The Ghostwriter(5)

Lightheadedness, as of late, has become common. As has vertigo and blurred vision, the combination a bitch to my productivity levels. Another wave of lightheadedness hits and my hand loosens, not listening to my brain. I try to re-grip the banister, stumble hurriedly up the final steps, but everything becomes a kaleidoscope of gray and white and slick polished stairs.

My knees buckle.





KATE

Kate opens the door to her Manhattan condo, pulling off her flats as she enters, the dark room filling her with a moment of fear before her hand hits the switch and the space flickers to light. Two years since her divorce, and she still hasn’t gotten used to the eeriness of living alone, the feeling that someone is there, hiding and waiting.

She opens a can of soup, dumping the thick mixture into a small pot and turning the burner on, her mind filled with thoughts of Helena. She put off calling the publishers, hoping that Helena will call her back, her sanity restored.

Of course she hasn’t. Helena isn’t the type to waffle over a decision or change her mind. The minute she gave Kate the order to pull out of Broken, it was done. Game over. Dead book walking.

It hasn’t always been this hard. With Helena’s first novel, she’d been almost pleasant to work with. Of course, she’d been younger then. A nineteen-year-old baby, one with big eyes and a solemn face, one who had driven from Connecticut for the sole purpose of terrorizing the Big Apple with her words. As a favor to a friend, Kate had met her at a coffee shop in Brooklyn. She’d watched the mousey brunette pick at a muffin as she’d described her novel… a second-chance romance that sounded exactly like half of Kate’s slush pile. Kate had grown distracted, eavesdropping on a fight brewing at the next table, when she realized that the girl had grown quiet. Kate had flipped over the top page of the manuscript, her eyes sneaking down to her watch.

Then she’d read the first line.

The first paragraph.

The first chapter.

She, like all of America eventually would, devoured the words. From that plain, pale creature, one with ears and eyes a bit too big… came magic. She had forced herself to stop on the fourth page, her gaze darting up to Helena’s. “You wrote this?”

Helena had nodded, then asked if she liked it.

“Yes.” The answer had been too weak, and she had run her hand, almost reverently, across the page, trying to contain her excitement. “I need to read the rest of it. Tonight.”

The girl had produced a CD-ROM from her messenger bag, pushing it across the table at Kate. “I’ve given this to five other agents.” She’d said the words as if they were a gift, relieving the pressure off Kate, no need for her to pretend to like the material. But they’d had the opposite effect, the innocent information a threat, each minute that passed a possible opportunity for her phone to ring, the opportunity snatched from Kate.

“Okay.” Kate had smiled weakly, her fingers lingering on the pages as she passed them back to the girl, the loss one she could feel in her chest. In contrast, the receipt of the CD had felt hollow, the case too light for the words which had already stamped themselves on her heart.

Kate had known, even before she opened the file, that she wanted it. She read the manuscript at her kitchen counter, peering at the screen over leftover Chinese and hot tea, her mouse constantly scrolling, the file re-saved and sent to her boss by ten PM. At ten-fifteen, she’d called Helena and left a voicemail. The voicemail she followed up with an email, one that promised a ten percent commission rate, a five percent discount that would risk her job but was worth it. She’d also guaranteed that the novel would go to auction in the six figures, another lofty promise that she couldn’t back up, a figure she had never managed before. But she’d never represented a book like it before. This book could make her. This book could fix everything—their struggle to pay rent, her looming unemployment, the weak shelf her marriage balanced on.

In their dreary apartment, sending off that ridiculous beg for business… she hadn’t known how high-maintenance Helena would turn out to be. She had grabbed ahold of the shiny novel, and hadn’t even considered the headaches that might accompany its creator.

And the headaches have been plentiful. It isn’t that Helena sets out to be high-maintenance, she is just very particular about what she wants, her quirks growing stronger over the last few years, and transitioning from requests to demands. The pleasant girl from that coffee shop has all but disappeared, withdrawing from Kate, the publishers, from any interaction with anyone. In her place, there has emerged a new Helena, one with which interactions are mine fields and keeping her happy? A balancing act.

On rare days, Kate regrets ever meeting the woman. But on most days, she just wonders about her. They say all geniuses are a little mad. Maybe Helena’s madness just took longer to come out.

Kate opens a drawer and grabs a long wooden spoon, leaning against the edge of the counter and stirring the soup. Tomorrow, she decides. Tomorrow, she will call—or maybe email—the publisher and inform them of Helena’s decision. An email will suffice, right? Something short and professional. If only she had more information, an excuse of some sort. She can’t tell them the truth—that Helena is abandoning Broken for a new novel, one she wants to send to one of their competitors. Talk about burning a bridge. Word of this will spread through the publishing community like lice at a summer camp, every head infected with negative thoughts of Helena before the end of the week. She’ll never be able to sell another one of her novels. Not that it really matters, since the woman is retiring.