Ghost writer, p.17
Ghost Writer, page 17
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Jonathan fell into bed early that evening, completely exhausted and barely able to keep his eyes open. Though his body was motionless, his mind was alive with activity, a circus of fears, anxieties, anger, and guilt.
He had sensed Kathy had wanted him to stay up and talk, but he didn’t have the energy. He lamely apologized, took a shower, and went to bed before she did.
In the morning, he was awakened by Sophie throwing a temper tantrum and a car pulling out of the drive, presumably Alexandra’s parents dropping Meg off. He dozed on and off for another thirty minutes before all the commotion downstairs began echoing off his bedroom walls.
He checked his clock. It was 7:30 A.M. He decided to go with a more casual look this morning—khakis and a long-sleeved, heavy knit sweater. The chill in the air indicated maybe some snow had fallen overnight, and as he looked out the window to his backyard, he was thrilled to see a soft layer tickling the tops of the grass and brightly reflecting the morning sun. He warmed his hands underneath the faucet, did a quick shave, then thundered down the stairs to join his family.
Meg was busily talking about her evening with Alexandra while Leesol was teaching Sophie how to butter her toast. Kathy was fixing oatmeal, a different flavor according to each child’s preference.
“Dad, I have a boyfriend!” Meg exclaimed as she hopped out of her chair to greet him with a hug.
Kathy followed right behind her with a fresh cup of coffee for him. “You’re going to need this.”
Meg pulled out a chair at the table and insisted he sit down. She sat right next to him. “His name is Damion, and he’s fourteen. Dad, don’t freak out. Dad!”
Jonathan realized he must’ve had a bewildered look on his face, because so far he hadn’t said a word.
“He’s Alexandra’s older brother’s best friend. He plays football. The quarterback. He reads a lot. I thought you’d like that. His last name is Barker, which rhymes with Harper, which is sort of how we met. It was this whole confusing thing on the phone when he called for Chad, and I ended up getting on the phone and well, we started talking. He actually knows who I am! For like, two hours, Dad. He’s really sweet. And very cute. He said I reminded him of Meg Ryan, and not just because of my name. He said I looked like her, too. . . .”
Jonathan held up his hands and shot Kathy a look, which was returned with a little chuckle and a shrug of the shoulders. “Meg, good grief. Slow down. You can’t have a boyfriend. You’re too young. You’re only . . . how old are you again?”
“Daaaadddddd,” Meg moaned, her eyes already tearing up. “Moommmmm?”
Kathy approached the table. “Honey, your dad’s right. You’re not going on any dates, so get that through your head right now.”
“I’m not a baby!” Meg sniffled.
Jonathan brushed her hair out of her face. “Sweetheart, I know that. But you’re also not ready to date. I’m glad Chad thinks you’re—”
“Damion.”
“—Damion thinks you’re cute. You are cute. You’re adorable. But you’re absolutely not going on any dates.”
“Dad! You’re being mean! This is the most popular guy at school!”
Jonathan broke his toast in two. “That makes it even worse.”
“Mom!” Tears flowed from Meg’s eyes.
“Honey, you know you can’t date until you’re fifteen. We’ve talked about this.”
“But Alexandra’s already had two boyfriends! I haven’t had any!”
Jonathan glanced up at Kathy. “And you say Alexandra’s okay to hang out with?”
Meg slid her chair back. “Great! Now I can’t hang with Alex, either? What’s next? You’re going to keep me out of school so I don’t look at any boys?” Meg dramatically shoved her chair back underneath the table and stomped upstairs. “You’re sooo mean!”
Jonathan blinked, not sure he’d had an opportunity to yet, and Kathy brought him a warm bowl of apple cinnamon oatmeal. Leesol, who had managed to somehow get toast in Sophie’s hair, said, “Daddy, he is cute. I’ve seen him.”
Kathy quickly ushered Leesol upstairs. “Go get ready for school. The bus will be here in ten minutes.”
Jonathan swirled his oatmeal with a spoon, his head already pounding. “What in the world just happened?”
Kathy picked pieces of toast out of Sophie’s hair while Sophie made crumbs with the piece she had left. “She’s at that age. We knew it would happen.”
Jonathan sighed and poured himself a glass of orange juice. “Yeah, but shouldn’t she be out of diapers first?”
Kathy joined him at the table for a glass of juice. “Hard to believe she’s not a baby anymore, isn’t it?” She buttered a piece of toast and Jonathan checked his watch.
He walked to the kitchen, put his dishes in the sink, and picked up his briefcase from the dining room where he’d left it the night before. “Thanks for breakfast,” he said and kissed both Sophie and Kathy on the cheeks. He glanced upstairs and said, “I’ve got to run. I guess I’ll do damage control when I get home this evening.”
Kathy nodded and opened the front door for him. “You want a coat? There’s snow on the ground.”
Jonathan shook his head and grabbed a scarf off the coatrack. “This will be fine.”
He kissed Kathy one more time on the cheek and then walked out the front door, remembering he had been unable to get into the garage because Clyde had been parked in the driveway. Kathy shut the door behind him and he stood on the porch for a moment and took in the view. It was perfect. The autumn leaves hadn’t completely died and fallen off yet, so a few still remained on the trees, capped with tiny bits of snow and ice, which were beginning to melt, though the sun barely emitted any heat yet. The ground was as smooth as white silk, and not even a dog’s prints had ruined the perfect layer of snow in his front yard.
He checked his watch and decided he had better get going. His commute to work would likely be slow this morning. He wrapped the scarf around his neck and stepped carefully along the sidewalk, watching for any spots of ice. When he got to his car, he fumbled around for his keys, which he was sure he’d put in his pocket. Finding them, he dusted off the keyhole and then saw the one thing that he dreaded the most. A manila envelope was tucked underneath the windshield wiper on the driver’s side. Jonathan’s keys fell out of his hand and he immediately grabbed the envelope, dusted off the light bit of snow on it, and stared at it without breathing.
His mind froze without any thoughts at all, and his body was unaware of the cold wind that was chapping his skin. In the background he heard the roar of the school bus turning the corner onto his street, and without hesitation he quickly threw the envelope in his SUV, picked his keys up off the ground, and got in. He turned the ignition on and violently tapped his hands against the steering wheel as he waited for the defroster to work.
The bus honked and the front door opened, and Leesol and Meg rushed out into the snow, through the front yard toward the bus stop. Kathy waited at the door, watching them run and yelling what Jonathan presumed were warnings about the ice on the road. She shivered, waved at them, gave Jonathan a short wave, and then disappeared into the house.
Jonathan closed his eyes, told himself not to panic, and backed out of his driveway with a full sheet of ice on his back window.
chapter 15
The fight the night before had been one of their worst. Kathy, in her usual, overly emotional way, had declared their marriage over due to Jonathan’s long hours at the office. Jonathan, in his usual underemotional way, had agreed by not disagreeing. The explosion between them was monumental. Jonathan screamed that he couldn’t tell what she was feeling anymore. Kathy retorted, crying and yelling, “If you read me as carefully as you read all those stupid books, maybe you would know what’s going on inside me!” Jonathan had thrown a few things off the kitchen counter and stomped upstairs. Kathy cried hysterically and locked herself in the downstairs bathroom.
The next day, at the office, Jonathan felt empty. He covered this up by working, but in his mind he knew, out of the last six months, this one had been the worst. The progression had been slow. A few side comments here. A couple of small arguments there. Nothing, standing alone, that would indicate a twenty-year marriage was on the rocks.
Though the argument had been over Jonathan’s long work hours, that was simply a mask for what was really going on. They had grown apart, plain and simple. Their lives, though lived under the same roof, were separated by emotional distance. And it seemed with each passing day, their marriage crumbled even more.
The day after the big argument, Kathy had called several times, but Jonathan refused to return her phone calls. Little did he know that on that day, one piece of mail would change his life forever.
Jonathan breathed shallowly, unaware that his hand was covering both his mouth and nose. Dare he turn the page? When he first began reading, he wasn’t sure at what point in his life the story picked up. Since he’d burned the previous section, it seemed as if he were picking up on the story right in the middle. It spoke of a monumental argument, but these days, he could pick and choose. Though the last few days had seemed better between him and Kathy, he attributed that mostly to the fact that he was so consumed with guilt over Sydney that he was making extra efforts toward Kathy.
The last sentence on the page, though, the one about a piece of mail that would change his life, made him chew off the ends of each one of his fingernails on both hands. He sat and stared at the page as if it might turn by itself. The stark reality was that whoever was writing this was in a process. The author was writing his life as it happened.
Jonathan tried to think logically, trying to remember the day the first pages of this manuscript had arrived. It had been a busy morning, as he recalled. The more he thought about it, the more he remembered he and Kathy having a fight the night before, over his work hours, just as the manuscript had said. He felt completely violated—as if someone had been in his house, listening to his life and writing down every detail of it.
He quickly reminded himself, as he snapped back into the present situation, that whoever it was did not know everything. He had to keep telling himself that. Some details were wrong. Others were left out. Whole sections of his life were missing.
But overshadowing those facts, as comforting as he tried to make them, was the reality of the details that were written down, many of which no one knew but him. And now this writer was not only writing about Jonathan but had also entered the story himself, with the mention of the manuscript. And whoever it was correctly stated that that single piece of mail had changed his life. What was on the next page was anyone’s guess.
At first it blended in with all the other manuscripts that crossed his desk every day. It was in the typical yellow manila envelope, and it was marked “Requested Material.” But when he began reading, to his astonishment, it was about his own life, starting with the death of his brother.
This was quite shocking, because no one knew about this incident except him and his parents, who were now both dead. At first he wrote it off as coincidence. After all, there were some differences. But the more he read, the more he knew that this was no coincidence. Someone was indeed sending him a story about his own life.
The story continued with the barn fire, a time Jonathan would have rather forgotten, and also a conversation he had had with his mother in his bedroom. As he sat and read the story in his office, his hands trembled and his heart raced.
All these memories rushing back to him were more than he could handle, especially as he dealt with the usual business of the day. By the end of the day he was exhausted, too exhausted to face his wife. Luckily he had a dinner appointment with one of his favorite people, Clyde Baxter. But dinner could only last so long and eventually he had to come home.
Still reeling from the night before, Kathy greeted him with disdain. He’d missed dinner due to his appointment with Clyde, which he knew would upset Kathy. The night was a disaster, like so many other nights.
Jonathan quickly ripped a piece of paper off his yellow pad and grabbed a pencil.
“Think, think, think,” he said, trying to remember the day he’d received the manuscript. How much of this was accurate? What details were in and what details were left out?
He reread the first part slowly and wrote notes to himself. Yes, he and Kathy had had a fight, and it had been over his work hours. The author had presumptuously, as before, written down how Jonathan might have felt about the situation. The author also assumed that their problems went deeper than arguments over his work hours.
Jonathan tapped his pencil against the edge of the desk. His eyes scanned his notes and lingered on the words presumptuous and assumed. As he scratched the end of the eraser with his thumbnail, he made a mental note that the author was right on. Jonathan did feel empty inside. And the problems, though he didn’t wish to admit it, were deeper than simply about long work hours. The trouble was, he didn’t even know how deep they went or from where they came.
He continued and reread the line about Kathy calling several times that day. Jonathan tried to remember that day as best he could. He remembered the fight the night before . . . who could forget it? And the next morning seemed to be the usual. He had begun his morning looking at manuscripts and somehow had stumbled upon this particular one.
Jonathan started to write down a note and then paused. “Wait a minute,” he said out loud. Sydney had brought in the manuscript. Yes! Sydney had brought it in and they had discussed . . . Embeth Wilkes! That’s right! And then Zippy had come in and wanted to talk about his new book. Jonathan wrote as fast as he could. Things were missing! Perhaps the author just didn’t deem them important, but nevertheless, those details weren’t in there. That could be vital.
He thought harder. Whoever it was knew that Kathy had called but presumably not that Sydney or Zippy had come in. Jonathan drew a line down the middle of his page. On the left-hand side he wrote actual. On the right-hand side he wrote story.
He took a deep breath and began to think of and catalog that whole day, every detail that he could remember. He scribbled thoughts down as more ideas piled on top.
Two pages filled with notes. He broke his pencil lead twice, and at the very end stabbed his pencil into the page to make a deep period. He looked over his notes for a minute or so, the proud smile on his face slowly fading as he realized that this small clue brought him no closer to knowing who was doing this or why or even how.
As he nervously scratched the dry skin off his lips, he silently encouraged himself to continue to find clues. As he thought some more, he noticed something in particular. In the first chapters that were sent, the author seemed attentive to detail. It had been more like a work of fiction. There had been much more detail. The story’s flow was smoother.
Now, though, it seemed as if it were just a list of things that happened. Sure, a few sentences were thrown in, trying to describe how he might have felt in a circumstance, but it read more like an outline than a story. He wrote that thought down at the end of the page and put a star by it.
He traced the star with his pencil as one single, overwhelming thought pounded inside the walls of his mind. It was a thought that he had refused to entertain all morning. Now, though he didn’t want to, he had to address it.
The writer had been to his house.
Jonathan gently folded his hands together and pressed his index fingers against his lips. Had he walked right up to their house in the middle of the night? Jonathan had not thought to look in the snow for footprints, though he did remember it being a soft sheet of white. By now the snow was gone, anyway.
His whole body seemed to go numb at the sickening thought that whoever this person was knew a great deal about him, including where he lived. Had he peeked in the windows in the middle of the night? Did he know the layout of the house? Had he been in the house, as the evidence seemed to indicate?
“No,” Jonathan said out loud. The house was locked and there was no evidence of intrusion. But someone knew what went on inside the house.
His head ached with anxiety and fear. Was his family in danger? He quickly dialed his home number, but the machine picked up. He hung up without leaving a message.
On his desk, a few more pages lay waiting to be read, waiting to invade his life. He picked up his pencil, which felt as if it weighed a ton, and turned the page to continue to read about his life.
Perhaps the next night could’ve been saved. Jonathan had come home early, hoping to smooth things over from the day before. However, Kathy wasn’t receptive. The night ended in a harsh fight, which was no surprise to either of them. Even their attempt at a date the next evening was disastrous.
But Jonathan always did have poor timing.
He’d decided to tell Kathy about the manuscript. He tried to act unaffected by it, play it off as mildly annoying, but the truth of the matter was he was extremely worried. Unfortunately, Kathy had hoped the date was an attempt to start over, a way to wave the white flag without speaking it. The date ended with Kathy getting up and leaving.
Jonathan pushed the lump in his throat back down. How could anyone know this? How could someone know what went on in his office, out of the office, in his home, and everywhere else? Was he going insane? Was this writer trying to make him insane? Had someone been watching at a nearby table as he and Kathy had dinner? Close enough to hear their conversation and know he had spoken to her about this manuscript? He feebly wrote a few notes down, then continued.
