D's glass is half empty When school let out for the day, the formerly scruffy but now fashionably groomed and polished Daniel Humphrey didn't linger outside Riverside Prep with the other senior boys, bouncing basketballs and eating pizza from the slices place on Seventy-sixth and Broadway. Instead, he zipped up his new black APC storm jacket, retied his Camper bowling shoes, and headed across town to the Plaza Hotel to meet his agent. The ornate gold-painted Plaza dining room was buzzing with the usual throng of gaudily dressed Russian tourists, extravagant grandmothers, and a few loud families from Texas, all toting shopping bags from FAO Schwarz and Tiffany, and all taking high tea. Except for Rusty Klein.  Mwa! Mwa! Rusty blew kisses into the air on either side of Dan's face as he sat down. ?Is Mystery coming?? he asked hopefully. Dozens of gold bracelets clanked noisily as Rusty clapped herself on the forehead. ?Fuck me! I guess I forgot to mention it. Mystery's on a six-month world book tour. We've already sold five hundred thousand copies in Japan!? The last time Dan had seen Mystery had been at an open mike at the Rivington Rover Poetry Club downtown. They'd practically had sex on stage as they performed improv poetry together. Then the wan, horny, yellow-toothed poetess had retreated to write, and Dan hadn't seen her since. ?But her book's not even out yet,? he protested. Rusty piled her fire-engine-red hair on top of her head and stuck a sharpened number two pencil through it. She picked up her martini and guzzled it, smearing hot pink lipstick all over the rim of the glass. ?It doesn't matter if the booknever comes out. Mystery's already a celebrity,? she declared. An avid chain-smoker, Dan was suddenly desperate for a cigarette. But smoking was prohibited, so instead he grabbed a fork from off the table and pressed the tines into the palm of his shaking hand. Mystery, who was only nineteen or twenty (Dan wasn't quite sure), had managed to write a memoir calledWhy I'm So Easy in less than a week. The day she'd finished it, Rusty had sold it to Random House for an astounding six-figure advance, with a film deal attached. Rusty scooted her chair forward and pushed her half-drunk glass of stale tap water toward Dan, as if she expected him to drink it. ?I sent ?Ashes, Ashes? out to theNorth Dakota Review,? she told him offhandedly. ?They hated it.? ?Ashes, Ashes? was Dan's latest poem, written in the voice of a guy who misses his dead dog, only it was left up to the reader to figure out that the narrator was addressing a dog and not his old girlfriend or something. It's the first baseball game of the season I wait for your kiss Breath meaty like chocolate My shoes are still there One in your bed where you left it The other in the backseat of my car Dan slumped in his chair. The week his poem ?Sluts? had come out inThe New Yorker , he'd felt invincible and famous. Now he felt like a schmo. ?Sweetness, I can think of several reasons why your writing may not appeal to everyone the way Mystery's does,? Rusty crooned. ?You're young yet, sugarplum. All you need is some good training. Fuck me, I need another drink.? She belched into her fist and then stuck both hands above her head. Within seconds, a sploshingly full martini was set down before her. Dan picked up the half-empty glass of water and then set it down again. He wanted to ask her about those ?several reasons? why his writing didn't appeal to everyone the way Mystery's did, but then again, he was pretty sure he knew. While Mystery mostly wrote about sex, Dan mostly wrote about death, or wanting to die, or wondering if being dead was better than being alive, which was kind of depressing if you thought about it. Also, he wasn't an orphan like Mystery was?according to legend, anyway. An orphan raised by prostitutes. Dan was just a seventeen-year-old kid who lived in a sprawling prewar apartment on the Upper West Side with his outrageous but loving divorced dad, Rufus, and relatively loving, big-boobed little sister, Jenny. ?So was that all you wanted to tell me?? he asked, feeling depressed. ?Are you kidding?? Fueled by the fourth gulp of martini number two, Rusty whipped a cell phone out of her limited edition Snapdragon Louis Vuitton purse. ?Get ready, Danny-boy. I'm calling Sig Castle atRed Letter. ............