Ghost writer, p.18
Ghost Writer, page 18
The weekend was filled with silence between them until Sunday morning, when Jonathan announced he would go to church with the family. It had been nearly a year since he’d gone, and Kathy and his daughters were delighted. After all, at one time he had faithfully attended, but the more Jonathan got buried in his work, the less time he spent at church, until he wasn’t going at all. Had Jonathan forgotten his God, or maybe never known him at all?
Jonathan set the pages down, his eyebrows rising while he re-read the last sentence. It startled him, for more than one reason. He read the last part out loud.
“ ‘Had Jonathan forgotten his God, or maybe never known him at all?’ ”
His fingers painfully underlined each word. His jaw muscles tightened in reaction to the word God. Resting his head against the back of his chair, his body slumped and he looked up, as if expecting to see God himself hanging from the ceiling. He did believe in God. But more in an abstract way. Kathy always talked of God as if He were in the room. To Jonathan, He was something far, far away, a star in the night that had watched his brother die and done nothing to stop it. And maybe more than that—blamed Jonathan for it. If He noticed at all.
“Are you writing this, God?” he said with a short, disturbed laugh. He traced his eyebrows with his fingers as he wondered what all this meant. First his childhood. Then his marriage. And now his spiritual life? Sure, Kathy and even the girls had been harping on him to go to church, and every Sunday he had good intentions. But when Saturdays are filled up with work, Sundays are precious. Most of the time he was too tired. And when he did have the energy, the lawn needed mowing, among other things. Besides, church didn’t have much meaning to him. He mostly did it out of family duty. Kathy expected it of him.
Several months back, Kathy had wanted them to pray together, especially about their marriage. But Jonathan had never felt comfortable praying and instead assured Kathy he would do it on his own time . . . which he had not. He didn’t even know how to pray.
He jotted down the word God in his notes, and then thought about who might be concerned about his spiritual life. Pastor Gregory was the obvious choice, though he didn’t have enough evidence to prove he would be the writer. Clyde, however, was a different story. Clyde always seemed concerned about his spiritual life and was quite the Christian advocate. And, Jonathan wrote swiftly, Clyde is always concerned about my drinking. He had made several comments about it the last few times they were together. And Kathy. He wrote her name down slowly. Kathy.
Jonathan stood and looked out his window. Clyde had been at his house the night before. But did he really have enough guts to leave the manuscript right on his windshield? As Jonathan rolled up his sleeves, the thought came to him that maybe Clyde knew he was close to being caught. After all, he had been confronted. Maybe he knew Jonathan was closing in.
“Maybe he wants me to figure out it’s him,” Jonathan thought out loud. Why? And how did he know so much?
Jonathan shook his head, doubt right on the heels of every hopeful thought. Clyde wouldn’t do something like this. And besides, as good of a writer as he was, he couldn’t know so many details about him. Even if Kathy had felt the need to confide in Clyde, how would Clyde know about his brother’s death, the incident in the barn, and his conversation with his mother? His parents had died before he ever met Clyde. Still, it was odd that he happened to be at the house the night these pages turned up. And the time before they had mysteriously landed in Clyde’s mailbox.
Jonathan decided to read on, hoping that with a few more slip-ups or clues, he would discover who the writer was.
That weekend he woke up early enough to go to church with the family. Unfortunately, a call from Clyde shattered that possibility. Clyde had insisted that Jonathan meet him right away at Jonathan’s office.
When Jonathan arrived, Clyde was there with a manila envelope in his hand. He didn’t have to say what it was. Jonathan knew. It was more pages to the manuscript.
In a thoughtless rage, Jonathan burned the envelope right then and there. He then drove in a complete panic to his house where he checked all his doors and windows to make sure everything was locked. He went to the basement to see if he could find evidence that someone had been there. He was startled when his wife came downstairs to find him.
As painful as it was, Jonathan had to tell her the truth. The truth, according to Clyde, was that apparently the story depicted their marriage as rocky, which it was. Unfortunately, it also meant that now Kathy was even more involved, and Jonathan had to tell her that she was in the story, too. Obviously concerned, Kathy then admitted that she had told Charles Gregory, the pastor of their church, about their problems.
Jonathan immediately went to confront Pastor Gregory, but ended up empty-handed, without much more evidence to prove who was writing this. He then went to Clyde’s house to try to find out more information about the pages he had burned, though in the back of his mind, Clyde was just as much a suspect as anyone else.
“Yes!” Jonathan exclaimed. The writer had gotten another fact wrong. He had visited Clyde first, then Pastor Gregory. Jonathan marked his notes, underlined them twice for emphasis, and continued.
After finding out more about what was in those pages, Jonathan was more on edge than ever. This came through when a house author, Francis Flowers, was waiting in Jonathan’s office the next morning. Jonathan saw a manila envelope on the desk and with utter trepidation, caused quite a panic when he snatched the envelope out of Francis’s hand with such fierceness, the poor man was about scared to death. This was when Jonathan knew all of this chaos was about to send him over the edge.
But little did he know that his roaming heart would do more damage than the mysterious story. His infatuation with a young woman named Sydney was pushing him closer to the ledge. Though he couldn’t see the drop-off, he seemed willing to jump anyway
The pencil in Jonathan’s hand snapped in two. Staring down at the pages, he could hardly believe what he was reading. The writer knew about Sydney? How? He had told absolutely no one about her. Sure, he figured Edie had her suspicions, but they were just suspicions, because nothing had happened between them. Only some harmless flirting. How could someone look into his heart and know how close he had been to falling for her?
Jonathan stood, paced his office, stopped, closed his eyes, and made himself sit back down in his chair and read the rest of it. Somewhere in all of this mess was his clue as to how this writer knew so much.
He spent the day with her at Naomi Yates’s house, a famous children’s author. There, though, Jonathan was confronted by the old woman on this deadly infatuation. She told him about an affair she had in 1940 and how it destroyed her marriage. Jonathan denied anything was going on. In fact, he played it off as simply trying to help Sydney, as he suspected she was being beaten by her fiancé, a suspicion that was underlined by an awkward confrontation he had with her in the car on the way over to Naomi’s house.
But Naomi knew better and asked him a simple question that Jonathan had no choice but to ponder. “If you’re going to be her savior, who is going to be yours?”
While away from the office with Sydney, Kathy had stopped by to take Jonathan to lunch in an attempted peace offering. Unfortunately, he wasn’t there and Kathy left disappointed.
Jonathan’s day was further complicated when a fellow editor and friend, Carl Osburg, stopped by his office to break the news to him that their boss, Nellie, was beginning to worry about Jonathan. His last few books had hardly sold, and the choices he was bringing to the conference table weren’t the usual superstars. As Carl put it, “You haven’t been yourself lately.”
Jonathan dismissed his seeming incapability by sharing with Carl that he and Kathy had been having a few minor problems, but it wasn’t anything to be alarmed about, and it certainly wasn’t the reason he wasn’t doing well at work. Although angry, he assured Carl that he would talk with Nellie and put her fears to rest.
When he arrived home that evening, Clyde Baxter was waiting for him inside his home. Kathy had cooked a lasagna, and Jonathan sat down just as it was being served. They discussed the manuscript together and tried to come up with reasons why someone would write all this about him. Clyde commented that perhaps the writer was showing him his past for some reason; there was something the writer wanted Jonathan to know.
When Kathy left the table to go get cobbler, Jonathan threatened Clyde. “I swear, Clyde, if you’re doing this I’m going to kill you.” Clyde, in his usual mild-mannered way, simply denied it.
Jonathan slept restlessly that night, and the next morning, as he walked out to his car to go to work, his nightmare resurrected itself in the form of another manila envelope located on the driver’s-side windshield, underneath the wiper.
Jonathan was breathing hard as he finished the last page. He carefully clipped the pages together and slid them back into the envelope. A million questions flowed in and out of his mind, his racing heart trying to keep pace. Thought after thought knocked him dizzy. The writer knew of his conversation with Sydney in the car. The writer knew of his conversation with Naomi Yates at her house. The writer knew of his conversation with Carl in his office. How?!
The manuscript had almost accurately depicted the events of the last few days in his life. There was no set pattern to the knowledge. Sometimes it gave great detail, even accurately quoting people. Other times it gave rather vague descriptions.
But perhaps what was most startling was the fact that it told the story all the way up to that very morning. Jonathan couldn’t understand how all this was playing out. He stood and walked circles in his office to try to get the blood flowing back to his brain.
That morning he had, as the manuscript indicated, walked to his car and found it on his windshield. But the more Jonathan remembered, the more he realized that the writer had not described his morning completely accurately. Though part of his morning played out as it said, he realized that the writer could only guess what would happen, for it had to have been written the night before. Of course he would go out and find it on the car, where the writer had left it. That wasn’t hard to predict. But it made no further mention of the morning’s happenings or his fight with Meg over her new boyfriend.
Jonathan’s dark cloud of insanity revisited him, though, when he thought of all the events the manuscript had accurately described—nearly everything of significance that had happened to him in the past few days, including his relationship with Sydney.
Jonathan stopped walking and stared at the walls in his office, wondering if they talked. As silly as that thought was, it led him to the idea that perhaps he was being recorded. Had someone sneaked into his office and placed a camcorder somewhere?
It didn’t explain how the author knew everything else, but it was a start. Before he could stop himself, he was pulling books off his shelf. First, one at a time, but the more the thought of someone spying on him overwhelmed him, the more furious he became, grabbing books by the handful and throwing them from their shelves. He rolled his chair over and climbed onto it so he could reach the top shelves. One by one, books came toppling down to the floor, as Jonathan tried to keep his balance on a chair with wheels. A cloud of dust hovered near the ceiling.
“Are you watching me?!” Jonathan said loudly, scooting himself along the bookshelves, tossing books left and right. “Is that it? Spying on me? Watching my every move? I’ll catch you! I swear I will—”
“Jonathan?”
Jonathan turned around quickly, causing a book to drop onto his head with a thud and then fall, hitting his shoulder and hand before crashing to the ground.
“Nellie . . .” Jonathan’s voice was barely audible.
Nellie Benson, in her dark navy tailored suit and high heels, carefully stepped around a few books near the door, eyeing both the books and Jonathan carefully. “Is everything okay here?”
Jonathan wobbled a bit on the chair before stumbling off it and falling onto the ground. He hopped up and, still choking on the dust, managed to get out, “Sure. Why?”
Nellie stooped to pick up a book bent backward at the spine. “Well, the floor in your office is covered in books and your bookshelves are left with just dust.” She poked her fingers into her French twist. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
Jonathan leaned casually on his desk. “Just doing some rearranging. That’s all. I’ve been needing to get rid of some of these books for a while.” Jonathan glanced down at the book-ridden carpet and stooped down to grab one. “Would you look at that! Moby Dick. I’ve been looking for that.”
Nellie tried to clear the air of dust by waving her hands. “Yes—well, next time maybe you should dust first.”
Jonathan laughed lightly, brushed the dust off Moby Dick, and returned his chair to his desk. “What can I do for you, Nellie?”
Nellie picked a book off one of the chairs in front of his desk, unbuttoned her jacket, and sat down. “Well, Jonathan, don’t be so surprised to see me here. Carl told me he came and talked to you.”
Jonathan threw Moby Dick aside and sat down. “Yeah, that was low, Nellie. Why not just come here yourself?”
She adjusted the watch on her wrist, avoiding his eyes. “I don’t know. You’ve been acting so strange lately, I thought maybe the problem was personal. I didn’t want to pry, but I thought you and Carl were close. Maybe he could find out.” She glanced up at him. “You and Kathy okay?”
Jonathan sneezed, his allergies ignited by all the dust. “Fine, fine,” he said, grabbing for a tissue.
“You’re sure?” She looked around the room for emphasis. “You’re sure this isn’t affecting you?”
Jonathan blew his nose and nodded.
Nellie fiddled with her left earring. “You can talk to me, you know. I mean, maybe it’s not your marriage. Maybe it’s something else.”
Jonathan, between sneezes, questioned her with a tilt of his head.
“I’m just saying, your editorial choices have left something to be desired lately, and I’m thinking maybe you should take a break. A sabbatical or something. Hmm?”
“Nellie, please. I’m in a slump. You’re acting as if this is something uncommon. It happens.”
“Sure it happens, Jonathan. But your behavior lately has been so weird, I just thought maybe it was—”
Jonathan held up his Kleenex, waving it like a white flag. “Nellie, please. Give me a break. I’ve got two sure winners for next month’s editorial meeting.”
Nellie raised her eyebrows, impressed. “Good. I’m glad to hear it. We’ll meet the week after Thanksgiving.”
Jonathan stood and leaned forward on his desk, trying to muster up as much confidence as he could. “Trust me.”
Nellie stood, and they exchanged knowing smiles. “All right, Jonathan. Well, I’ll let you get back to . . . whatever it was you were doing.”
Jonathan walked her to the door. Nellie scoped the office one more time, gave Jonathan an awkward glance, then headed off down the hall. Jonathan was then met by Edie’s persistent, disapproving stare, to which he slammed the door.
The hundreds of books on the ground and the empty bookcases above him were exhausting just to look at. His eyes were swelling with his allergies, and he felt drained. There was obviously no camcorder. He walked to his desk, his chest tight with anxiety. Before he could stop himself, he was unscrewing the receiver of his phone. As he was screwing the phone back together, Edie’s voice roared over the speaker. “It’s Kathy. You want it or should I take a message?”
“I’ll take it,” Jonathan said. “Hold all my other calls, though.” Jonathan collapsed into his chair and hit line one. “Hey.”
“Jonathan? You sound so tired,” she responded. Strangely, her voice soothed him.
“I’m . . . okay. What’s going on?”
Kathy paused. “Nothing, really. I just wanted . . . I just wanted to check on you. With all these weird things happening, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Jonathan wiped his nose. “I’m fine. I don’t want you to worry about me.”
“How can I not?”
Jonathan’s mind swirled with so many thoughts he could hardly think at all. But one thing he knew was that he had to get Kathy and the girls away from this. He didn’t know what danger lurked ahead in the “story,” but the very fact that the writer knew about Sydney was risk enough. “Listen, honey, I need to talk to you about something.”
Kathy’s voice lowered with concern. “What is it?”
“I can’t talk to you about it here,” Jonathan said, feeling underneath his desk for any sort of small mike or recording device.
“Jonathan, what—”
“Let’s meet at eleven.” Jonathan pulled each of his drawers out, feeling the sides and bottoms. “For coffee. At the Coffee Bean.” That was a favorite spot of theirs, a quaint little coffeehouse filled with thousands of books and a cozy fireplace in the corner. He hoped that might make it sound a little more . . . social.
“Jonathan, why not tell me now? What is it?”
“Look, it’s nothing to worry about. I just . . . want to see you. There are some things we need to discuss, but I don’t want to do it over the phone. Can you make it by eleven?”
There was a pause, then Kathy said, “Yes.”
“Seriously, honey, there’s nothing to worry about. Please don’t get worried. Everything’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. See you at eleven.” Jonathan hung up the phone, then ordered Edie to call maintenance and order him new locks for his office door.
chapter 16
After Jonathan did a halfhearted job of dusting and returning all his books to his shelf, the morning was still early. He took three different antihistamines that Edie had hunted down for him, fixed himself a cup of Earl Grey, and holed himself up in his office, hoping to read more of Clyde’s manuscript before he met with Kathy. Just as he was about to find where he left off, a light tap came at the door, and then it slowly opened. Sydney peeked in and smiled softly.
