Sometime late in the afternoon, Val Brady shows up.
He has a piece on Gilroy ready to go. He’s been out to the Seventy-seventh, and has met the cousin. He says that if Parallax goes ahead and posts House of Vaughan on their website this evening, his piece will make page one of the Times tomorrow, which in turn will send a lot of traffic back the magazine’s way.
This revives Max, who’s been flagging somewhat. He then heads off for another round of consultations. Twenty-five minutes later, he reappears and says, “Okay, looks like we’re good to go.”
Ellen isn’t sure she’s heard him right.
“Yeah.” He sinks into his chair. “It’s all been cleared. The guys have set it up. They’ve previewed it. They’re using, I don’t know, WordPress or something. Anyway, one click and we’re done.”
A weary Ellen turns to Val. “I haven’t eaten all day. Are you hungry?”
Val’s eyes widen. He nods and says, “Yeah, sure, but I’m buying.”
Ellen then gets up and walks over to Max’s desk. She goes in behind it, stands next to him, and looks at the screen.
Max drags the cursor over to the PUBLISH icon. He withdraws his hand from the mouse, and glances up at her.
“You want to do it?”
Ellen takes a deep breath. She reaches down, clicks on the icon, and waits. “That’s it,” she says, after a couple of moments. “We’re live.”
ALAN GLYNN
ALAN GLYNN is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. His first novel, Limitless (originally published as The Dark Fields), was released as a film in March 2011 by Relativity Media. He is also the author of Winterland and Bloodland. He lives in Ireland.
