Page 11 of The Ghostwriter
On Sunday evening, I leave the lights on in the guesthouse and skirt around the side of the garage to my car, not wanting to answer any questions about where I’m going or who I’ll be seeing. Once I’m on the highway, I relax my grip on the steering wheel, reminding myself I’m forty-four, not fourteen, and make my way to Jack and Matt’s house.
When I arrive, Jack peers out the window and two seconds later he’s standing in the open doorway of their cottage on the grounds of the winery, tucked between a small hill and the vast vineyards beyond.
“I would have brought wine but…” I gesture toward the vineyard.
He ushers me inside and says, “I’m so glad you came. I was half-worried you’d cancel.”
I pretend to be offended, but a spark of shame flares inside of me because I spent the better part of the afternoon trying to figure out how to do just that. Allison had texted me back: On an island in Fiji with limited cell service. Okay if I do this when I return in two weeks?
I’d sent her a thumbs-up, swallowing down my frustration. Trying to figure out a faster way to get what I needed. But there wasn’t one.
I step into the cozy cabin with colorful art on the walls, a shabby-chic decor that belies the dusty environment outside. Matt emerges from the kitchen, the smell of garlic and butter clinging to him, a dish towel tucked into his belt.
He’s about my height and lean, like a runner, with sandy-brown hair that flops in an artful way I can tell costs money to maintain. After the introductions, I hesitate, wondering what Jack has told him about me and about my family. What kind of context he’s given for this long-lost friend suddenly appearing in town after so many years away. But Matt’s wide smile melts away all my reservations. “Olivia, you’re exactly how I’ve always imagined you,” he says, letting me know, in just those few words, that no explanation is necessary.
***
We eat crusty French bread with giant plates of chicken parmesan. Jack and Matt banter in a way that includes rather than isolates, and I feel a warm glow pooling deep inside of me, human contact nourishing me more than the food. After the meal, Jack props his chin on his fist and says, “Tell me about the marriage.”
I laugh. “Craig. The infamous French downhill skier.”
“How did you meet him?” Matt asks.
“It’s not very interesting,” I warn. “My roommate in Paris was Craig’s sister’s best friend. He was handsome and reckless and the kind of guy any twenty-year-old would fall in love with.”
“What happened?” Jack asks.
I take a sip of wine, an expensive red Matt filched from the winery. “We were young,” I tell them.
“Nope, sorry,” Jack says, sitting back in his chair. “We need the real story, not the sanitized version you’d tell my mom.” Matt nods in agreement.
“There really isn’t one,” I insist. “He traveled a lot. Partied a lot. Cheated a lot.” Jack winces and I hurry to explain. “Honestly, it was a marriage in name only. I stayed long enough to get French citizenship and then we went our separate ways.”
“A marriage of convenience,” Matt says.
I nod, but I can see understanding bloom on Jack’s face. What it might have meant to me, to shed my old name. My old identity. To return to the United States as someone new.
“So what brings you back to Ojai?” Matt asks.
“I’m here to help my dad,” I say. “He’s got Lewy body.”
Matt touches my hand. “Oh, that’s rough. I’m sure he’s glad you’re here.”
Jack nearly chokes on his wine, but Matt ignores him. “How long are you planning to stay?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Jack tells me you have a partner in Los Angeles?”
Cool air floats in through an open window, low music playing from hidden speakers, a full stomach and the buzz of alcohol making me feel relaxed. “His name is Tom. We met when he designed my writing studio.” Matt and Jack are quiet, and it feels good to talk about Tom. To bring him into this space with me. “We’ve been together a couple years, and it’s one of those relationships that just clicked, right from the beginning. He doesn’t mind my chaotic writing schedule, and I don’t mind when he becomes consumed with a new project.
“We have this way of always knowing where the other one is. Not just where in the world, but in our minds. Our hearts.” As I speak, I feel the widening distance between us. How much fear and pain I’m carrying, while he believes I’m somewhere simply working on a book.
I notice Jack and Matt share a quick glance and I recognize the gesture as something Tom and I do as well. A quick, silent connection. A confirmation that we are of the same mind. But I don’t want to grow morose, so I turn toward a painting on the wall and say, “Is this original? I love it.”
Another glance passes between them, and I pretend that I don’t miss the ghost of the person I love, sitting at my shoulder, getting to know my childhood best friend and, in the process, getting to know me.
***
As I’m leaving, Matt says, “Tom should come up one weekend. We’d love to meet him.”
I search in my purse for my car keys, so I don’t have to look at them when I lie. “I wish he could, but he’s pretty busy on a big project right now.”
We say our goodbyes and Jack walks me to my car. “Tom doesn’t know about your father, does he?”
I sigh and look up at the night sky, at the same wild riot of stars I can see from my deck at home, and I wonder where Tom is. What story he’s telling himself about the book I’m working on, certain it’s nothing close to the truth. “I don’t want to be here, dealing with this. And I certainly don’t want to drag him into it.”
“You can’t hide from who you are.”
“It’s worked well so far,” I say.
Jack looks down at me, his gaze skeptical. “Has it?”
***
Later that night, when I’m in bed, the lights dark, I scroll through my phone looking at pictures of Tom and me. I trace the progression of our relationship—early photos of the construction of the studio, Tom in his white button-down shirt, plans tucked beneath one arm, smiling next to the framing. He’d always arrive at the end of the day, and I’d begun to expect his white truck to come bouncing down my long driveway around three o’clock. I’d have coffee ready, and we’d chat about our respective work—he’d discuss a renovation he was doing in Malibu, and I’d talk about the book I was working on—the connection between us instant and powerful.
I flip to another image, a close-up of his face, laughing at something I’d said. I’d fallen for his eyes first—a velvety brown that would hold me in place. I loved the way he listened to me talk, as if the world had stopped and I was all that was left.
Another photo, one where we’d grabbed a drink at a dive restaurant near the beach, the wind tousling his brown hair, reminding me of how he looks in the mornings, his eyes still heavy with sleep.
I should call him—he’d texted during dinner, checking in—but I know what he’ll ask. How is it going? Are you meeting interesting people? So many questions that will lead to things I can’t talk about.
But the pull of hearing his voice is too great.
“Things are not going well,” I tell him when he answers. “This project is so much more complicated than I originally thought.”
“In what way?” he asks.
I wiggle myself deeper under the covers and roll onto my side, trying to figure out how to explain the problem without telling him anything of substance. “My subject is…unreliable,” I say.
“Can’t you just write what they want you to write and be done?”
“It’s not that simple,” I explain. “I can’t write things that are outright fabrications. I’d get slaughtered, and I can’t afford another hit to my reputation. The problem is, I can’t figure out what’s true and what’s not. And tomorrow morning I’ve got a Zoom with the publisher to basically tell them that.”
Tom blows out hard. “Tell me what you need from me. Solutions? Distraction?”
I close my eyes and say, “Distraction. Definitely.”
So he launches into a description of his newest client—a woman with too much money and too much time on her hands. I try to laugh in all the right places, but he must sense my disconnect because he says, “I think it’s time to let you sleep.”
After we say goodbye, I click my phone asleep and roll onto my side, staring at the moon through my window. I know that I haven’t given Tom the chance to show up for me. He wouldn’t care who my father is or what he allegedly did. I could tell him, he would still love me, and we could move on. Jack’s words from earlier tonight run through my mind again. You can’t hide from who you are.
But shedding my past felt like stripping off an old prison jumper and stepping into the kind of freedom I’d always dreamed of. And really, telling Tom the truth at this point would only hurt him. I have no intention of maintaining a relationship with my father once the book is done. I’ll try to write what my father wants me to write, it’ll be his name on the cover, and I can go back to letting Tom and the rest of the world believe that my parents were who I said they were.