The Ghostwriter

Chapter 2

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When I meet him, the night is singed with the smell of funnel cakes and cigarette smoke. He smiles and something inside of me shifts, a crack in between the vertebra, my heart beating a little bit harder than it ever has.

Boys like him don't go for girls like me, they don't follow me with their eyes, or listen when I speak. They don't lean closer or want more.

He is different than all the others. He doesn't laugh. He doesn't step away. Our eyes meet, his mouth curves, and my world changes.

***

Writing the first chapter burns. Maybe it's the new drugs, maybe it's the memories, but I feel hot with the effort, my shirt damp against the small of my back, my chest tight and achy by the time I finish the story of our meeting and our first date. It was a night where he won my mother over with one easy smile, and won me over with tacos and Mexican beer, his fingers looping through mine as we walked out to the car. He had kissed me against that car, my mouth hesitant, his strong and sure, my nerves dissolving in the first confident dive of his tongue.

I had been such a young twenty-year-old—one that had never been on a date, never been pursued, never cared about boys and romance, outside of the pages of my novels.

But everything had been different after that night. Simon swept into my life and turned it into something fiery and wild, my days beginning with an excited fervor, my nights ending, of his eyes and his touch, of being desired for something other than my words.

It had been love. From the very beginning. Wild. Crazy. Senseless. Love.

I save my work and close the laptop, feeling nauseous.

***

At precisely 2:24 on Wednesday afternoon, I stop typing. Moving the laptop aside, I clear off the top of my desk, moving my phone into the center of the space, a fresh notepad pulled from the drawer, a pen uncapped and placed on its white lined surface.

In the next two minutes, I settle back against the chair and extend my arms over my head, closing my eyes and stretching my chest.

At precisely 2:30, the phone rings. I sit up, grabbing the phone and lifting it to my ear. "Hey Kate."

"Good afternoon, Helena." There is a hitch in her voice, as if she's run to the phone, as if she hasn't had all week to prepare for this call and set aside this time. Irritation blooms in my chest, a common occurrence on these calls. "I have four things to discuss."

It took years for me to properly train Kate, to curb the agent's tendencies for mindless chit-chat and pleasantries. In the beginning, she was more resistant to my expectations, but the first advance, the first bestseller, the first commission—that made her more pliable. It's amazing what money will do to a person, the level of control it can establish. It's made Kate my monkey. It made Simon my pet—the sort who doesn't clean up his messes, the sort who marks his territory, the sort who bares his teeth and will attack your child if you don't keep him on a tight enough leash.

Kate brings up a foreign offer first, my pen scratching out the terms under a neat heading with today's date. I accept the terms, and we move on to the second item—a third reprinting of Hope's Ferry. Wahoo. I sigh, and manage to make it through the third and fourth topic. She falls silent and I consider my next words, choosing ones designed to cause as little a reaction as possible.

"I'll need you to close any open action items. I'm retiring." Retiring, I decided over breakfast, would be the best way to put it. It's sort of the same thing as death, as far as Kate is concerned. Both mean that my book production will stop. Both mean that I won't be able to meet any outstanding deadlines.