Ghostwriter Anonymous

by Noreen Wald

  My mother’s brows flew up under her ash blonde bangs. “What a sneak. You’re a closet cozy, pretending all these years you wouldn’t be caught dead with a Suzy Q murder mystery.”

  I threw the dish towel at her. “Let’s order a meatball pizza and watch Casablanca.” This offer—two of Mom’s favorite things—was ignored.

  “A dishonest daughter is sharper than a serpent’s tooth.”

  “Call me Goneril. I just didn’t want to admit I’ve inherited your taste for trash.”

  “One woman’s trash is another woman’s opportunity. I’d decided on a Kate Lloyd Connors murder marathon read tonight to get you up to speed, but since you’ve been such a sneak, maybe we can watch Casablanca instead.” Mom flipped the dishwasher on, surveyed the kitchen for crumbs or an unaligned canister, and added, “Or we could watch a Suzy Q murder mystery. Three of them have been made into movies, as you no doubt are well aware.”

  “I’ve only seen two. Let’s get Murder in Madrid. And I want sausage on my half of the pizza.”

  “Really, Jake, you know how that ruins your digestive system. You need to watch that cholesterol too. You’re not getting any younger, dear.”

  “I know the facts of my life according to Maura O’Hara: Christ died at thirty-three, I’m not even engaged, my baby clock’s on double time, and my arteries are aging. Okay, okay, no sausage and a double feature: Rick and Ilsa and Suzy Q does Spain.”

  As much as I loved Carnegie Hill, our apartment, and even my mother, I had to ask myself for the thousandth time: Why is a woman your age living with her mother? The short answer remained money—or lack thereof—but comfort and no serious relationship were other contributing factors.

  “Your deception’s forgiven. Can we walk over to Lexington for the pizza? I like the crust better there and the oil is lighter, and—oh—on the way we can discuss your fees. You’re now a ghostwriter in demand.”

  Heading for the door, I took a last look around the kitchen. “Mom, you may be right about killing Wagner in here. Of course, I’d have to make the murderer as big an anal-retentive pain in the behind as you are.”

  Two

  Mrs. McMahon had turned doing the laundry into her life’s work. At nine o’clock Saturday morning, I bumped into her and her ever-present plastic tub, filled with dirty clothes and the tools of her trade: Tide with bleach, Clorox, a favorite of Mom’s too, and a packet of blu­ing—that my mother said she hadn’t seen the likes of since she’d been a young child. Very young.

  “You’re up and about early, Jake. And all dressed up. Did you get a real job?” Her tone implying that I usually slept ’til noon. Her avocation was resident busybody, and she threw herself into it the way she threw the wet wash into the dryer: with a vengeance.

  “I’m going out on an assignment this fine morning, Mrs. McMahon; however, I do have a job. Writer. It’s even listed on my 1040.”

  “But you have no books in Barnes and Noble. Not a one, Jake. I had them check your name in the computer. None. Zero. Not under Jake O’Hara. Not under Jacque­line O’Hara. Zip. Nada.”

  “Ghostwriters are seldom seen on book jackets. Our names are unknown, our faces are invisible; that’s why we’re called ghosts.”

  “I’d like to read just one thing you’ve written. Give me a title, I swear I won’t tell a living soul.”

  “Not a ghost of a chance, Mrs. McMahon. My con­tracts demand that I remain anonymous. Sorry.”

  “Well, Jake, if you ever want a career change where you would get some recognition, my daughter Patricia Ann’s running a very successful operation.” She plunged deep into her apron pockets, stretching its fabric tight across her hips, and came up with another packet of bluing. On the second try, she handed me a card. “I’d bet you’d make a great Mary Kay rep after Patricia Ann got finished teaching you how to line your eyes.” Patricia Ann should have started with her mother. Mrs. McMahon had florid skin that a beige foundation could have covered, her pale eyes were circled in black, matching a bad dye job on wispy hair, and her lips were magenta. Hard to believe that she and my mom were the same age. I took the card and put it in my briefcase next to Jonathan Arthur’s. It was nice to know, on this beautiful June morning, that I now had two job offers to consider. Who knows? If it didn’t work out with Kate Lloyd Connors, maybe I’d be driving a pink Cadillac. “Thanks, Mrs. McMahon.”

  “Give my best to your dear mother.”

  My dear mother believed that Mrs. McMahon gave the arcane term “shanty Irish” new life. But I just smiled and said, “Will do,” as I wriggled around the basket.

  As I walked by Mr. Kim’s fruit display on the corner of Madison and 92nd Street, he popped out of the store. “Looking spiffy, Jake. Eat this on the way to the sub­way.” He waved a banana at me and sang, “Yes, we have no bananas, we have no bananas, today!” Off-key, but enthusiastic.

  “I love New York in June...” I began.

  “How about you?” we harmonized.

  “You two better keep your day jobs.” Dennis, Mr. Kim’s oldest son and a successful entertainment/literary attorney, appeared in the doorway, holding a cup of cof­fee and laughing at us.

  “See if we retain your services when we’re a famous duo,” I said. There was something about Dennis that made me edgy. Like my Jockeys For Her were too tight and my voice too high. He had bronze, tight skin and long lashes, and his teeth were whiter than mine even after my $350 bleach job.

  “Dad’s right, Jake, you do look spiffy today. Book deal?”

  “Maybe. Wish me luck. How come you’re not out in Quogue on this lovely June weekend?”

  “Had an important meeting last night and missed the last jitney. But there’s a great party tonight at Scull’s in Southampton, so I may head out later this morning. You’ve never seen my beach house. Interested in join­ing me?” Dennis asked this last question in a teasing tone, as he twirled a nonexistent mustache, while leer­ing at me like Groucho Marx. He couldn’t be serious, could he?

  “Sorry, tomorrow I have a date with death in—thank God—the final chapter of an overdue manuscript.”

  His gold fleck eyes stopped smiling for just a second, then he laughed. Low and sexy. I squirmed inside my beige linen slacks but hopefully looked calm on the out­side. I continued on my way downtown as the Kims said goodbye, serenading me and all of Madison Avenue’s morning shoppers: “I’m mad about good books...how about you?”

  At 90th Street, I turned toward Fifth Avenue, taking me a block west and out of my way, but I wanted to check out the park on my power walk downtown, not the Madison Avenue shop windows. I passed the Cooper-Hewitt gardens on my right. The grass as green as it ever grows in the city and the white rosebushes like huge bridal bouquets. The summer solstice—the longest day of the year—and it was a pip. Turning south, I crossed Fifth at the southwest corner of 89th Street. Used book dealers lined the sidewalk outside Central Park, drawing a clique of semi-serious walkers, probably glad for the break in their routine. The park was alive with the sounds of rollerblades and the thumps of Nikes hitting the pavement. The city even smelled good today. God, I love New York in June. Dennis jumped back into my mind. I’d planned to use this time to decide where to murder Wagner, but all I could think about was Dennis Kim’s unsmiling gold-flecked eyes.

  Mr. Kim’s grocery store had been a fixture in Carnegie Hill for twenty-five years. He’d opened his store the same year Mom and I moved to our co-op. I’d been eight and Dennis twelve. It was hate at first bite. The neighborhood boys were playing street hockey on roller-skates. I wanted in and had my new skates on, ready to be goalie. Dennis had put a big-brotherly hand on my shoulder and said, “Go home and play with your dolls, kid.’’ I’d brought my head down to his hand and bit him as hard as I could.

  Our relationship hadn’t improved much in the ensuing quarter century.

  He’d married Victoria Wu, American News Network’s
top anchor, three years ago. They had a messy, public divorce this past winter, each accusing the other of breaching their prenuptial contract. Vicky had revealed pillow talk, exposing one of Dennis’s famous television star clients as a crossdresser. It had been very juicy.

  I’d spent a lot of time and emotion over the years deciding what I really felt toward Dennis. If I could get honest—as my program advised me—I’d probably admit it was lust and that I’d like to take another bite.

  The regular ten o’clock Saturday morning group of Ghostwriters Anonymous met at the Jan Hus Lutheran church on 71st Street, steps west of First Avenue. It was a support group—a twelve-step program—for those suffering from anonymity. There were ten charter members; I was one of them. We’d been meeting for almost two years.

  I picked up my pace. Barbara B. would be speaking on the first step: We admitted we were powerless over anonymity and our lives had become unmanageable. I needed to hear it; I enjoyed the fellowship of meetings more than process of recovery, achieved by working the steps. Listening to Barbara B. would be good for me, especially today, when I would be lunching with the most famous writer in the country, Kate Lloyd Connors. No anonymous initial for her.

  Unlike an alcoholic, who would relapse by taking his or her first drink, the ghostwriter’s first credit on a book jacket would be a stepping stone to recovery from his or her anonymity. A slip in AA is falling off the wagon. A slip in Ghostwriters Anonymous—we couldn’t use the initials GA because the gamblers already had them—is breaking your promise to a client or your contract and taking public credit for a book you’d ghosted. A really sick recovering ghostwriter is one who returned to ghost­writing after having published a book of their own. With his or her name under the title. We had two such sad incidents in our group, sending the ghostwriters in question flying back to step one and dramatically pointing out to the rest of us just how addicting anonymity can be.

  Despite those differences, our adopted—and adapted—twelve-step program worked well for us ghostwriters, both in dealing with our anonymity and identifying with each other’s feelings of inadequacy and rejection. I though Jane D. had said it well at the last meeting: “Every time I finish a book and it goes to the publisher, it’s as if, after a long labor, I gave birth to a baby, who’s stolen from me in the delivery room. All the world will forever believe someone else wrote that sucker.” When Jane didn’t snooze during a meeting, she was right on.

  A couple of the ghostwriters had wept when Jane D. suggested using step three to deal with delivery dates: We turned our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. As for me, I thought it might be nice if God’s will and mine coincided a little more often.

  The smell of designer coffee filled the air. The second floor meeting room had twelve-foot-high ceilings, three couches, about thirty chairs and a buffet table now serving coffee, tea, and homemade scones. The room was much too large for our group, and AA or NA, both drawing much bigger crowds, usually filled its space, but Saturdays at eleven had been open when we’d begun our recovery two years ago. Some of us hadn’t missed a meeting since. The Jan Hus church elders liked us because we tithed ten percent of our advances and left the room without a trace of evidence that we’d ever been there. Far tidier than the other addicts.

  Ginger S., this month’s chair and a well-paid cook­book ghostwriter, only used beans flown fresh from Colombia’s outback, which she then ground with a cinnamon blend from Sri Lanka. She brought her china cups and linen napkins from home whenever she chaired. Said paper cups were plebeian. Ginger’s table arrangements could make Martha Stewart’s look sloppy. I gratefully grabbed a scone, smearing it with Ginger’s homemade strawberry jam, and poured a cup of tea.

  Ginger oozed capability. If she hadn’t been so warm and funny, she’d have been totally annoying. A tall, cool blonde, with shoulders made for the ’40s retro suits she favored, Ginger had glorious skin, a sunny smile, and a throaty Lauren Bacall voice. We’d known each other for years, were good friends, and both Mom and I adored her.

  Where was she? I looked around the room and saw Ginger deep in a private conversation with Jane D. I’d devoured the scone and reached for a second, when Modesty M., an aspiring romance writer who churned out potboilers to pay the rent while she completed her one thousand-page gothic novel, joined me at the hospitality table. A small redhead with an outlandish wardrobe, Modesty was dressed like a mini monk this morning. She wore a long brown cotton tunic with a cowl neck, belted with what looked like—but I prayed weren’t—rosary beads.

  “I’m going to kill her, Jake. Then the tabloid headlines will read, ‘Ghostwriter-For-Hire Kills Employer From Hell.’ That oughta sell a few books, and my name will be under the title.”

  “Modesty, think this through.” Program speak came in handy. Whenever you couldn’t come up with any tangible advice for a fellow ghostwriter, you could always resort to a slogan. And in this case, it was a good suggestion. What did Modesty have to kvetch about?

  “The lady paid you fifteen thousand dollars for two hundred measly pages. You said last week that you only had twenty pages to go. Isn’t the manuscript finished yet?”

  “No, but she is. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

  Modesty stomped off and took a seat in the circle. I poured another cup of tea and, clutching my scone, I sat one hundred and eighty degrees away from her. Grim and intense at best, Modesty could be murder when her client turned out to be miserable. And she had ghosted for some real bitches. The Ghostwriters Anonymous consensus was that Modesty was really a closet misogynist who deliberately chose wicked women would-be writers as her employers to substantiate her feelings.

  Barbara B. took her place in the circle’s center and Ginger introduced her. “Good morning, ghostwriters. I’m Ginger S. and a proud member of Ghostwriters Anonymous. Today’s speaker is living proof that working the steps can lead us to accept our anonymity and find serenity.”

  Good. I felt more than a tad less than serene this morning. Not to mention unaccepting and insecure. Barbara gave us all a beatific smile.

  “I’m Barbara B. and I’m anonymous. The steps are my salvation. I’m delighted to share with you how I accepted both my anonymity and that my life had become unmanageable. Working the first and second steps on a daily basis has restored me to sanity...well, most of the time.”

  Several heads nodded. They identified. So did I...sort of. I loved the support of my fellow ghostwriters, but dreaded climbing those damn steps.

  Barbara B. went on, “The first half of step one comes easy for me. No one believed I was an author anyway. Why should they? No book lover ever heard of me, so I had no trouble admitting my powerlessness over anonymity. Oh, our close friends know we’re ghostwriters, but if we’re good, they don’t know what we’ve written. If we’re lucky, we may have one or two articles a year published under our own names, but basically we’re ghostwriters for hire—invisible to the people who count—book buyers.”

  A few people applauded. I looked around the circle. Why did so many talented writers practice this masochistic profession? Being a ghostwriter is a hell of a way to earn a living.

  When Barbara finished sharing, we took a coffee break. Ginger caught my eye and waved me over to the doorway. ‘‘Hi, Jake.” She gave me a warm hug. “You look great; that shirt matches your eyes. The color of fresh celery stalks.” Ginger liked to compare people to food and believed they should feel complimented. She was always saying he’s a kumquat or she’s a poached pear. I accepted celery stalks as high praise.

  “Thanks, I’m going on a possible.”

  “Finished with Wagner?”

  “Almost, just stuck on the setting for the stabbing.”

  “Murder’s like real estate, Jake. Location, location, location.”

  “Yeah, but it’s my Achilles heel; I never know where to kill them.”

  “You’ll find a place somewhe
re, you always do.” Ginger motioned me out into the hall. We stood at the top of the winding staircase. “Listen, Jake, I’m worried about Emmie.” Ginger tapped her perfectly groomed, French-manicured fingernails on the mahogany banister.

  “Why? What’s wrong? She was a no-show at Mom’s soiree last night. Where were you, by the way?”

  “On chapter eight. I had a real breakthrough with the Palm Beach Puff Potatoes recipe. Princess Pain-In-The-Ass wanted me to use a dollop of curry. I remixed, I rebaked, I rewrote.” I knew Ginger hated her current assignment, even though it had included all-expense-paid trips to Florida for research this past snow-and-ice-filled winter.

  “Anyway, I got this strange message on my machine. I’d only left the house to walk Napoleon and when I got back, Emmie had left this weird...”

  “What did she say?”

  “Oh, something like—‘I’m in deep trouble now. Curiosity kills truth seekers.’ Cryptic. She was way out there.”

  “Drinking?” I knew that Ginger was concerned about Emmie’s drinking.

  “I don’t think so. It was about five...Em’s early bird cocktail hour, but she sounded sober, Jake, just not sane. And she wanted me to call her right back. She absolutely had to talk to me immediately.”

  “And?”

  “I called and got her machine. I left a message. And I kept calling, off and on, between baking and stuffing and writing—all evening—the entire curry batter went into the garbage...”

  “What about Emmie? What did she say to you?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you.” Ginger shrugged her elegant shoulders. “I didn’t speak to her. She never returned my calls. But I’m going over there after the meeting. Can you come with me?”

  “No. Sorry. My appointment’s at one and I can’t be late, but call me. Mom doesn’t trust that Hungarian, Igor.”

  “Not Igor. Ivan.”

  “Right. As in the terrible.”