These Dreams of You

~ ~ ~

Zan’s single triumph over Brown is that, in time-honored journalistic tradition, the world-famous journalist always longed to write a novel. While Zan knows how dubious this is, he’s not telling; it’s the only thing about Zan that there is for Brown to envy, and that now Brown invites him to lecture about the state of the novel is irresistible, even if Zan can’t help smelling a trap. “I smell a trap,” he says to Viv.

“What are you talking about?” she says.

“The novel as a literary form facing obsolescence?” James’ way of telling me how washed up I am, Zan thinks to himself.

“It’s a trip to London,” says Viv, “it’s thirty-five hundred pounds. What’s a pound worth?”

“A buck and a half?”

“So it’s better than thirty-five hundred dollars.”

“I have to pay my own expenses.”

“So you get a cheap flight and a cheap hotel and come back with a couple thousand dollars maybe.” She says, “He’s famous. It could lead to other things,” then adds quickly, “I mean, of course, you’re kind of famous too—”

“It’s O.K.,” he cuts her off.

“You are,” she insists. “In your own way.”