The Ghostwriter(47)

“No.”

“It was my first book. My first real book.” He waves a hand toward the house. “Not like all of the trashy crap that paid for this house, or for my wife’s chemo treatments. It was a good book, one that took me three years to write and eighteen rejection letters to recover from before I got a publishing deal. My first publishing deal. It’s a big deal, you know?” he shrugs, and brings the cigar to his lips. “No. You wouldn’t know. You got one right out of the gate, right? I read that article. You had agents and publishers tripping all over your first novel. But not me. It’s not easy to convince editors to read a male-written romance.”

I already regret asking the question. I can see this train wreck, and the place it is leading to. A blurb. Had he requested one?

“I got a twenty-thousand dollar advance on that book. Half at signing, same as our deal.” He smiles at me, but there is no warmth in the gesture. “I quit my job that day. Took Ellen and Maggie out, bought us all steak dinners. Life was good.” He blows out a stream of smoke and the smell of the cigar inches closer, the hint of it stronger in the air. “How’d you celebrate your first advance?”

I don’t answer. I only wait, for what is surely to come. He eyes me, and I don’t move, don’t look away, our dance finally interrupted by a shake of his head, his eyes moving past me and out into the darkness.

“The publisher wanted author blurbs. They reached out to authors with similar books, you had recently published Garden Room. It was a long shot, but you accepted the galley.”

“I’m guessing I didn’t like the book.”

He coughs out a hard laugh. “Oh no, Helena. It’s safe to say you didn’t like the book. I’m surprised you’ve forgotten it, actually.” He glances down, wiping a hand on his sweatpants before looking back out. “You wrote a four-page letter to my editor and were kind enough to CC me on it. You described every flaw in the novel, the root of your opinion being that my writing was flat and without talent. Childish, that was one word you used.” He tilts a head toward the house. “You can read the letter if you’d like. It’s framed in my office, right next to a New York Times list, the first one where I topped you.”

“It wasn’t malicious.” I straighten in my seat. “I was probably trying to help.”

“Help?” He snorts. “You scared my editor so badly she pulled the novel. It was never published, and I never got the rest of that advance. My writing career was done. Just like that.” He snaps his fingers and looks over at me. “That easily. All because Helena Ross didn’t like my book. You were hot shit and I was expendable.”

I should apologize. The path is clear and obvious. But I push my lips together. If I took the time to write a letter, it must have been bad.

“I couldn’t get my job back. Ellen… she worked at a farm up the road, and we limped along and I wrote anything and everything. Publishers weren’t interested in any of it. Then she got sick and I got desperate. I started self-publishing, in a bunch of different genres. Erotica is the one that took off.” He leans forward and spits out, into the darkness. “And Marka Vantly was born.”

I’ve read Marka Vantly’s bio fifty times. It’s all flowers and champagne, a California party girl who stumbled onto publishing success after writing down her steamy exploits on the Beverly Hills dating scene. It doesn’t say anything about a sick wife, or a grizzled cowboy, one who cooks a mean pot of chili but doesn’t clean his baseboards.

I tried to do the math in my head. “How long did your wife… when did she—?”

“It started out ovarian cancer. She fought it four years before it took her. She left us three years ago. Three years and two months.” He probably knows more. He probably knows the days and the hours, the timeframe clicking through his mind. In some ways, I recognize so much of his grief. In other ways, we are completely different.

I stand up. “I’d like to go to bed.”

I am opening the screen door when he speaks.

“You asked why I started to email you.”

I pause, not certain I still want the answer to that question.

“For a long time, I hated you. I emailed you out of that hatred. I wanted you to know who I was. But over the last seven years…” The dog approaches, and he puts out his hand, drawing the animal closer. “You made me a better writer. Knowing that you were reading my novels—that pushed me forward.” He looks over at me. “So, thank you. For responding. I’m sure that you get a lot of mail.”

I shift, and his forgiveness only makes me feel worse. “Okay.”

I nod to him, an attempt at a parting gesture, and then, swinging the door open, I escape inside.





A baby. Impossibly chubby face, her eyes just slits that avoid my own, flitting over everything else. She cries all the time, a piercing shriek, a broken record on repeat. In some ways she’s delicate, in others she’s a battering ram.

I feel damaged every time I lift her. I feel wrong, void of instincts, lost at what to do with her. The insecurity grows every time I look into Simon’s eyes and see his disappointment.

It’s only been a week, but I think I hate her.





I wake up in the small guest room, the room hot. I kick off the blankets, my mouth cottony and metallic, my headache painfully strong. Rolling out of the twin bed, I move over to my bag, my limbs slow as I pull on my jeans and a fresh shirt, not bothering with clean underwear or a bra. The house is quiet and I brush my teeth, then head downstairs.