LUMINOUS BLUE

by BLAKE CROUCH

Copyright © 2010 by Blake Crouch

Cover art copyright © 2010 by Jeroen ten Berge

All rights reserved.

LUMINOUS BLUE is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For more information about the author, please visit www.blakecrouch.com.

For more information about the artist, please visit www.jeroentenberge.com.

I won’t be happy ’til I’m as famous as God.

MADONNA

The highest form of vanity is love of fame.

GEORGE SANTAYANA

The image is one thing and the human being is another…It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.

ELVIS PRESLEY

It stirs up envy, fame does.

MARILYN MONROE

He lives in fame that died in virtue’s cause.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

NY

Chapter 1

fame and money ~ James Jansen ~ goes to work ~ gets fired ~ a shopping spree ~ the day of tranquility ~ a $100 haircut ~ the movie premier ~ says goodbye to mom and dad

Let me tell you something about being famous. First off, it doesn’t make you depressed or dissociated from humankind. That’s all bullshit. Being famous…is like the very best thing in the world. Everybody knows you, everybody loves you, and it’s just because you’re you. And that’s supposed to make you want to eat sleeping pills? Only reason celebrities say fame blows is so we won’t hate them. Because if we really knew how happy they are, how incredible it is just to be them, to own the world, we’d hate them, and then they’d just be notorious.

And the money. Jesus. If I hear one more multi-millionaire tell me that money won’t make me happy, I’m going to hurt someone. Really.

My name is Lancelot Blue Dunkquist, and the best thing about me is, when you doll me up right, I look like a Movie Star.

I’ve been mistaken for James Jansen twenty-eight times. Of course you know who James Jansen is. Remember And Then There Was One? That’s his most successful movie, sorry, film to date. Actors don’t make movies. They make films. Anyway, James Jansen played the detective. You know the part at the end where the guy walks in on the bank robbery and he’s only got one bullet left? He knows he’s dead, but he stares down the two robbers and says, “By God you may walk out of here with that money, but which one of you is it going to be?” What a line.

I’m actually an inch taller than James Jansen, but you see, this works to my advantage, because when people see me, they’re thinking It’s JJ! He’s larger than life!

Yes. I am larger than life.

In my real life, I work as a legal secretary in a patent firm in Charlotte, North Carolina. It’s very convenient, because I live just up the interstate in Huntersville, above the garage in my parents’ house. A perfect setup really. I get to use Mom’s car four days a week (on Tuesdays she takes me to work and picks me up, because she volunteers in the office of their Baptist church). Dad doesn’t even make me pay rent, so I’m saving money like crazy. As of my last bank statement, $41,617.21 was simmering in my money market account.

I usually wake up at 6:45 a.m. Lewis Barker Thompson Hardy is quite the casual work environment. Since the thirty-five attorneys only practice corporate patent law, we rarely have clients in the office. So the dress code is extremely lax. Today for instance, I’m sporting gray sweatpants, a T-shirt, and Adidas flip-flops.

I’m running later this morning, but normally I arrive at our building around 8:10. I always park in a visitor space since they’re the closest to the main entrance.

Our offices are located on the seventh floor, but I only take the elevator if I have it all to myself. I don’t excel at chitchatting with people. I learned this neat trick: once I’m inside, I press seven, and then as long as I hold the button down, the elevator won’t stop until it reaches our floor. But I don’t even like riding by myself. The walls consist of mirrors, and the light is dim and eerie.

So nine times out of ten, I huff it up the stairwell like I’m doing today, downside being that I’m always sweaty when I reach our floor.

Our suite is already in full operation when I enter. Heading through the conference room into the break room, I open one of the four refrigerators and stow the lunch mom prepared for me inside.

I walk down the hallway. File Rooms A-D are on the right, the partners’ offices on the left. Through their windows, I see morning light spreading over the green piedmont forest and reflecting off a distant pond. I always see that glinting pond on the way to my desk, except when it’s cloudy. The buildings of uptown Charlotte shimmer in early sun.

At the end of the hall, I enter the large room of cubicles. Mine sits in the center grouping. It’s very neat. The other paralegals keep messy workstations. They’re more concerned with plastering the walls with pictures of their husbands and children. I don’t display any pictures. The only non-work-related item I have is a cutout from a magazine article in Hollywood Happening. I taped it to the top of my monitor a year ago. It’s just two letters: JJ. Janine once asked me what it meant, but I didn’t tell her.

I turn on my computer and pull out a case file I’ve been working on since Friday. My duties involve corresponding with clients. It’s not terribly exciting stuff…Dear Mr. Smith:  We are pleased to inform you that the above-identified U.S. patent application has been granted a Notice of Allowance by the United States Patent and Trademark Office…that sort of thing.

I’m getting ready to begin the first letter of the day when footsteps stop at my cubicle.

“Lance?”

I swivel around. It’s Janine, the Office Manager. The other paralegals despise her. I don’t really have an opinion. She’s kind of pretty—highly blond, tan, quite a dresser.

“Jeff wants to see you in his office first thing.”

“Now?”

“First thing.”

I follow Janine back up the hallway, watching the points of her high heels leave tiny, diminishing marks in the avocado carpet.

Jeff has a corner office. He’s the Hardy from Lewis Barker Thompson Hardy. I wonder why she’s leading me to his office, as if I don’t know where it is.

Partner Jeff is dictating a patent application when Janine pokes her head through the doorway.

“Jeff, Lance is here to see you,” she says reverently. He’s the scary partner.

He stops the recorder, says, “Send him in and shut the door.”

I walk inside and sit down in a chair in front of his desk. The door closes behind me. Jeff is thin-lipped and very sleek, and the only time he smiles is when he speaks to one of the other partners.

He just stares at me. I look out the windows. I count the framed diplomas and plaques on his walls (nineteen). His desk is buried under case files. There’s a stack of resumes and cover letters on the floor by my feet. I’ve just begun to read the body of the top letter when Jeff says, “Lance, how long have you been here?”