Unfreezing

Author's Note

After listening to several sides of the debate, I firmly believe the day is coming when animal actors will be eligible to compete for the Best Actor Oscar. When it does, whether it's five years or five decades away, I suspect the reason for the rule change will be a performance by a terrier. You read it here first.

While I consulted a robotics designer in the writing of this short novel, I took considerable liberties with the technology he described. Today's actual telepresence robots are far more likely to be found in a conference room than at a glittering Hollywood event, and they're infinitely more like Matt Frewer in Max Headroom than Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner. Nobody's boyfriend is showing up for a date in his robot body.

At least not in time for the 89th annual Academy Awards ceremony.

THIS BOOK IS A WORK of fiction and any resemblance to anyone, any time, or any place is not intended and is merely coincidental. The cover models appear for illustration purposes only and have no relationship to any events in this story. Brief mentions of real persons, places, or products are used fictitiously and in accordance with fair use. All trademarks remain the properties of their owners.

In a 2014 tweet, Julian Casablancas clarified his position on brunch, stating, for the record, [I] am not against the concept of weekend late breakfast.

Chapter One: Chance

Chance was running in place while the world kept getting smaller and smaller. Five square blocks. Four square blocks. Three. He told himself it didn't matter because it was Manhattan. If it wasn't happening there, it wasn't happening anywhere. The trouble was, his first movie premiered in London and Los Angeles. He'd missed both events.

The Academy Awards ceremony was taking place in Hollywood on February 26. As the self-appointed hot gay screenwriter of the moment, Chance knew he couldn't miss that too.

I have two months to get to Hollywood from Manhattan. Anyone can do that. If anyone can do it, a smart guy like me can do it. There. Settled.

Two square blocks. One. Zero. If he was real with himself, the truth was whole days went by without Chance ever leaving the building. He'd had one of the corner offices made over into an efficiency apartment complete with the treadmill that let him exercise while looking out floor-to-ceiling windows with billion-dollar views of New York City, the capital of the world. It didn't matter that he never went anywhere. If you were rich and gifted, you could be as eccentric as you liked.

Eccentric. Hard to get. A little crazy, the way writers were supposed to be. Hmm. Maybe it would help if he grew his hair out.

For all the glorious views, running on the treadmill made him feel like a hamster on its wheel. He told himself it didn't matter how he felt. What mattered was how he looked, and Chance Lanconi, super-agent to supermodels, looked like success.

A lonely success. Nobody stuck around once they learned his secret. There were lots of hot, high-achieving guys in Manhattan to choose from, and most of them were younger. Why would a lover put up with Chance's baggage?

Stop the wallow in self-pity. You're a star, and you don't need anybody else. You're on top of the world.

Chance adjusted a setting on the treadmill and ran even faster for ten more minutes.

After a shower, a change of clothes, and a walk down one flight from his apartment to his business office, the appointment with the man who would fix all his problems was still thirty minutes away. Funny how thinking about fixing his panic made Chance feel, well, a tad panicked. He couldn't seem to sit still. Over the last fifteen years, he'd tried everything. The most expensive celebrity therapists in Manhattan. The most carefully targeted doses of the latest in psychotropic medications.

Everything worked for a little while. And nothing worked for long. His world continued to shrink.

Was he investing too much hope in yet another cure that wouldn't cure?

Fuck it. I can't just sit here waiting and twitching.

Chance walked out into the reception area, nodding at Tiffany, who nodded back, the gold and silver beads in her dark braids catching the light. She'd never been a model, even though she had the cheekbones for it. He only represented male models. It was a specialty of his— young, beautiful, and exotic male models, often foreign, who paid a premium for his assistance in getting American work visas.

He went to the long marble table against the wall. Inhaled the rich aroma coming from the silver coffee urn currently brewing a wet-processed freshly ground Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. Stroked a cold slim can of Red Bull on ice in the silver bucket to be sure it was properly chilled.

What do nerds eat? Chance didn't realize he'd said it out loud until Tiffany looked up.

Bacon?

I was thinking more along the lines of something I could pick up in the bakery.

I'll phone down.

I need to get out. I can do this.

Tiffany didn't say anything else. She had a depth in those eyes, a sadness somewhere. When she first started working for Chance, she'd tried to fix him up with her cousin in Astoria. These days, she didn't try anymore.

The bakery he liked was on the third floor. A lot of people liked it, including people from other buildings. Chance should have let Tiffany phone down after all. In theory, he had better things to do than stand in lines. Speaking of his own self-importance, his phone vibrated, and he glanced down at a text from an entertainment lawyer in Hollywood.

A second text came hot on its heels, almost before he'd finished reading the first— this one from a film journalist who wanted a quote.

Chance didn't bother to reply to either of them before he slipped the phone back in his pocket. He knew it was important not to respond to texts right away— it made you look as if you were desperate— and, besides, he was watching the man at the front of the line. As an agent for male models, Chance had a duty to check out good-looking guys. It was part of the business. Maybe the best part. Especially when the guy in question had a lean pair of swivel hips like that.

Whether you were a writer or an agent, it was always a good exercise to think about what a man's appearance said about his character. Chance was getting the smallest of clues from behind, but he could tell the faded-to-white jeans had been weathered by wear instead of design to fit the man's long, lean legs and upside-down heart-shaped bottom. The label on that perfect ass was an off-brand.

A middle-class guy, a worker-bee or a creative, not an executive. Approachable.

The interesting guy paid for his order and moved away from the counter, allowing everybody to step forward. Good arms rippled under his long-sleeved T-shirt as he used his right hand to steer a rolling equipment cart stacked with sturdy boxes. There was a little bark or squeal. Chance, who was fixated on the bulge of those biceps, thought it was the squeak of the wheels. Then he realized the guy had a leash clipped to his belt with a smooth-coated Jack Russell Terrier mix on the other end of it.

That left only one hand free for the white bag of food and the tall cup of coffee.

The dog spoke again. Strange dog. It wore a pink plastic bicycle helmet that buckled under its chin. Its look was completed with a matching pink collar dotted with heart-shaped rhinestones. Chance would have thought pink collars were more of a Yorkie-poo thing.

He tried to calculate the odds that a straight guy, even in Manhattan, would have a small but obviously male dog in a pink helmet and pink rhinestone-studded collar. Yeah, yeah, stereotypes are odious, but Chance wasn't so politically correct as all that. The stranger was cute, gay, and needed a helping hand. What more did Chance need to know?

Before he could make his move, the guy solved the problem himself by rolling the cart over to an unoccupied table and clipping the dog's leash to a random equipment strap. When he went back to pick up the food and coffee, he finally gave Chance the frontal