Character Analysis
James is a twenty-three-year-old college drop-out who works as a pizza delivery guy, and is also Vera's new workplace crush at Pagoda Pizza. He's a nice enough guy—he likes Vera a lot and invites her out to drink and make-out with him—but in the end, he can't be with Vera because she's too young and he's a bad influence in her life, even if he doesn't mean to be. He encourages her to drink and go to the Christmas party, where she gets in trouble. To his credit, though, after she gets hurt at the party, he understands that what they have can't be a long-term thing:
We look at each other for a few seconds, until James says, "We can't hang out anymore, can we?"
I shake my head.
"I thought so." (5.6.26-28)
He was just a ship passing in the night who made Vera feel temporarily better as she mourned Charlie's death. No real harm, no real foul with this dude, but he's also not anything to write home about.