Her editor answered the phone and skipped the social niceties. “I just finished reading your manuscript.”
“I’m sorry…I’m sure you curse the day our paths crossed. I had such a hard time—”
“What are you talking about? I loved it. It’s so much improved.”
“But the ending?”
“Very sweet and satisfying. I wasn’t sure who Lucy would end up with. I think you made the right decision. Needless to say, we won’t be requiring the services of that cowriter. I’m sending this straight to copyediting. Congratulations. We’ll be talking more soon.”
Laurie ended the call, completely mystified. As far as she knew, there was no such thing as a manuscript fairy. How in the world did the novel finish itself?
Ramona.
It must have been her, but that seemed odd. Because if Ramon finished it, you’d think one of the heroes would have shape-shifted into a zombie or a werewolf. But who else could it be? She was the only person who had access to Laurie’s work.
The next morning Laurie drove to Dr. Flowers’ house. She needed to properly thank him for all he’d done for her. Also she was curious about how far along he’d gotten on Aaron’s manuscript and what he thought.
Laurie knocked on the front door. She was expecting the hospice nurse to appear, but instead it was Aaron.
He looked just as she remembered. His longish hair curled around his chin, his glasses was taped at the bridge, and he was wearing that shabby corduroy jacket he refused to give up.
“I’m sorry. To interrupt, I mean…I can come back another time…”
“I’m confused. Why are you here?”
“To see your father.”
“You know him?”
“Your father and I are friends…Well, not friends exactly, but…He gave me some private writing lessons. I had no idea he was your father when I started. Listen, I don’t want to disturb your visit with him. How is he, by the way?”
Aaron paused a couple of beats before he answered. “He’s…” He plunged his hands into the pocket of his jacket. “He’s not with us anymore. He died a couple of hours ago.”
“No!”
“I’m afraid so.”
What happened next was almost involuntary. Aaron was obviously hurting, and it was Laurie’s inclination to make things better for him. She flung her arms around him and he returned her embrace. It felt like the most natural thing; their bodies always meshed well together, and she inhaled the familiar smell of moth balls and a roasted nut aroma that was part of his natural body chemistry.
“What’s going on here?” Emma appeared in the doorway. Laurie and Aaron guiltily pulled away from each other.
Emma jabbed a finger in Laurie’s direction. “You! What are you doing here?”
Laurie stammered out an explanation and ended by saying, “I had no idea Dr. Flowers was Aaron’s father. I just found out last night.”
Emma’s brows were low on her forehead. “I find that highly implausible.”
Laurie ignored her and said to Aaron, “I’m sorry about your dad. I got to know him well over the last few weeks. I saw him almost every day. We talked last night, and he said he was going to call you. I hope he was able to reach you before—”
Aaron’s head was down, and he was addressing his comments to his scuffed pair of loafers.
“He was dead before I got here. The hospice nurse called me. Apparently in his last few moments, he was able to give her my phone number.”
“Oh no. That means he didn’t have the opportunity to say anything about your novel.”
Aaron glanced up. “What about my novel?”
“He was going to read it last night.”
“You must have misunderstood. He’s read my work. Long ago.”
“No, he hasn’t. He only said he did.”
Aaron shook his head as if to process this new information. “Are you saying he lied?”
“I’m afraid so. It was difficult for him. There was a time when he desperately wanted to be a novelist, and your aspirations reminded him of that abandoned dream.”
“My father wanted to be a novelist?”
She nodded.
“And you don’t know if he read my work?”
“He didn’t have a lot of time. I brought the manuscript to him yesterday from his office, and he was asleep. Maybe he woke up and read some last night or this morning. You should ask the hospice nurse. She could tell you what he was doing in his last hours.”
“She’s already gone. I didn’t get her name. I suppose I could call and—”
Emma tsked loudly. “What does it matter, Aaron? You don’t require your father’s approval. Featherstone’s publishing your work, for God’s sake. That’s all the validation you need.”
How could she be so clueless? Of course Aaron wanted his dad’s approval. What son didn’t? If Dr. Flowers had read his son’s work, it was a shame he didn’t leave a note or something. But maybe he’d been too weak.
“Again, Aaron, I’m so sorry about—”
“Why are you still here?” Emma said. “This is a private family matter. We don’t have time to stand around inanely chatting with you.”
Aaron said nothing. His head was bowed again, revealing the stark white of his scalp in the part of his hair. He looked vulnerable and sad, and Laurie wished she could gently guide him through his grief. Emma, no doubt, would yank him through it.
“I’ll leave then,” Laurie said. “Again, I’m sorry. If there’s going to be a memorial service—”
“It’ll be family only,” Emma said. “Professor Flowers was a public figure. We don’t want a circus.”
Laurie descended the three steps that lead to the walk outside the condo and glanced over her shoulder to take one last look at Aaron. All she saw was his corduroy-covered arm; Emma was pulling him inside, and Aaron offered no resistance. That image of him being passively tugged along stayed in her mind for a long time.
Twenty-Six
It was hard for Aaron to imagine that a few rogue cells could destroy someone as formidable as his father. Over the next few days, he was grateful for Emma’s help in dealing with the endless details that accompanied a person’s death. She was the one who found his father’s will in his top desk drawer. His assets were left to Aaron, and his father requested cremation and no service. The condo was a long-term lease. His father was never interested in the responsibilities of home ownership.
Emma also helped him choose a funeral home to deal with the remains. Aaron knew the word “remains” was a euphemism, but it bothered him still. He preferred the word corpse; then maybe his father’s death would seem more real to him. Euphemisms like “palliative care,” “the remains,” and “the departed” distanced a person from reality.
He did see his father’s motionless form before it was taken away, and he could immediately sense he was no longer contained within his diseased shell of a body. Aaron didn’t understand how people used to be buried alive. Dead people didn’t resemble sleeping or unconscious people any more than a mannequin resembled a real person.
He was given his father’s ashes in a box. They were heavier than expected, and again, his mind couldn’t associate a large cardboard box with his father’s permanent departure from this earth. Nor did he know what to do with the ashes. His father didn’t make any special requests regarding ash scattering. He wasn’t a nature lover, so it would be disingenuous to scatter them in the usual popular sites like oceans, mountains or canyons.
The mortician noted his hesitation and said Aaron didn’t have to take the ashes; he would dispose of them. Aaron knew the ashes were not his father—in fact they are a probably a medley of various dead people—but he still felt protective over them and did not want to surrender them to a stranger. He stored them in Emma’s attic until h
e could decide what to do with them.
Aaron occasionally thought about Laurie, but she wasn’t a subject he could deal with for more than a few minutes at a time. His father’s death took up too much of his gray matter. Perhaps it’d be wise to put her out of his mind for good. Likely they’d never be together again. He was with Emma now, and he couldn’t help but feel he would never measure up to Jake.
Still, every once in a while, he was freshly startled that Laurie took writing lessons with his father and how quickly she improved, which meant she was clearly talented. How odd that Horace Flowers—a person with incredibly high standards when it came to literary aesthetics—managed to coax this gift out of her. And how strange that she became close to his father in a way that had always eluded Aaron.
Did Laurie know he’d finished writing her novel? He’d dithered back and forth about how to end it, but it eventually became clear that there was only one choice to make.
Aaron was also still absorbing the news that his father never read his novels. Laurie said she gave his father a manuscript—he assumed it was Chiaroscuro—but he couldn’t locate it in the condo. The day after Horace Flowers’ death, he received a phone call from the hospice nurse and was able to ask about his father’s last few hours.
“I’m sorry. I’m not sure what he was doing. I wasn’t in his room. But he was sleeping most likely.”
“You didn’t check on him at all?” Aaron said.
“No. He asked me to only come in when he summoned me. I’d set a monitor in his room so I could hear him if he needed me, but he didn’t interact with me that night. He did, however, call me in the morning.”
“And?”
“He asked for a paper and a pen. He wanted to write some letters. I fulfilled his request and later he asked me to mail two letters and a package. I stuck them in the mailbox.”
“Who were the letters to?”
“I’m sorry. I have no idea. I didn’t glance at them.”
Aaron suspected at least one of the letters was for him, and the package the nurse mailed was his manuscript. At some point he expected it would arrive at Emma’s house like a missive from the grave.
Twenty-Seven
“What’s with the mauling?” Ramona said.
Laurie continued to hug her assistant even though she smelled like a musty attic. “I know what you did, and I’m so grateful I’d give you one of my kidneys if you needed it. My editor loves the book. And, of course, I insist your name be on the cover along with mine.”
“She likes it, huh?”
“Bridget’s beside herself.”
Ramona extricated herself from Laurie’s embrace and said, “Well, I wish I could say I wrote the ending, but that would be a lie.”
“Then who?”
“What’s-his-face. Your ex.”
“Aaron?” Laurie’s mouth hung open.
“You got it.”
“And he agreed?”
“It took some not-so-veiled threats on my part, but yes. What did you think of the ending?”
“I haven’t read it yet. I just found out about it. Wait. Who did Lucy end up with?”
“The person she’s supposed to be with, of course: Drake.”
“I see.”
“That was the only possible outcome. Readers would have hunted you down with torches and pitchforks if she ended up with Art.”
But that wasn’t the point. The point was Aaron was given a perfect opportunity to express his true feelings for her, and he didn’t take advantage of it, in the vein of a true grand romantic gesture. The second Ramona mentioned he’d written the ending, Laurie had a small hopeful thought: “Will Aaron reveal he still loves me?” Obviously she now had her answer.
“He did a satisfactory job of tying things up. If you want to read what he wrote, it’s in Dropbox.”
“I will.”
Not yet though. She wasn’t ready to face the ending. Sometimes she wondered if she would ever be.
Laurie called her editor and revealed that her novel now had a collaborator, who happened to be her ex-boyfriend.
“I should have told you but I—”
“Who cares how the ending came about? Only that it did. Everyone here is thrilled. What’s his name? We’ll need to give him cover credit.”
“He won’t want his name on the cover.”
“Have you asked?”
“No. But I do know he isn’t a fan of genre fiction. He’s a literary novelist. He has a book coming out with Featherstone next year.”
“Is that so? What an interesting twist.”
Laurie knew the gears in her editor’s head were spinning and not in a good way.
“Bridget. I know what you’re thinking but—”
“Publicity would have a field day.”
“Please put it out of your mind.”
“And it just so happens that the senior editor at Featherstone lives in my building. Easy on the eyes if you like the stodgy sort. Now I’ll have an excuse to talk to him.”
“Forget it. Aaron takes his status as a literary writer very seriously. He’d never want his name on a romance novel.”
“Laurie. Laurie. Laurie. I think you underestimate your allure. I’ll bet you could easily talk him into it.”
“It’s not happening. Discussion over.”
“You need to ask him just in case,” she said, sounding huffy. “We can’t have him demanding credit after the book is on the shelves.”
Twenty-Eight
Aaron made his daily trek to the mailbox, wading through ground cover and pushing beyond vines and other foliage that scratched the skin on his arms. Emma said she liked a natural-looking yard, and that overgrowth discouraged trick-or-treaters and magazine subscription salespeople. Most likely she was just too cheap to hire a yard person.
He needed a Weed Wacker just to leave the house and twice he’d gotten poison ivy. Also, the possibility of snakes slithering in the underbrush unnerved him.
The mailbox contained the usual junk—pizza ads, Bed Bath and Beyond coupons—but also a bright pink envelope that smelled faintly of peaches. Aaron took a long deep whiff and rushed back to the house as the fast as the overgrowth and his limp would allow. Carefully he opened the envelope, taking care not to tear it. His hands quivered as he pulled out a piece of stationary.
It read:
Dear Aaron,
Thank you for finishing my novel in my time of need. I couldn’t have done a better job myself. Normally your name would appear on the cover with mine. I can’t speak for you, of course, but I told my editor you’d rather be skewered on a fondue stick and boiled in peanut oil. If you feel otherwise, please let her know as soon as possible. Also I’ll be happy to share a portion of the royalties with you. Thanks again. You created the perfect ending.
Sincerely,
Laurie
P.S. I’m so sorry about your father’s death. I was very fond of him.
Aaron read the note several times and each time his gaze lingered on “the perfect ending.” Naturally he’d wanted Lucy to end up with Art. In fact, he’d made a few false starts in that direction, but it was wrong for the novel. The material preceding it demanded that Lucy choose Drake, and thus, Aaron had to put his preferences aside and do the right thing. Aaron could no more cheat on a novel than he could use the word “party” as a verb.
There was a time when Aaron hoped Laurie’s struggles with the ending were due to her conflicted feelings about him. But judging by her letter, it sounded as if she was perfectly satisfied with the novel’s ending and their real-life ending as well.
Aaron received a call from Edward, his editor, and he sounded irate.
“I ran into a commercial editor from W&W, a woman named Bridget Carter. She lives in my building. I thought, why is this f
lamboyant woman engaging me in conversation? But then your name came up. Is it true you’ve collaborated on a bodice ripper?”
Aaron was sitting at his desk. He closed the document he’d been working on. “Collaborated is not the correct description. What I did was—”
“Forgive me if I say I’m not interested in the details. Nor do I care what you do in your spare time, but please understand your name cannot appear on the cover of this novel. The woman intimated that it might be good for publicity. Preposterous! Featherstone doesn’t want one of their authors to be associated with a genre novel; we have a reputation to protect.”
“Of course not. Although it is an accomplished genre novel. I was surprised to find it engaging, and I—”
“Let me repeat myself. Under no circumstances can your name appear on the cover of a penny dreadful. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“Then this conversation has come to an end. Good day.”
Not long afterward Aaron received a package in the mail from his publisher. He took it into Emma’s den and found an advance copy of his debut novel.
It had the distinguished look of an important book. His name and the title were printed in gray on a black background. He ran his fingers over the raised lettering on the dust jacket and examined the binding. Then he cracked open the spine and noted the fine typography, marveling at this physical representation of a lifelong dream. He had no one to share it with. Emma was attending her bi-annual bookseller convention.
The phone rang. It was Bernie.
“Hey, cowboy. You get the book in the mail yet?”
“It just now arrived.”
“What do you think? Pretty fancy package, wouldn’t you say? Featherstone’s one publishing company that still cares about a book’s appearance. They make their advance reader copies look like the real deal.”
Love Literary Style Page 23