Don’t Worry! Guy At Party Has Copy Of Manuscript In His Car
by Emily Halaka
ECHO PARK, CA – When local twentysomething Anna Mendosa engaged in cordial small talk with friend-of-a-friend Adrian Harris at a party this past weekend, she didn’t expect to be in the presence of literary greatness. However, the lucky lady soon discovered that not only had her new acquaintance spent the past seven years writing an epic novel, he was willing to detail all 487 pages in-depth for her right then and there!
“It’s like, a little bit Hemingway, a little bit Foster Wallace, a touch of Sartre,” explained Harris following a breathless explanation of the first eleven chapters, casually pushing the bridge of his nonprescription horn-rimmed glasses back up his nose. “It’s pretty much my life’s work. Thus far.”
The starstruck Mendosa, clearly shy in the presence of such incomparable talent, reportedly gave Harris a polite smile and said, “Wow, that’s great. I’ll check it out when it gets published.”
However, in a fortuitous and wildly coincidental turn of events, Harris just so happened to have a full and unabridged copy of his manuscript in the glove box of his car!
“I just have to run out to my Nissan Leaf and grab it,” Harris assured the Zelda to his postmodern F. Scott, leaping up from the couch. “That’s an electric car. And then you can read it and tell me what you think! From, you know. A woman’s perspective. I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere. Please.”
“We’re basically almost ready to send it to print,” said Harris conspiratorially as he unlocked his trunk, rifling through stacks of hand-bound manuscripts to find an unwrinkled one for Mendosa. “As soon as Farrar, Straus, & Giroux unblocks my cell number, it’ll be go time.”
At press time, Mendosa was nowhere to be found save for a stray earring discovered near the host’s mysteriously opened bathroom window, and Harris’s literary mind was already figuring out how to work this into a sequel.
