drifted from room to room, getting free drinks and eavesdropping. Publicity, marketing, and editorial assistants were in full effect, but I didn’t recognize many of them—they were a transient lot, all waiting to score their first book contract, after which they would give their bosses two weeks’ notice. A pair of these overeager types was chatting up Blade Markham’s moist, officious editor, Rowell Templen of Merrill Books, and I didn’t know what irritated me more—their sense of desperation or mine of abject futility.
I kept drinking and drifting, feeling more and more aimless as time wore on. If this were really a swingers’ party, I would have been the one creepy humbert who couldn’t have gotten laid even here. I tried starting conversations but never knew how to finish them. Elsewhere, when people asked what I did, I said I was a writer. Saying it in a room full of authors, agents, and editors seemed ridiculous, but saying I worked in a café and wrote stories without finishing them wasn’t much of an icebreaker either. I contemplated inventing an autobiography, but I wasn’t good at lying. I finally decided to say I was living in New York on my inheritance; this had the advantage of being easy to remember because it was true—no one needed to know that barely four thousand dollars remained of the money my father had left me—but by the time I settled on this story, I couldn’t find anyone who seemed interested in hearing it.
Anya was in the main ballroom, her back framed by a cathedral window that gave out onto Twenty-first Street. She was smiling at Geoff Olden, who was letting loose with his nasal cackles as he introduced her to his assistants and underlings, all dolled up in their black golightlys, all depressingly plain beside Anya.
The library seemed to be the only unoccupied room on Geoff’s first floor, so I passed some time there, browsing through all the books he had represented. I flipped through first editions by his famous friends and acquaintances, who had written loving dedications—“To a heavyweight of literature, with much love, Muhammad Ali”; “To Geoff, Thanks for all the corrections, Jon Franzen.” The only qualified remark came from one Phil Roth—“To Geoffrey, a true human stain.” I wondered how much I could sell the books for on eBay if I absconded with an armful.
In the library, on a small, antique mahogany table between two black leather armchairs illuminated by a Tiffany lamp, was a stack of copies of Blade by Blade. Stacks like this were scattered throughout the apartment, and as I inspected the book’s canary yellow cover, I realized that I had never actually tried to read Blade Markham’s book, had based my opinions about it mostly on reviews I had read, appearances Blade had made on talk shows, and remarks Faye had made about the book at work. Maybe I hadn’t given it a chance. As loathsome as Blade seemed on subway posters or on The Pam Layne Show, it seemed harder to despise him when he was in the same apartment with me, life-size—I have always been too suspicious of people in theory, too trusting of them in practice. The more time I spend with people, the more I find myself liking them.
But after I cracked open the book, I almost burst out laughing at the dedication—“To All My Homies Still Livin’ Under the Gun Right Here in Amerikkka. You Know Who You Are. Keep Runnin’, Keep Gunnin’.” I turned to a random page. No, the book was ludicrous, the grammar and punctuation awful, no sentence lasted longer than ten words and half of them ended with yo, as if Blade had dictated the book, not written it. I picked another page; on it, Blade opined about the merits of prison sex—“There’s worse things than playin’ catcher upriver in Rikers, yo.” I couldn’t help myself. This time, I actually laughed out loud. But when I sensed someone else’s presence, I stopped.
“What you chortlin’ ’bout, bro?”
Blade was standing in the library doorway, holding a half-full martini glass and wearing scuffed black boots, a white Stanley Kowalski undershirt under a black suit jacket, a lot of bling, too. Around his neck was that gold cross—it ain’t a cross for Christ; it’s a T for Tool, yo, I felt like saying. Blade ripped the book out of my hands, looked to see if I’d done anything to it, then placed it back neatly on the pile.
“Ain’t no browsin’ privileges here, bro,”