Wrong City Read Free Page B

elbows against the windshield of the car and leaned
back, staring up at the moonless sky. “You have any scripts you’re shopping
around?”
    Idle curiosity,
or genuine interest? “Nothing I’m happy with. Mostly I’m trying to get my book
published.”
    A quick glance
over at him. “Agent?”
    Vish paused.
“Ah… not right now. I had one in New York, but it didn’t work out.”
    “Tell me about
your book,” Sparky said. “Pitch it to me. Really sell me on it.”
    Crud. Vish
hated this kind of thing. Talking about himself made him self-conscious enough.
Talking himself up, trying to make himself sound exciting and compelling and
dynamic, made his soul wither and die. He took a deep breath and tried to
arrange his thoughts.
    “It’s fiction,
though it’s sort of loosely based on my mother’s life. She passed away last
year.” Sparky made some faint sympathetic noise at this, but said nothing. Vish
continued. “She grew up in India and came to the United States and became a
cardiologist. My book begins right after she started her internship at a
hospital in Detroit.”
    He warmed to
his narrative, gaining confidence, adding more and more details. Sparky’s
expression showed reassuring interest; he nodded in the right spots, silently
encouraging Vish to go on.
    When Vish
finished, there was an odd moment of silence. Sparky smiled at him. “Sounds
awful,” he said.
    His tone was so
polite and cheery that for a moment Vish thought he had misheard. Before he
could say anything, Sparky continued. “I mean, it’s probably good.
Well-written, at least. You seem smart, and you have a good grasp of the basic
components of a story, and I have no doubt you can string words together in a
pleasing manner. But seriously, it sounds like something I’d need to be paid to
read.”
    He didn’t need
to sound so chipper about it. Vish swallowed once. “Okay. Thank you,” he said.
    Sparky gave him
a sidelong look. “That’s not much of a defense,” he said.
    “If it’s not
your kind of book, it’s not your kind of book. There’s no sense in me arguing
the point.”
    “You’re doing
this all wrong, you know.” Another smile. “This is the part where you tell me
why this should be my kind of book. Turn on the charm. Sell yourself.
Flirt with me, if applicable. Because if you’re at all perceptive, and I think
you probably are, you’ve picked up on clues that I might be someone important.”
    “I’ve made a
note of that, yes.”
    “So…?”
    “So I’m not
comfortable promoting myself, that’s all.”
    “You’re in the
wrong industry, then,” Sparky said. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?”
    “I’ve ventured.
Believe me, I’ve ventured. And I’ve never gained, have never even come close to
gaining. Nothing’s ever come of anything I’ve tried, and I’ve always ended up
feeling cheap and ridiculous for the effort.” It came out a bit sharper than
he’d intended. Hard to tell in the darkness, but he thought Sparky looked
surprised.
    “So what’s the
plan then, Vish?” A note of something new in Sparky’s voice, something slinky
and coy slithering in beneath the sardonic bonhomie. “Keep serving shitty food
to the beautiful people at parties until a handsome stranger offers you fame
and fortune on a silver tray?”
    Ah. Sparky was
playing with him. Sparky might also be kind of an asshole. He was bored and
killing time, and he had nothing to give him. Vish almost smiled, suddenly more
at ease. Assholes he could handle. “I suppose, if you’re offering,” he said.
“Want to be my fairy godfather, Sparky?”
    Another flash
of those overlong incisors. Sparky was prettier when he didn’t smile. “So you
can flirt. I’d wondered.” He sat upright. “Send me your book. I’ll go through
it, and we’ll see what can be done.”
    “You already
said you won’t like it,” Vish said. It came out a little bitchy.
    “Doesn’t
matter. I don’t have to like it. We’ll do what we