Ghost Writer, page 7
Jonathan laughed at him, trying to keep it light. “Oh, come on, Clyde. You don’t think it’s a ghostwriter doing my biography for free, do you?”
Clyde’s face grew solemn and he asked, “Jonny, seriously. Can you think of anyone who would do this to you? Is there anyone who knows everything about you, anyone who might want to get revenge—”
Jonathan held up his hands. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you think this is blackmail?”
“Is it?”
Jonathan stared hard at Clyde. “Why would you say that?”
“I’m just sayin’, do you have any enemies?”
Jonathan laughed uneasily. “Yeah, just about every author I’ve ever rejected.”
Clyde smiled a bit, but concern still flashed in his eyes, which made their way back down to the manuscript. “You should read that. All of it. You should know what’s in it. That’s your only defense.”
Jonathan’s heart raced, but he kept his cool with a light laugh. “Clyde, you’re so serious! Come on! What could they possibly do? Write me to my death?”
Clyde sat silently for a moment and only stared at him with interest. “I’d just read it. That’s all I’m sayin’.”
Jonathan threw his napkin on the table and waved down the waiter for the check. “Clyde, I’m not going to turn into some paranoid freak because I’m reading some weird story about myself. Maybe that’s what they want. Maybe they want me scared. Well, it’s not going to happen.” Clyde started to say something, but Jonathan cut him off. “Case closed. That’s it.”
Clyde sighed and his heavy body slumped back into his seat. “Then why’d you call me here, Jonny? If you ain’t worried.”
Jonathan swept up the ticket the waiter slid onto the table. “To discuss your manuscript, actually. I’m not finished by any means, but I like what I see so far. Interesting characters, especially this Donomar fellow. A serial killer? Never knew you had it in you.”
Clyde’s eyes lit up. “I’m glad you’re reading it!”
“I’ll let you know,” Jonathan said as he threw some money on the table. “Thanks for meeting with me. I’m sorry, I’ve got to get back to the office.”
“Sure,” Clyde said and rose with Jonathan. “I’ll get you the rest of my manuscript as I finish it.”
As they left the Sienna, Jonathan stopped Clyde suddenly. “Um . . . Kathy doesn’t know about this.” He paused as Clyde’s eyebrows rose. “I don’t want to tell her because she’d worry. You know how she worries.”
Clyde put a heavy hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. “You should tell her. She’s your wife.”
Clyde walked down the sidewalk to his old, dented Chevy pickup. Jonathan watched as he pulled his heavy frame into it, tried to start it twice, and took off in the other direction, leaving a heavy smell of exhaust behind.
------
Jonathan returned to the office with a chill in his bones. Though he’d brushed it off in front of Clyde, he was growing horribly concerned. Was this blackmail? If so, who? And why? Clyde was right. He had to read it. He had to know what was in it.
Jonathan returned to his office with ease, glad not to run into any fellow editors or Edie Darkoy. He closed the door behind him and walked immediately to his desk. Whatever it took, he’d find the author. But he would need more information, and that information, right now anyway, would come from the information about him. He picked it up and started reading where he’d left off.
The years following the barn burning down proved tumultuous between Jonathan and his father. His father had moved his family to a suburb and taken a job as an insurance salesman. His mother, forced to carry a job now, worked at a local ice-cream shop. Jonathan spent his days at school, joining as many activities as he could in order to stay longer. His nights were spent locked in his room in solitude, playing by himself and entering into worlds he created with his imagination.
Summers were the hardest, as days were spent at home, until one summer his mother took him to the local library, where Jonathan discovered books. At first he found them difficult to read. His mom wasn’t educated, and his dad never took the time to teach him to love books. But soon enough, he found that those books could create an imaginary world he never thought possible. At the age of ten, he discovered one of his favorites, The Chronicles of Narnia.
He would curl up in his small bed, underneath a tattered old blanket, and read. He started with The Magician’s Nephew and read through them all. C. S. Lewis had introduced him to a world he would grow to love with all his heart . . . the world of books. And when he stepped into the land of Narnia, he would step out of the cruel world to which he’d been born.
The books consumed him, and soon enough his mother began to worry that she was losing her only son. She would try to reach him, but it was hard to pull him away from his books, and when she finally did get his attention, his distance was impenetrable.
But one night she entered his room without her usual excuse of laundry or dusting. Jonathan hardly looked up, his head barely visible over the large copy of The Catcher in the Rye. His mother tidied up around the room, trying to get up the nerve to confront this eleven-year-old boy with eyes of stone.
She finally managed to sit at the end of the bed, and for a few passing moments picked the fuzz balls off the blanket he had tucked underneath his feet. Jonathan never so much as glanced up at her, so she knew she would have to make the first move.
“Jon, honey?”
Jonathan’s only response was to flip to the next page.
“Jon, honey, I wanted to talk to you.”
Jonathan said something under his breath, something demeaning no doubt, and his mother blotted the tears that came with the ridicule.
“Jon! I am talking to you!”
Jonathan’s cruel eyes eased up over the top of the book, and he glared at his mother with the fury that only a young boy could. His mother adjusted herself on the bed, trying to hold her demanding position, while also making sure she wasn’t coming across too hard.
“Thank you,” she said softly, and Jonathan lowered the book a little more, waiting for her to continue. “Jon, I wanted to tell you that . . . well, that I know things have been rough on you since your brother . . .” His mother’s words trailed off with her own emotions, and she hated herself because she didn’t want to start off that way.
Jonathan simply sat there, his eyes avoiding his mother’s, anxiously fingering the pages of his book.
“I’m sorry, Jon,” she said, wiping the tears away. “I know how difficult this is for you, and here I am blubbering away.”
Jonathan had always had a little bit of a soft spot for his mom, and he said quietly, “It’s okay.”
She nodded and smiled at him, her small hand grabbing his covered feet. “I know things have been hard, and I know your daddy has been distant. But it’s not because he hates you. He loves you.”
“He hates me,” Jonathan said in barely a whisper.
“No, that’s not true. He just . . . he just has trouble expressing his emotions, that’s all.”
“He never did before,” Jonathan pointed out.
His mother sighed and nodded in agreement. “True. But your daddy hasn’t dealt with Jason’s death too well. He feels a lot of guilt—like he could’ve stopped it somehow.”
Jonathan clutched the sides of his book and said, “No, Mama. He hates me because he thinks I could’ve stopped it.”
His mother looked away, and the tears ran down her face with a furious velocity. “No, baby. That’s not true.”
“It is! It is!” Jonathan said, his tiny teeth clenched together, extracting a small jaw muscle on either side of his face. “You don’t know! That’s what he thinks.”
“Baby, he . . . he doesn’t. He’s having a hard time, he just is confused—”
“Mama! Don’t lie! Daddy hates me and you know it! And that’s why you’re here, to try to make me feel better. But I know! I know he does!”
His mother shook her head and in a feeble attempt tried to soothe her son, but to no avail. Jonathan’s emotions, the emotions he had quietly tucked away inside each story he engulfed himself in, now exploded inside the tiny room with a horrifying echo.
“Jon, that’s not true . . .” she said over and over, but Jonathan could not stop himself. He knew the truth, and no matter how many times his mother tried to comfort him with her words, the truth still stung him like a killer bee.
Finally, though, like any eleven-year-old boy, his energy betrayed him, and his tear-swollen eyes grew heavy. He fell into his mother’s warm lap, and before he knew it, he’d drifted off to sleep, to a safe world with dwarfs and goblins and fairies and brilliant colors that he had never before seen on this earth
Jonathan gently set the last page of the chapter down. He gathered himself, quickly shoving his emotions aside and gently wiping the stray tear that had escaped his eye. He picked up a pen and a note pad and began to jot down a few notes.
Knows how to use some description, uses educated words, but has no sense of how a story should flow. Story is choppy, just a bunch of information, point-of-view problems.
Never referred to his mother’s name, Mary.
He never called his mother “Mama” in real life.
This conversation did take place. Can’t remember how old. Was reading The Catcher in the Rye.
Writer somehow knows my favorite books are The Chronicles of Narnia.
Jonathan tapped his pen against the edge of the desk, glancing up at his leather-bound collector’s edition of The Chronicles of Narnia on the lowest shelf of his bookcase. He tried to stay unemotional about what he had just read, but he remembered the conversation with his mother as if it were yesterday. She had looked so tired, her long hair tied up into a tight knot on the top of her head, except for a few stray pieces that had fallen down around her face.
He remembered, though he had been distant and unapproachable, how very much he’d wanted his mother to talk to him and tell him everything was okay. And though he knew that his father still blamed him, the fact that he could lay his head in his mother’s lap, even if just for that one night, brought about a childlike sleep he hadn’t experienced since Jason’s death.
Jonathan arose from his chair and stretched his back, deciding to step away from the story and take a break. He suddenly thought of Sydney and decided to give Naomi Yates a quick call to see if he could set something up with the three of them.
He dialed her number and the old woman answered the phone. After a few brief pleasantries, Jonathan explained the situation and asked if they could come see her sometime next week. Naomi was happy to oblige, and they set a date for the following Monday at noon.
Jonathan hung up the phone and hurriedly rushed out of his office to find Sydney. He first checked her cubicle, but she wasn’t there. He walked the halls, hoping they’d run into each other, but couldn’t find any trace of her.
Finally he went back to her cubicle and asked the department secretary.
“She called a little after lunch. Said she wouldn’t be in for the rest of the day.”
“Are you sure?” Jonathan asked.
The secretary nodded. “Yep. Didn’t sound too good. Probably got the flu or something.”
“I see.”
Before Jonathan had a chance to inquire further, Carl Osburg grabbed him on the shoulder and steered him away from the secretary’s desk. He guided him to the hallway, then walked with him in the direction of Carl’s office. Though Jonathan didn’t have many friends, Carl Osburg was probably the closest thing to a friend he had. Carl had been in the business a little longer, but he always treated Jonathan as an equal, and they’d had years of playing practical jokes on each other, a simple way of breaking up the monotony of the editorial business.
“Zippy come see you?” Carl asked, his accent heavy Brooklyn.
“Yes,” Jonathan sighed as they dodged employees walking the opposite direction in the narrow hallway. “What am I supposed to tell him?”
“Your problem,” Carl said with a grin. “You can tell him no and clean the snot off your carpet.”
“Gee, thanks,” Jonathan said solemnly. “Really, Carl. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Zippy can’t write fiction. . . .” Jonathan looked around and then asked quietly, “Can he?”
Carl shrugged and laughed again, apparently very amused by the situation. “I don’t know. Never read any of his work.”
“Exactly. He’s a nonfiction ghostwriter, and for good reason, as we all know,” Jonathan said as they stepped into Carl’s office. “Why in the world would he want to write fiction?”
Carl sat down at his desk and motioned for Jonathan to shut his door. “Like this is any surprise to you, Jonathan. We’ve seen ghostwriters decide to write under their names before.”
“I know, I know,” Jonathan said as he sat down on Carl’s long leather couch, “but not do a crossover thing.” He laid himself out as if he were at a shrink’s office.
“Well, he does have a long list of nonfiction credits,” Carl offered.
“I know that,” Jonathan snapped impatiently, much to Carl’s amusement. “But we’re talking about gardening books and corporate know-how books . . . very dry stuff, no offense.”
“Not if you’re a gardener,” Carl laughed and then tried to behave. “Hey, what about that book about how to entertain your children? What was it called?”
“I don’t know, Carl,” Jonathan said dully. “That’s your department.”
“At any rate, that was sort of creative.”
“You’re loving this, aren’t you?” Jonathan finally turned his head to look at Carl. “Someone other than yourself having to deal with Zippy?”
Carl only smiled and winked.
“This is a nightmare, you know. Besides the fact I’m quite sure Zippy can’t write fiction, he’s a complete and total enemy of the very concept of sociability. If we published his book, could you imagine taking him to a book signing? Carl, you’ve got to see my dilemma here!”
Carl’s chair squeaked as he rocked back and forth in it. “You betcha.”
“Like I’m going to get any sympathy from you, right?” Jonathan stretched his arms over his head. “Where did Zippy get a crazy idea like writing fiction, anyway?” Jonathan heard Carl snicker and turned his head toward him. “What, Carl?”
Carl was now crying with laughter.
“What, Carl?”
Carl held out his hands as if hoping to catch his breath and answer, but instead he just kept laughing . . . howling, to be more accurate.
“Give me a break,” Jonathan said, getting up off the couch to leave the office. But as he grabbed the doorknob, something occurred to him. He turned back around and glared at Carl, who was still trying to catch his breath. “Wait a minute.” Jonathan walked toward Carl’s desk. “You didn’t . . .”
Carl finally opened his eyes and blinked desperately through tears of laughter. “I did . . .”
Jonathan crossed his arms. “You suggested Zippy write fiction?”
Carl whipped out a handkerchief and blotted his eyes and face. “Don’t kill me,” he said, still chuckling.
“You’re unbelievable, Carl! Unbelievable! I don’t have time for this!”
Carl finally regained control of himself, although he couldn’t lose the prideful smile that seemed permanently spread across his lips. “Then just tell him no.”
Jonathan shook his head, laughed at the absurdity of it all, and walked to the door. “I’ll get you for this, Carl. You’ll pay.”
Carl started howling again and Jonathan shut the door behind him.
chapter 7
The evening air had a bite, and the orange and yellow autumn leaves shone white underneath the full moon’s light. Jonathan drove the long way home, taking the hilly roads that drove through the older neighborhoods, where everyone still had their own backyard and the houses didn’t touch.
He’d decided to make a deliberate attempt to be home for dinner this evening and try his best to patch things up with Kathy. And the more he thought about what Clyde had said, the more he decided Kathy ought to know what was going on with the manuscript. At least partly. He had the option not to reveal everything to her, but she was, after all, his wife, as Clyde had so poignantly pointed out. She ought to know something.
Perhaps seeing Sydney with her fiancé today helped his wandering heart back into place, too. Was he really willing to throw everything away just for a young girl who tickled his fancy? He and Kathy weren’t connecting, but every marriage has its ups and downs. Besides, his three daughters meant the world to him, and he wouldn’t let them go for anything.
After a silent pep talk to himself, he headed home, determined to make things right with his wife, if only for tonight. As he pulled into his driveway, he was pleased to see the whole house lit up from the inside out, a sure sign everyone was home and active.
He didn’t bother parking the car in the garage, and he hopped out and ran to the front door, shivering the whole way. He found the front door unlocked, and he entered with a smile and yelled, “Hello! Daddy’s home!”
His heart gushed at the sound of squeals and footsteps tromping downstairs, and he suddenly found himself wrapped about by six little arms. Even Sophie had managed to keep up, though she could only reach as high as his thigh.
“Hi, girls,” he said, hugging each of them individually.
“Hi, Daddy!” they all said in unison.
Jonathan noticed the Thanksgiving wreath and pumpkins were out and made a mental note to compliment Kathy. “Where’s Mom?”
“In the kitchen,” Meg said.
