2. The Breakup
2
The Breakup
IT WASN’T THAT I
couldn’t
finish the book.
I just didn’t know how.
It’d been a year since The Breakup—everyone has at least one in their lives. You know the one, right? The kind of breakup from a love you thought would last your entire lifetime, only to find your heart ripped out with a spork by your former lover and placed on a silver platter with FUCK YOU written in ketchup. It’d been a year since I’d hauled my luggage out into the rain on that shitty April evening and never looked back. That’s not the part I regretted. I will
never
regret ending things with him.
I just regretted being the kind of girl who fell for someone like him in the first place.
The time had crawled by after that. At first, I had tried to get up every day and sit down on the couch with my laptop and write, but I couldn’t. I mean, I
could
—but every word felt like pulling teeth, and every one of those words I deleted a day later.
It was like one day I knew how to write; I knew the scenes, I knew the meet-cutes and the swoony moments, exactly how the hero tasted when my heroine kissed him . . . and then the next day, it was all gone. Iced over in a blizzard, and I didn’t know how to thaw out the words.
I couldn’t remember when I stopped opening up the Word document, when I stopped trying to look for a romance between the lines. But I did, and now I was here between a rock called despair and a hard place named Benji Andor.
Absently, I brushed my fingers along the spines of the books at McNally Jackson
,
a bookstore nestled in the thick of Nolita. I followed the rows of titles and last names around to the next aisle—romance—and quickly moved on to sci-fi and fantasy. If I didn’t look at them, they didn’t exist.
I never imagined being a ghostwriter. Hell, when I first got my agent and sold my first book, I thought I’d be invited to literary panels and I thought I’d go to book events, and I thought I had finally found the door to the stairs that would take me up and up and up into my forever career. But the door closed as quickly as it opened, and sent an email saying, “We regret to inform you . . . ,” as though my book flopping was
my
fault. As though me, a girl with a nonexistent social media following, less money, and almost no connections, was responsible for the fate of a book published by a multimillion-dollar company with every resource and connection available to it.
Maybe it
was
my fault.
Maybe I hadn’t done enough.
And anyway, I was here now, writing for a romance author I’d only ever met once, and I was about to screw that up, too, if I couldn’t finish the damn book. I knew the characters—Amelia, a smart-talking barista with dreams of being a music journalist, and
Jackson, a stability-shirking guitarist disgraced from the limelight—trapped together on vacation on a small Scottish isle when their Airbnb host accidentally double-books the property. The isle is magical, and the romance is as electrifying as the storms that roll in from the Atlantic. But then she finds out that he lied to her about his past, and she lied to
him
, because while the booking was indeed happenstance, she decided to use it to try to win over an editor at
Rolling Stone.
And I guessed the plot hit too close to home. How could two people reconcile and trust each other when they fell in love with the lies the other person told them?
Where did you go from there?
Last time I tried to write that scene—the reconciliation one, the one where they face each other in a cold Scottish storm and pour their hearts out to try and repair their damage—lightning struck Jackson dead.
Which would’ve been great if I ghostwrote revenge fantasies. Which I didn’t.
I began to nose through the used J. D. Robb section when my phone started to vibrate in my satchel. I dug it out, praying it wasn’t Ann Nichols’s agent, Molly.
It wasn’t.
“Great timing,” I said, answering the phone. “I have a situation.”
My brother laughed. “I take it your meeting didn’t go well?”
“Absolutely not.”
“I told you that you should’ve led with an orchid and not a succulent.”
“I don’t think it was the plant, Carver.”
My brother snorted. “Fine, fine—so what’s the situation? Was he hot?”
I pulled out a book that did
not
belong in political thriller—
Red, White & Royal Blue
by Casey McQuiston—and decided to walk it back to the romance section where it did, in fact, belong. “Okay, we have
two
situations.”
“Oh Lord, he’s
that
hot?”
“You know that book I let you borrow? The one by Sally Thorne?
The Hating Game
?”
“Tall, stoic yet quirky, has a bedroom wall painted to match her eyes?”
“That’s it! Though
his
eyes are brown. Like
chocolate
brown.”
“Godiva?”
“No, more like melty Hershey’s Kisses on like the worst day of your period.”
“Damn.”
“
Yeah
, and when I introduced myself, I said my name—
twice
.”
“You didn’t.”
I groaned. “I did! And
then
he didn’t give me another extension on my novel. I have to finish it. And it has to have a happy ending.”
He guffawed. “He said that?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know if that turns me on more or less . . .”
“Carver!”
“What?! I like a man who knows what he wants!”
I wanted to strangle him through the phone. Carver was the middle of the Day siblings and the only one who knew I ghostwrote—and I made him
swear
to secrecy or I’d print all of his embarrassing middle-grade fanfic starring Hugh Jackman in the town paper. Friendly sibling blackmail and all that. He just didn’t know
whom
I ghostwrote for. Not that he didn’t constantly guess.
I made my way into the romance section, half-naked men
glowering down at me from their shelves, and slipped the book into the M section.
Carver asked, “So, I hate to be
that
person, but what’re you going to do about that manuscript?”
“I don’t know,” I replied truthfully. The titles on the shelves all seemed to run together.
“Maybe it’s time to branch out again?” he suggested. “Obviously, this writing gig isn’t working for you anymore, and you’re too brilliant to be hiding behind Nora Roberts.”
“I don’t ghostwrite for Nora.”
“You wouldn’t tell me if you did,” he pointed out.
“But it’s not Nora.”
“Mm-
hmm.
”
“It’s really not.”
“Nicholas Sparks? Jude Deveraux? Christina Lauren? Ann Nichols?—”
“Is Dad around?” I interrupted, my gaze falling to the Ns.
Nichols.
I ran my fingers along the spine of
The Forest of Dreams.
I could hear Carver frowning in his voice. “How did you know I was at the funeral home?”
“You only ever call me when you’re bored at the funeral home. Not enough work at the tech firm today?”
“Wanted to leave early. Dad’s wrapping up a meeting with a client,” he added, which meant he was talking with the bereaved about funeral arrangements, caskets, and pricing.
“Have you talked to him yet?”
“About the chest pains? No.”
I made a disapproving noise. “Mom says he keeps refusing to go see Dr. Martin.”
“You know Dad. He’ll make the time eventually.”
“Do you think Alice could pressure him?”
Alice was
really
good at getting Dad to do things he didn’t want to do. She was the youngest of us, and she had Dad tied around her pinkie so tightly, just the mere
thought
of upsetting her would drive him to pull down the moon if he had to. She was also the one who decided to stay in the family business. She was the only one who wanted to.
“Already asked,” Carver replied. “They’ve got something like three funerals this weekend. I’m sure he’s going to go next week when he’s a little less busy. And he’s fine. If anything happens, Mom’s right there.”
“Why does he have to be so
stubborn
?”
“Funny coming from you.”
“Ha
ha
.” I picked out two sci-fis and a charming-looking paperback.
Howl’s Moving Castle
by Diana Wynne Jones. Buying books always made me feel better, even if I never read them. “Can you try at least? To convince Dad to go sooner rather than later?”
“Sure, if you can convince him to take a day off work—”
In the background, I heard Dad yell, “Convince who? Of what?”
And Carver replied, covering the receiver to shout back (not that it helped my eardrums), “Nothing, old man! Go drink your Ensure! Hey—I was joking—oh, what’s that, Mom? I should come help you with something? Sure! Here’s your second favorite—”
“I am
not
second favorite,” I interjected.
“Okay, bye!”
I heard a scuffle on the other end of the phone as Carver very quickly handed it over to Dad. I could imagine the exchange—Carver tossing his cell phone to Dad as Dad tried to swat him in the arm and missed to catch the phone, and Carver slinking away into one of the other rooms after Mom, laughing the entire way.
Dad raised the phone to his ear, and his bold, boisterous voice boomed through. “Buttercup! How’s the Big Apple?”
My heart swelled at the sound of his voice, chorused with Carver laughing away in the background. I missed my family, more than I really cared to admit most days. “It’s good.”
“Eating enough? Staying hydrated?”
“I should be asking
you
that.” I exited the aisle and sat down on the bookstore step stool, satchel and books in my lap. “
Old man
.”
I could almost
hear
him roll his eyes. “I’m
fine.
These old bones haven’t quit on me yet. How’s my eldest doing? Found a nice catch in the city yet?”
I snorted. “You know my life is more than who I date, Dad. Love isn’t everything.”
“How did my beautiful eldest daughter become so bitter? It’s so tragic,” he lamented with a heavy sigh. “She was made from the loins of love!”
“Gross, Dad.”
“Why, when I met your mother, I was so smitten with her—”
“Dad.”
“—we didn’t leave the hotel room for three days.
Three days!
”
“Dad.”
“Her lips like fresh rose petals—”
“I get it, I get it! I just . . . I don’t think I’m ready for a new relationship. I don’t think I’ll ever be.”
“Maybe the universe will surprise you.”
For some reason, the angular face of my new editor came to mind. Yeah, right. I ran my thumb over the pages of one of the books in my lap, feeling them buzz softly. “How’s the family business?”
“Good as it’ll get,” Dad replied. “Remember Dr. Cho? Your orthodontist?”
“Alice said he passed.”
“Was a good funeral, though.
Beautiful
weather for April. The wind danced through the trees, I’m telling you. A great send-off,” he said, and then he added a little softer, “He thanked me afterwards.”
I swallowed the knot in my throat because anyone else hearing that would’ve thought he was crazy. Maybe he was a little crazy, but if he was, then I was, too. “Did he now?”
“It was nice. Got some ideas for my own funeral myself.”
“It’ll be a while,” I joked.
“I should hope! Maybe then you’ll come home.”
“I’d be the talk of the town.”
He laughed, but there was a little bitterness there. One that we both shared. It was why I left, after all. Why I didn’t stay in Mairmont. Why I went as far as I could, where no one knew my story.
As it turns out, when you solved a murder at thirteen by talking with ghosts, the newspapers printed exactly that.
LOCAL GIRL SOLVES MURDER WITH GHOSTS
You can imagine how that sort of thing could haunt you. I wasn’t exactly the popular kid in high school, and after that I didn’t stand a ghost of a chance of being asked to prom. Carver and Alice couldn’t see them, and neither could Dad’s younger sister Liza, or Mom. It was only the two of us.
We were the only ones who could understand.
Another reason why I was better off alone.
“Please go see Dr. Martin next week—” I began, when he interrupted me.
“Oh, there’s another call coming in. I’ll talk to you soon, okay, buttercup? Don’t forget to call your mother!”
I sighed, more out of resignation than regret. “Love you, Dad.”
“Love you more!”
He hung up, and I finally noticed the bookseller glaring at me for sitting on the stool. I popped up and quickly apologized for taking up real estate, and scurried off toward the cash register.
One of the only good things to come out of this writing gig was the fact that I could write books off on taxes. Even if I never read them. Even if I used them to build book thrones and then sit down and cry on them while pouring myself glass after glass of merlot.
It was still worth it.
And the small hit of serotonin
did
make me feel a little less murderous. Tucking the books into my backpack, I left for the closest station that would take me back to Jersey. It was about a twenty-minute walk up to the Ninth Street station, but the afternoon was sunny and my coat was heavy enough to protect me from the last biting chill of the season. I liked the long walks in New York. It used to help me work through a plot inconvenience or figure out a scene that never quite worked, but all my walks in the last year couldn’t jostle my brain into creating again, no matter how far I went. Not even today, on the eve of everything coming unraveled.
At Ninth Street, I descended into the bowels of the subway. It was much hotter in the station than outside, and I unbuttoned my coat and tugged down my scarf to keep myself cool as I took the steps down two at a time to the platform.
The train pulled up to the platform and the doors dinged. I elbowed my way into the packed car, shoved myself up against the far door, and hunkered down for the long ride. The train began to move again, rocking gently back and forth, and I stared out of the door window as light after light passed.
I didn’t pay attention to the shimmering transparent woman standing a few people away, somehow inhabiting a free space. She kept looking at me, intently, until the train pulled up to the next
station, and I sat down in a newly empty seat and pulled out one of the books I’d bought.
My dad would’ve hated what I just did. He would’ve told me to give her a chance. To sit down, to listen to her story.
All they wanted, usually, was for someone to listen.
But I ignored the ghost, as I had done for almost a decade in the city. It was easier when you were surrounded by people. You could just pretend like they were another faceless person in the crowd. So I pretended, and as the PATH train crossed under the Hudson River to Jersey, the ghost flickered—and was gone.