The Ghostwriter

by Alessandra Torre

  “She had questions, about Simon. About you.” Her hand trembles as it reaches for the scarf, patting the silk into place. “And Bethany. She wanted to know about Bethany.”

  Any fear I had over Charlotte Blanton—it turns the corner into something deeper, and darker. It reaches the level where murders are plotted and mama-bear-instincts come out to brawl. It’s a familiar place, and I fight to keep my face calm, my mouth still. I can’t be distracted by Charlotte Blanton right now. I have to work. Mark and I need to write. And my mother—she needs to leave.

  Headlights sweep across the dark porch and my mother turns, her hand lifting, shielding her face. A truck turns into the driveway, and it’s Mark. Panic zips through me. She can’t meet him. In the cab I see curls and color, and I open the front door and step onto the porch. “I’ve got to go. My friends are here to pick me up.”

  “Your what?” I jog down the steps and she scurries after me, the click of her heels slower as she tries to navigate the dark stairs. I am rounding the front hood of the truck, waving in false enthusiasm to Mark, when she calls out. “Helena, we need to talk!”

  I open the passenger door and crawl over Kate’s body, the time too short for her to unbuckle and move over, the truck’s headlights illuminating my mother, and her chase. Pulling the door shut, I hit the door’s lock, my knee bumping into Kate’s midsection, her breath wheezing out in a painful huff. “Sorry,” I mutter, my butt finally hitting the seat. “Go!” I elbow Mark and he only chuckles, shifting the truck into reverse, his elbow all in my personal space.

  “Who’s the crazy woman?” Kate stage-whispers, her body pressed away from the window, the scent of her perfume overwhelmingly sweet. My mom bangs on the glass and jogs with us as we roll backward, out of the driveway. She stops at the base of it, her eyes on mine, the connection broken by Kate’s curls, her face turning to me, a smudge of lipstick against her front teeth.

  “It’s my mom.” I say quietly, sitting back, my hands searching for the belt buckle. “You guys have good timing.” I turn in the seat and look through the back window, her body shrinking as we pull away, and I suppose I should be grateful she doesn’t chase us by car.

  “Oh.” Kate slumps against the vinyl. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean crazy in a bad way.”

  “It’s fine.” Crazy just defines a person you don’t understand. “You can turn right up ahead, it makes a big loop and circles back.”

  “Circles back?” Mark glances at his watch. “The movie starts in thirty minutes.”

  “I’m not going to the movie.” If this was a novel, I’d draw a big fact line through that statement, with the words REPETITIVE in angry text above their vowels. Next to Mark’s character description, I’d add ‘stupid-head’, for no other reason than to make Bethany, wherever she may be, giggle.

  “That’s why we were coming,” Kate pipes in, and if there was any perfume left in that bottle once she got done with it, I’d be shocked. “To pick you up!”

  “And you’re already here in the truck.” Mark says the words gravely, as if my physical presence means absolutely anything at all. “I don’t really have time to go all the way back to your house.” He looks at me and winces, an overly dramatic gesture that conveys zero remorse.

  “Oh please.” I fold my arms across my chest. “This is ridiculous. We’re barely out of the neighborhood and I’m in pajamas, for God’s sake.” Bethany, sitting at her desk. Pajama onesie, a dinosaur print along the length of her leg.

  “And socks,” Kate supplies unhelpfully.

  “And socks,” Mark repeats, in a tone designed to irritate.

  “And socks.” I intone. “Pajamas and socks. So I can’t go anywhere but back to my house. No movie.”

  “It’s got Matthew McConaughey in it.” Kate digs around at her feet and produces a purse, one big enough to hold a bowling ball, should that activity also be on the agenda.

  “Good for him.”

  “And action,” Mark points out. “Very manly action.”

  “Anddddd….” Kate finds what she is looking for and pulls a handful of chocolate out of her purse. “I’ve got candy!”

  “Illegal candy.” I frown. “That’s against the rules.”

  “What rules?” She stops, halfway through opening a bag of M&Ms, the foreshadow to a mess of dropped tiny melted chocolates inside her purse.

  “The theater rules.” I may not have been to a movie in five years, but I’m fairly certain that their business model hasn’t changed. Ticket prices cover the movies. Profit comes from concessions. I tilt my head and see the edge of a Ziploc freezer bag. “What’s that?”

  “Nothing.” Her hand closes on the top of the bag, clenching it shut. “Are you this way—your way, I mean—about all rules? I thought it was just your own.”

  “So you think I create rules but ignore everyone else’s?” There is a word for that. An obvious word, one that I should be able to produce without an iota of effort. My mind clenches uselessly. Oh god. Is this the beginning of dying? How much worse will it get? If I can’t think of this word, this simple, obvious word… Mark turns right, and Kate is saying something about ticket prices being a crime in themselves. Mark swerves around a slow car and her bag bumps against my leg. It’s cold, enough so that I feel it through the thin flannel of my pants. I reach over and pull at the neck of her bag. “You have ice in there?” I can see in now, see the gallon-sized freezer bag full of ice cubes, two diet sodas peeking at me, one inside of a slightly squashed theater cup. “And a used cup?”

  She flushes, pulling the bag away and pushing it into the floorboard, her jaw working at the M&Ms before she swallows. “It’s a plastic cup, Helena. They can be reused.” She says it the same way Simon used to speak. As if I’m the crazy one and her actions are perfectly normal.

  “I’m not wearing shoes.” It the only response I think of, and it doesn’t really help my cause.

  “We’ll get you shoes,” Kate beams, and I can tell right now they are going to try and make this experience FUN. I don’t want fun. I want to be back in my living room, in front of my fire. I could be rereading Mark’s pages. I could be outlining the next chapter, not that Mark will be writing tonight. He seems to have completely tossed aside our work, his focus switching to crap like this.

  “The mall is open,” Mark points to the giant complex, one which has grown since my last visit, the movie theater squished somewhere in its depths. “I can run in and grab a pair of shoes.”

  “I’ll run in.” Kate sounds offended, and I feel like a child, stuck between two parents. The fact that I don’t want to go to the movie seems to be lost on both of them.

  “Mark can go.” I’ll have better luck with Kate in the car, alone. I can order her to cancel this stupid field trip and have her drive me back home before Mark figures out the difference between ballet flats and Toms. I point to the west entrance. “Park there.” He pulls into a spot and I try and remember the layout of the mall, in search of a store as far from us as possible. “I wear size nine. I want—”

  “I’ll find a pair.” He turns the engine off and opens the door.

  “You aren’t going to leave the truck on?” I overdo my tone of concern, and he cocks a suspicious head at me. “It’s cold out,” I add, sinking back against the seat, in an attempt to look as pitiful as possible. He can’t leave us in the cold. He won’t. It’ll go against every protective bone in that big body.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Helena.”

  I open my eyes wide, the innocent face one I haven’t used in years, not since I was last questioned by police. He shakes his head at me, shrugging out of his jacket, and passing it to me. “Keep the doors closed and you’ll be fine for the next ten minutes.” He swings the door shut on my reply. I growl against the leather of his coat.

  “You guys have kidnapped me, you realize that?” I turn my anger on Kate, who is halfway through
unwrapping a Starburst.

  She pushes the yellow square into her mouth. “You did…” she ventures, speaking around the candy, “get into the car with us and scream at us to drive away. I don’t think you can call that kidnapping. Besides,” she brightens. “It’ll be fun! When’s the last time you went to a movie?”

  KATE

  She doesn’t know why, but it is the wrong thing to say. She always picks the wrong things to say. Last week, she made the horrific blunder of congratulating a pregnant woman who was, in fact, just a little chubby. And that was just one example. There have been a hundred more, all accompanied by the sinking feeling hitting her gut right now.

  Helena deflates, her anger seeping into something else. Sadness? She looks away, toward the mall. Maybe she wishes that Kate had gone inside instead. There is a twist of jealousy at the easy relationship she seems to have with Mark, their interactions lacking the stiffness that Kate has always felt with the woman. It isn’t fair. She’s championed for Helena for thirteen years. She helped to make her famous and protected her against the publishers, the press, the readers.

  Yet, Mark is the one who Helena has let in. When he argues with her, she doesn’t blink. When he touches her shoulder, she doesn’t move away. And this book… whatever it is… she is sharing it with him. Maybe that’s why their relationship has grown so quickly. Maybe it’s something between two artistic minds, the writing process a bonding one, a type of personal interaction that her contracts and deadlines can’t compare to.

  She abandons the question about movies. Maybe Helena’s last movie was scary, some horrific slasher film that triggered a panic attack. Or it could have been one of those painful biopics, the kind that look great in trailers, and then end up boring the life out of you for a hundred and twenty painful minutes. She eases her hand into the space by the door and drops the Starbucks wrapper on the floor.

  “I can’t believe he left us out in the cold.” Helena grumbles into the leather of Mark’s jacket.

  “Me too.” Kate warms to the idea of an imperfect Mark. “What an asshole.” Bonding over a common enemy, that strategy might work. “I mean,” she continues, “why wouldn’t he leave the truck running? No one’s going to steal it with us inside.”

  Helena turns to her, the word IDIOT written across her features. “He didn’t want me to steal it and drive myself home. Or for me to get you to drive me home.”

  “Oh.” Kate shifts in the seat, Helena uncomfortably close, even though Mark’s seat is now vacant. “Was that your intention?”

  “Of course.”

  “You don’t want to go to the movie?” It just doesn’t make sense. It’s not like Helena has other plans. And this movie is supposed to be hilarious. She could stand to laugh a little. Kate would be willing to bet that she hasn’t laughed since… her mind instantly sobers. Since that little girl lived upstairs.

  “No.” Helena says shortly, turning to face the mall, her eyes on a passing couple. The man puts his arm around the woman and Helena looks away.

  “It’ll be funny,” Kate says quietly. “I read that it’s good, when writing, to clear your mind every once in a while.”

  “Thanks for the writing advice,” Helena says tartly. “I’ve never done this before.”

  She’s in rare form tonight. Kate knew they shouldn’t have gone by her house. She tried to tell Mark that it was a waste of time, that Helena—if she had already turned down the movie invite—wouldn’t change her mind. And now he is in the safety of the warm mall while she freezes her ass off with a possibly-kidnapped client. “How’s it going with Mark? The book, I mean.”

  “It’s fine. He’s talented, which is a nice surprise.”

  “How much have you guys gotten done?” She quietly moves her hand inside her purse, stealing out another Starburst.

  “The rule isn’t against eating in the car, Kate.”

  “I know that,” she says defensively. Except of course, that she sort of hadn’t. Not when Helena glared at the slightest bit of wrapper noise, or chewing noise, or each time the ice shifted in her purse and made noise. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought the ice. But no one had Diet Dr Pepper anymore. And she didn’t want to go through an entire movie without a drink. And she’d assumed, while filling up the bag at the hotel’s ice machine, that Helena wasn’t coming, so why would it matter? Mark wouldn’t care. Mark probably wouldn’t even notice.

  Now, she feels stupid and fat, unable to stop herself from eating during a chance to have a real conversation with her client. There is no way, in the theater, she’ll be able to pull out the bag of ice and cup, assemble the contraband soda and pour in the first can. Not with Helena right next to her, all appalled and righteous, with her naturally thin body and—she stops herself. Helena is dying. If there is a pity party to be had, Kate is the wrong host.

  “We’re almost halfway done with the book.” There isn’t an ounce of cheer in Helena’s voice, the words dull. If they had a smell, it would be of defeat.

  “Halfway done with the novel?” She puzzles through the reply, her mind calculating the time frame. “That’s ahead of schedule, isn’t it?” She and Mark had been working… almost twenty-two days? Twenty-three maybe? And at least half of those had been days where—according to Mark—she did little more than sleep. It seems incredible that they would be so far along. They’d be done by Thanksgiving! Her final month could be spent… she put another Starburst in her mouth, unable to imagine Helena relaxing. What does a calm, peaceful Helena look like? What will she spend those final weeks doing? She glances at her. “Isn’t that good?” Any author would be pleased to have forty thousand words completed in twenty-odd days. Any other author would be freakin’ joyous right now.

  Helena’s face is anything but. “It is good. I’m glad we are sticking to the schedule.”

  “You don’t look very happy about it,” she ventures.

  “We’re approaching some difficult scenes. I’m just working through it in my head.”

  The urge to ask questions is almost painful, like holding in a secret that’s ripping at you to come out. She knows she shouldn’t, her mind screaming at her to STOP yet still one falls out. “What’s the book about?”

  There is an overall stiffening, one that ripples through Helena’s body, as if the cold has finally seeped in and she has crystallized, from knee to forehead. When she turns her head to Kate, she almost expects to hear her shatter. “You don’t know?” The question is slow and almost accusatory, as if surely Kate should know, as if this was part of her job description, and asking this question has proven her incompetence, once and for all.

  “No,” she says, almost helplessly. “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry. What a weak thing to say. Ron Pilar has probably never apologized to his authors. Ron Pilar’s authors probably apologize to him.

  “Mark hasn’t told you?” Helena isn’t letting this go. She’s insistent on embarrassing her, on dragging this out, the way Kate’s mother used to do. No date to prom? Really? You’re joking. Tell me you’re joking. No one asked you? NO one? Explain that to me.

  “No.” She tries to find some backbone, to say the single word in a breezy, confident tone, as if she has other clients and books to worry about and this isn’t the only thing on her tiny shaky plate.

  Helena’s eyes see through it all. She examines her as if to find a lie, as if Kate would lie about this. “Good.”

  Good? She can’t tell if the word is uttered in sarcasm or sincerity. Helena leans forward, the leather jacket falling from her chest. “He’s back.”

  Mark is a shadowy figure, coming across the lot, big and bulky, the sort that causes Kate to walk faster on the sidewalk, and grip her keys like she had been taught, one poking out between each finger. He pauses beside the door, eyeing them through the glass, then opens it. “You didn’t lock the door.” He glares at Helena, and she reaches an arm out.

  “I know. And damm
it, no one tried to steal us.”

  He smiles, and Helena smiles, just the edge of it visible to Kate, just the edge of it enough to knock her off guard. There is the rustle of plastic, Helena’s head down, elbows sticking out as she rummages, like a scavenger squatting over its kill. She pulls out sweatpants and a long-sleeve t-shirt, then a pack of socks and a sneaker box. “Hmm,” she says, and it’s impossible to tell if she is pleased or irritated.

  “We’ll give you some privacy to change.” Mark starts to close the door. “Kate?”

  “Huh?” She looks from him to Helena, then realizes her mistake. “Oh!” She scrambles for her bag and jacket, pushing open the door awkwardly. “Just a minute.” She’s had ten minutes to be ready, yet doesn’t even have shoes on. She works her feet into the boots, then steps out, making her way around the truck, Mark meeting her by the back.

  “This’ll be fun,” he drawls, in a manner completely void of sarcasm.

  “It’ll be interesting,” she counters. He’s an idiot if he thinks this will be fun. Fun and Helena Ross… those two concepts don’t intersect.

  “Where’s your sense of adventure?” He leans forward when he asks the question, and she gets a whiff of him, a mix of soap and masculinity—a masculinity that doesn’t live on the streets of Manhattan. A masculinity that makes a forgotten part of her swoon.

  Where is her sense of adventure? She probably lost it years ago. Regardless, a movie date with Helena is probably not the thing to bring it back.

  “Why don’t you like JayJay?” Bethany sits to my right, in an empty spot on the floor, pages spread out before her, a marker in hand. She carefully caps the marker and sets it down, solemnly staring at me.

  “A variety of reasons. Probably because she attempted to squash my creative spirit. She never wanted me to write. She’s perpetually irritated at me for my success, and for my general existence.”