The Celebrity by Laura Z. Hobson Page A

startling new emotions had been crowding his mind, jostling each other, trampling and shoving, fairly shouting for attention. Not all of them were wonderful.
    Gregory Johns suddenly recalled snatches of anecdote he had heard from Ed Barnard about certain authors who had begun to regard themselves as virtually immortal the moment they had their first collision with a large success. The details had varied, but never the underlying pattern: a new air of importance, a shy inability to dissuade those who used the word “great” or even “genius,” a newly discovered passion for extra Lebensraum via duplex apartment or remodeled farmhouse in Bucks County or Westport, Connecticut. There was, too, a universal docility toward anyone who insisted on an interview, a photograph, a radio or television appearance, or a private talk at the Stork Club during the height of the rush.
    “All he has to do,” Ed had once said about one such docile newcomer to the Halls of Fame, “is say, ‘No.’ Instead he swills it like a hog and then grieves constantly about how exhausted he is, how unable to work, how astonished at the penalties the world exacts from its authors. And on his desk, he has two framed pictures”—here Ed had begun to laugh—“one of Shakespeare and the other of Abraham Lincoln.”
    Remembering, Gregory wished this unfortunate train of thought could be broken at once. Outside in the hall, Thornton called, “Hey, where are you?” and he answered eagerly, “Right in here.”
    Thorn opened the door carefully as if fearing to disturb a conversation. “Did you get Barnard?”
    “No.”
    “What are you doing out here by yourself?”
    “Just thinking.”
    “I’ve been thinking, too. What do you suppose Digby wanted to know all about your other rights for, in the middle of the night?”
    “Why, because—” It hadn’t occurred to him to wonder why. “I don’t know.”
    “I bet he thinks there’s a big chance for a movie sale.”
    “He couldn’t. It’s not that sort of—”
    “Is it the sort for a book club?”
    “I’m positive there’s no movie in it.”
    “Don’t be positive about anything, not now.” They stared at each other. “Listen, I’m going to send a messenger out for the manuscript first, thing tomorrow. Or maybe Digby and Brown would let go of another set of galleys now. I’ve got to read it right away. O.K.?”
    “Sure.”
    “I’ll call you the minute—no, you’ll have to call me.”
    “All right. When?”
    “Early. Right after I’ve talked to—hell, let me think.” He scratched his right nostril thoughtfully. “You’ll be going in to the office tomorrow, won’t you?”
    “Your office?”
    “Digby and Brown. You’ll have to go see them about all this, won’t you?”
    “I—” An odd reluctance began to form in his heart, vague and directionless. “Yes, sure,” he said heartily. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead, but sure, I guess I’ll be seeing them pretty soon. I want to call Ed Barnard anyway.”
    “You’ll have to go there, too. Look, I’ll find out everything by phone first, and you call me before you go over.”
    “I’ll do that.”
    “Good. And, Gregory—”
    “Yes?”
    “You’d better get your phone back in as fast as you can.”
    “My phone?” Suddenly he was uneasy, even apprehensive; there was no sense to it, but there it was. His vague reluctance had become a nipping, tugging pull of unwillingness.
    “This changes things,” Thorn said earnestly. “Not only will I need to call you about things, but Digby and Brown will, and maybe B.S.B. The news is going to break and then a lot of people will want to talk to you about this or that, and it would drive everybody nuts to wait on the mails.”
    “I suppose it would.” He hesitated. Of course he would have the phone again. A telephone was essential to modern life necessity alone had made him do without one. “I’ll do it the minute I can,” he said, and for no reason at all found