Читать книгу Wickford Point онлайн

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"Oh," said Joe. "Just sitting on your fanny, thinking? Is Sid there? Is he thinking too? You haven't any right to think. You're not a Brill."

Joe was bitter. I wished that he would not be so bitter, but I did not blame him much.

"Where are you, Joe?" I asked. I hoped he wasn't far away. It did me good, as it always did, to hear his voice. He said he was in Boston on his way to Vermont. He was going to speak at the Hilsop Literary Conference. He didn't know why he was going but his publishers had fixed it. Sam Maxwell had asked him as a personal favor. Sam was in charge of part of the program. Everything was going fine. They had sold a hundred and fifty thousand copies of his new novel, not counting the Book-of-the-Month Club. He couldn't very well go back on Sam. It was hot as hell in Boston and he was stopping at the Crofton. Sam was paying the expenses. They had given him a room full of fake Italian furniture with a Renaissance fireplace that looked like a funnel. He had been on the wagon for two months and he was going to stop right now. Why didn't I come down and we could have dinner? I told him that I would. Then he asked how Bella was, and I told him she was fine and something made him laugh.