The Ghostwriter

by Alessandra Torre

  “It sounds…” His eyes finally move, a slow sweep away as if in search for a word. The one that finally comes out would disappoint thesauruses everywhere. “Sad.”

  “Duh.” I straighten in my seat, and can feel the end of this conversation approaching, the drone of its finality growing louder. “I know it’s sad.”

  “Something’s missing.” He leans back, his arms crossing over his chest. “What else?” I watch his eyes narrow, as if suspecting me of something.

  “That’s it.” I haven’t lied so much since that night.

  “It’s not going to be successful.”

  “I don’t care.” There is a freedom in that. This will be the first book that I won’t fret over. The first book where I don’t wait by the phone, nauseous over where my latest release comes in on bestseller lists. I’ll never know if this book sells five copies, or five million. I’ll never know if readers, or even the editor, loves or hates it.

  He is struggling with something. I can see it when he leans forward, one hand closing over the other, his eyes down on the table before he lifts them to mine. When he speaks, his question is the last thing I expect to hear. “You really want to spend your last months writing?”

  “Yes.” He’s asking a druggie if she wants another hit, an overweight child if they’d like more cake. There is nothing in my final days I want more than to create worlds. There is also nothing I dread more than to dive further into this particular book.

  But it has to be done. I can’t die with this book unwritten, with these truths buried among my bones. It needs to come out. Someone has to know the truth.

  “You can’t be serious.” His hands part, flex, then find each other again, his fingers closing over a wedding ring, which he rolls around his finger. Simon never wore his ring. I should have asked him about it, during one of the hundred times that I noticed it. I should have taken it out of his bedside table and waited to see how long it took him to notice. After he died, I gave mine to a homeless woman, her eyes unmoving as I dropped it into her cup. Sometimes I wonder what she thought when she dumped out her change and saw the diamond. I wonder, when she pawned it, if questions were asked, if the police were called. Mark’s hands move. “You should travel. Do everything you always dreamed of. Sit on a beach and sip umbrella drinks. Get massages every day and read. Hire some Italian to rub lotion on your feet and screw you into next Sunday.”

  I have to smile at that. “You have an unnatural fascination with Italian men, you know that right?”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “I’m serious. The Italian Stallion… then that slutty little novella set in Venice, the one where both guys—”

  “The only thing you’re proving is how much you obsess over my books,” he interrupts.

  I snort, and the change of topic feels good, the corners of his mouth turning up, a bit of levity in the air. “Do we have a deal, Mr. Fortune?”

  “A million dollars?” He raises his eyebrows and glances away. “I need to think on it overnight.”

  “What is there to think about?” I can’t lose him. Not now. Not when I’ve wasted an hour on this meeting, and several more setting it up. Plus, a part of me likes him, his rough edges and quiet manner. Even if he did ignore my rules and seems uninterested in my novel. It is surprising, given that I don’t like many people. In fact, I don’t really like anyone. I push forward the contract, the one Kate prepared, nineteen pages long, with nine of the pages devoted to my “requests.” That’s what Kate is calling my rules, though requests is a terrible substitute, one that poses the items as negotiable, even though they are absolutely not. “Here’s the contract. You’ll get a million dollars for something you can knock out in a couple of months. Write quickly, and you could be out of my hair even earlier than that.” I smile, and he doesn’t return the gesture, pulling the contract closer, our levity of earlier already gone.

  “I’ll think on it.” He pushes to his feet, and I watch the contract follow him, the paper folded in half and tucked into a back pocket, a terrible vehicle for such an important item. He isn’t going to think on it. He probably won’t even read the contract. I’ve lost him, and I don’t know why.

  “One million five.” I’m pathetic, and desperate, and I never realized that until now. I follow him, my hand tucking a bit of hair behind my ear, and he turns, his eyes meeting mine. His shoulders sag a little, and, if I thought my weak negotiation would empower him, I was wrong. He reaches out and lays a hand on my shoulder, the weight of it heavy, the squeeze of it doing nothing to reassure me, a dump of fuel on my fire of internal panic.

  “It’s not about the money, Helena.” He releases my shoulder and smiles, a grin that doesn’t meet his eyes, his steps toward the front door slow.

  “Then what is it about?” I call after him, clutching the chair rail.

  He stops, but doesn’t turn. “I haven’t said no yet.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  He turns, and the afternoon light hits his face, the weathered skin almost pink in its light. “I have a daughter,” he says slowly. “Her name is Maggie. She’s nineteen.”

  “Good for you.” My daughter’s name is Bethany. Three weeks ago, I should have lit ten candles on her cake. I straighten, and when I lift my hand from the chair rail, I am still standing. “What does that have to do with my book?”

  “I wouldn’t want her to spend her last months, stuck in an empty house, working on a book with someone like me.”

  “That’s not for you to decide.” I step forward, and suddenly I don’t like this man. “It’s not really any of your damn business.”

  “My name’s on this contract, it’s my business.” He lifts the pages, and I suddenly wish I’d added another short and simple request to it. Don’t be an asshole.

  I open my mouth to tell him off, and instead, the truth falls out. “The book is about my husband and my daughter. They’re gone. I’m dying. I’m sorry that you don’t like it, or my agenda for the next three months, but this is what is important to me. Their story… it’s all that matters to me.” I turn my head, looking back at the table where we sat, my jaw clenching with the effort it takes to keep my tears at bay. If I look at him, I will fall apart. If I say another word, it will be a sob.

  He steps toward me and kindness isn’t what I want. I can’t…

  I can’t.

  MARK

  She’s breaking. He can see it in the rigid grip of her stance, the clench of jaw, the tremble of her entire frame. He can feel it in the air, the rough pain that emits, and this is so much deeper, so much stronger, than her own mortality. In that news, there had been no emotion. In this, she is a raw current. He doesn’t know when it happened, or how, but grief is a song he is well versed in.

  There are few ways to comfort a person like this. He was her, gripping his mouth so hard he left bruises, when they told him about Ellen. He was her, in the middle of a hospital hall, when the orderly touched his shoulder, asking to get by. He was her, when he smashed the man against the wall, when he sobbed into his chest, then tried to punch him, again and again, for no reason at all.

  He steps closer, and she flinches. She blinks, and tears fall. He wants to hug her, he wants to cry for her, but he doesn’t know her, and that is the problem.

  “Stop.” She lifts a hand, and he does, watching as she closes her eyes, steeling herself, swallowing everything. It can’t be healthy, that inhalation of emotion. Then again, maybe if he had inhaled more and drank less, he’d be in a different position, with a lot less regrets. “I’m fine.”

  It’s a lie if he’s ever heard one, but she is stronger when she turns her head, her gaze meeting his, her chin raising. “I’m fine,” she repeats, almost as if to convince herself.

  Silence grows between them, the hallway suddenly warm, and he reaches back, touching the contract in his pocket, the terms unimportan
t now, everything rooted in her confession.

  “Will you help me?” The words are dead, spoken by a woman who has given up hope.

  “I don’t know.” He needs to think, needs fresh air and sunshine and to be out of this miserable house. He needs to drink, to fight, to climb onto a stallion and gallop so hard he loses his breath. He needs to live, and to forget, to abandon this girl and her death wish, her depressingly realistic book. Then, he thinks of his daughter. If she is ever in this situation, if she ever needs help… will he be there? And if not, who will? Who will spend those final months with her? Who will help her with the most important tasks she has left?

  In that light, he really has no choice.

  HELENA

  “Okay.” He pulls something out of his back pocket and it’s the contract, his steps slow as he walks forward and flattens it against the wall. I watch, and feel the tears start to clog my throat. I’m terrible today. I haven’t cried in years, yet I’m now welling up like a fountain. He flips to the last page and holds the paper there, the other hand pulling at a pocket on his shirt.

  “You’ll do it?” My heart skips when he pulls out a pen. He crosses out Marka Vantly and writes in his true name, his handwriting tight and messy, the scrawl of his signature even worse. “There is a lot in those pages,” I say. “You might want to read it—”

  “I don’t care.” He caps the pen with his mouth and returns it to his pocket, holding out the paper to me. “I’d like half of the funds up front.”

  “Okay.” I glance down at the agreement, and feel the first crack of relief. “The amount is wrong; it still says—”

  “It was kind of you to increase the amount, but I’m not taking advantage of your situation.” He steps toward the door. “A million is more than fair.” He is swinging open the door when I get there, and I reach out to stop him. Something needs to be said, something other than contract logistics.

  “Thank you.” I don’t know when I last spoke those words. I know that right now, they seem inadequate, two syllables that say nothing, yet mean everything to me.

  He looks down at me, and there is vacancy in his eyes, a lack of connection that I don’t understand. “It’s fine. I’ve got to go… some things to do.”

  I’ve got to go… some things to do. It’s the last thing he says, his boots heavy on my porch, his trot down my stairs hurried. A minute later, I watch his car jerk into drive and down the street.

  And to think, people consider me odd.

  I was once told that marriage is a facade. I ignored the wisdom of the words, mainly because they came from a fifty-two-year-old swinger, one who believed that monogamy was a self-destructive concept, and a good orgy is the answer to everything.

  But that slimy stick of sex appeal was right. Not about the orgy, though I never tested that concept out. Marriage is a facade. Simon and I… our facade started early and grew, deep and dark, a pit of secrets and lies.

  I loved my husband. But I also grew to hate him.

  Prologue: Helena Ross

  I never write out of order, yet the prologue comes to me as Marka’s—Mark’s—contract scans in. I hand-write it quickly, before I lose the thought, my pen scratching over the notepad as the machine hums. When all of the pages are done, I staple the contract together, using a fresh pin to stick it to my board, a wave of relief pushing through me at the sight of his messy scrawl. Mark Fortune. He hasn’t written a single word, yet I already feel relief, a lift of the pressure that’s weighed me down since my diagnosis.

  I look down at the prologue, reading over the content. Good stuff. It will intrigue the reader, while also confusing them. I tap the final line and step to the side, my fingers softly dragging across the laptop keys, the screen coming to life from the pressure. I look over at the prologue and feel a familiar stirring. I click on the book file, the feeling growing.

  I should be eating something. And take some meds. But first, I’ll just write a paragraph. Maybe two.

  When I finish the scene, it is almost five the next morning, fourteen hours after Mark’s departure. I turn off the music and save my work, stretching in the doorway before dropping on the office’s couch. I hug a pillow to my stomach.

  I’d written four thousand words, my last for a while. I finished the initial courtship of Simon and set a hopeful tone for the book, one that Mark will spend the next few months strengthening, then decimating.

  A part of me fears the passing of the torch, exposing my secrets, telling him everything.

  A part of me fears how, in the final novel, I will come across.

  A part of me is terrified. The rest feels almost giddy with liberation.

  Soon… my final story will come out, and everyone will know the truth.

  The knock comes five hours later, at a time too early for visitors. I practically crawl down the stairs and open my door, squinting up into Mark Fortune’s face.

  At least he knocked, proof positive that men can be trained. I lean forward, far enough to see the driveway. And he parked on the street. Two points in his favor. Both of which are moot because the contract, of which I emailed him an executed copy, clearly states that he is supposed to be at home. Far away from me. I work alone, he writes alone, and everyone is happy. I look down, at the leather duffel bag in his hand, and raise one eyebrow.

  “Good morning.” He’s back to the charmer I first met, his smile dipped in a casual familiarity that instantly irritates me.

  “What are you doing here?” I emailed him the manuscript before I went to sleep. He should be at his desk, reviewing that content, and gently poking me, via email, for an outline.

  “You forgot the attachment.” I stare at him blankly. “In your email,” he explains. “There wasn’t an attachment.”

  “Oh.” It’s a distinct possibility, my all-night writing session leaving me a little loopy, my forgetfulness with attachments a common occurrence. A missing attachment doesn’t explain his presence on my front porch, at ten on a Saturday morning. “I’ll resend it.”

  “I thought I’d just read it in person.” He smiles, and I stall, my mind torn between a desire for feedback and a visitor-free morning.

  The feedback wins, and I step back, opening the door wider, and beckoning him in.

  It’s not that hard to write a book. The words are easy. What’s difficult is the ability to breathe life into them. I chose Marka because her words jump. They have life, they have feeling. I chose Marka because I can see myself in her characters, I can feel their emotions.

  The same man who wrote those words, those characters, just scratched himself. He’s reading my first chapter, in the midst of my freaking love story, and reached down, his hand gripping the front of his pants, the action one without thought, a disgusting habit that he probably does ten times a day. This is why I avoid men. This is why I avoid people in general. We are a disgusting, foul race, only a few centuries past smearing our faces with feces and dancing for rain.

  “What’s wrong?” He’s looking at me, his eyebrows raised, plastic-rimmed glasses perched on his nose.

  I bite my lip in an attempt to stop the curl. “Nothing.”

  He returns to the page, his thumb licked before he flips to the next.

  The thought of him reading my work is unnerving. There is a reason that I don’t allow anyone to see works-in-progress before completion. I once walked in to see Simon hunched over my computer, the mouse moving, my manuscript scrolling by. I’d snapped. It’d been our first big fight, one where I screamed and he’d scorned and we’d finally agreed, four hours and a hundred tears later, to never ever, ever touch each other’s stuff. I wouldn’t mess with his World of Warcraft laptop, and he wouldn’t so much as enter my office without prior permission.

  He lifts the pages, and I tense, watching his face closely. “This is good.”

  It isn’t a gush, but I still feel a knot between my shoulde
rs relax.

  “You wrote enough for me to get the tone of it. And I feel like I have a good handle on the characters.” He stands, one hand supporting his lower back, and I wonder exactly how old he is. Fifty? Old enough that I feel confident that he will never attempt a pass at me. Not that that’s been a common problem during my life. Most men dislike me, a condition that Mark will eventually reach, assuming he hasn’t already hit that precipice.

  “Why do you love me?” I whispered the question against Simon’s back, my hand running along the skin, from freckle to freckle, connecting the dots.

  “I love everything about you.” His voice was barely audible over the television, and I wanted to mute the sound, and ask the question a hundred more times.

  “Even my quirks?” I was hesitant to pose the question, a small part of me worried that, somehow, in our year together, he hadn’t noticed them. Maybe, once he did, he’d run.

  At that, he turned, his big frame shifting in the bed, his profile illuminated for a brief moment by the television’s glare before he was facing me. “I love your quirks most of all. You’re the most unique woman I’ve ever met, Helena. It’s what first attracted me to you.”

  “I thought it was my supermodel looks.”

  “That too.” He leaned forward and I felt his arm slide around my waist, the sheet between us, almost a cocoon of embrace as he pulled me closer and pressed his lips to mine.

  “I’m starving.” Mark speaks, and it snaps me back to present, the memory of Simon replaced by an old guy who could use a good round with some ear clippers. “May I take you to lunch?”

  May I. How pleasant on the ears, a simple rule that Bethany never could master. With her, it was always ‘can’. Can I… I’d corrected her a hundred times, but she still learned by example. And Simon was a terrible example.