Free Vernon Downs by Jaime Clarke Page B

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 pressrelease 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.
    â€œSorry, 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.”
    â€œRide 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.
    â€œI 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.
    â€œI’ll definitely have another go at it,” he said. “Thanks. Really, thanks.”
    â€œPull over here,” Vernon