks.”

“Pull over here,” Vernon told the driver. The car found the nearest curb and Vernon turned in his seat. “Here's how you can return the favor.” The directness of his tone spooked Charlie and he was taken aback by the cold fear he felt. He hadn't previously considered Vernon to be dangerous, but even the driver averted his eyes. “Write me five hundred words on why kids are ruining America.”

“You mean like an essay?” Charlie asked, laughing.

Vernon smiled, clenching and unclenching his fists as if the reps were part of a daily exercise routine. “It's for
George
magazine. I told them I'd do it, but that was only because I wanted to meet JFK Jr. I'm just not into
it now.” He searched Charlie's face for complicity. “Do this for me and I'll show your story to my friend the editor.”

Charlie nodded, knowing the hunger for ingratiation. “Sure. When do you need it?”

“Yesterday.” Vernon grimaced. “Why don't you bring it with you to KGB tomorrow night. There's a book party. Seven p.m.”

“Okay,” Charlie agreed. It was easy to agree without considering what he was agreeing to.

“This is you,” Vernon said. It took Charlie a moment to realize what Vernon was saying.

“Watch traffic,” the driver warned from the front seat.

“Sorry about lunch,” Vernon said.

Charlie waved good-bye and walked up Sixty-eighth Street, irresolute about the direction he was headed until Central Park came into view, orienting him. He was lost as a tourist uptown—his second trip in as many days—and almost collapsed in frustration until the doorman at the Plaza indicated with a nod the direction of the subway entrance under the hotel.

Charlie mounted the steep stairs to KGB, emerging at the tiny second-floor bar whose walls were lined with Soviet memorabilia, framed posters of Stalin and Lenin and other unnamed politburo chiefs menacing the crowd of oblivious hipsters from above. He spotted Vernon under a poster of Yuri Andropov. As he knifed through the throng, he spied Jeremy Cyanin behind a near-life-size black-and-white head shot of the author whose books were stacked on the corner of the bar.

Charlie crept forward. He'd been confused by the lack of real instructions for delivering the
George
magazine piece—he surmised that Vernon hadn't asked him to e-mail it to avoid an electronic paper trail—and felt foolish for bringing it to the book party, even if those were Vernon's instructions. He'd nearly abandoned the assignment, unable to
come up with a slant that seemed worthy of a slick magazine, until he'd solicited Derwin for his assessment of youth culture. Derwin had given him a soulful look. “Murderers, rapists, gamblers,” he'd said. “You never heard of these things when I was young.” Charlie had no independent knowledge about whether the comparison was true or not, but once he embraced Derwin's point of view, the piece flowed quickly:

Teens are running roughshod over this country—murdering, raping, gambling away the nation's future—and we have bills for counseling and prison to prove it. Sure, not all kids are bad—but collectively, they're getting worse. Why should we blame ourselves? Things have changed drastically in the last twenty years, to the point where one can really only chuckle in grim disbelief. Cheating on exams? Smoking cigarettes? Shoplifting? You wish. Murder, rape, robbery, vandalism: The overwhelming majority of these crimes are committed by people under twenty-five, and the rate is escalating rapidly.

He'd gone to sleep feeling mentally fatigued, spent from rearranging sentences and auditioning words and phrases, searching for artistic expression of his borrowed idea, but also from the charge of aping Vernon's cool attitude.

Vernon nodded in his direction, calling him over.

“You made it,” Vernon said.

Charlie made a nervous joke about having gotten lost, even though he hadn't.

“This is Jeremy Cyanin,” Vernon said, pointing.

“Hey,” Cyanin said coolly, scanning the room. “I suppose you're mad at Vernon too.”

Charlie smiled dumbly, unsure what the gibe meant, forcing Vernon to explain that he'd been spending time with some models as research for his next novel and had even participated in a photo shoot, but changed his mind about signing the release form. Apparently, everyone was angry
about it, much to Cyanin's amusement. Charlie processed the information in the uncomfortable silence, which was broken by a woman dripping in gold lamé who squealed when she saw Vernon and Cyanin. “It
is
you,” the woman said, raising her arms to allow the writers to hug her. Cyanin obliged, while Vernon lifted his glass in the woman's direction. “Hello, Vernon,” she said. “I haven't seen you since your Christmas party. You never did say where you hired those elves from.”

“The elves were two years ago,” Cyanin said, laughing. He rocked back on his heels, unaware of the swaying.

The woman's expression changed. “Yes, I'm on some sort of blacklist, apparently.” Vernon shrugged and rattled the ice in his glass. A cloud settled over the woman, whose gold lamé dress appeared rusty in the red-lit room.

Cyanin leaned into the bar, and Charlie passed the folded pages to Vernon, who slipped them into his suit jacket pocket with a half smile.

“Looks like a rip-off of
Minus Numbers
,” Charlie said, indicating the blowup of the cover.

“You could say that,” Vernon laughed.

The writer being celebrated appeared, a jaunty kid wearing a very authorial jacket, complete with elbow patches, and shook hands with Vernon as Cyanin emerged from the bar. Charlie exploited the seam created by Cyanin and reached out for the lip of the bar to pulley himself to the front of the crowd.

“That's a slick move,” the man standing next to him said.

“Thanks,” Charlie replied.

“If you can get the bartender's attention, you'll really have done it.” He stuck out his hand. “Warren Thomas.”

Charlie shook hands. “Your name sounds familiar,” he said, having recently realized this was the correct thing to say in writerly circles.

“I write for
Esquire
,” he said. “With Josh.” He indicated the author whose book had brought them all together.

“Right,” Charlie said, reaching into the recesses of his mind to seize the elusive strand that incorporated what he knew about Warren Thomas. The information bobbed up like a sunken piece of driftwood finally freed. “You wrote ‘The Case for Vernon David Downs,'” right?”

Warren nodded. “Good recall.”

Charlie gushed about how Warren's piece about the
Vegetable King
controversy had clearly been written by someone with a cool head, not someone caught up in the rhetoric and the heated moment. “He's here,” Charlie said.

“Yeah, I saw him.” Warren attempted to flag down the bartender, without success. “I heard he's finally crawling out of his cave. Good for him. A shitty way to have to live. I'd stand in the corner too, though. You never know who's out there.”