Boyfriend from Hell

by Avery Corman

  “Because it’s fascinating. And you’d find this book fascinating. Look into it a little. I can recommend some things to read. And—what’s this? My publisher just walked in.”

  “Oh, Richard, this is too obvious.”

  “Talk to him.”

  Antoine Burris was a broad-shouldered man in his fifties, five feet eleven, bald, wire-rim glasses; wearing an expensive gray suit, white shirt, and blue tie. After the introductions he occupied a seat at their table.

  “An honor, Ms. Delaney. As Richard must have told you, I loved, no, respected your article, which is better than loving it.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Burris.”

  “Publishing being what it is, if I put this out with agents, in the morning I’d have two hundred writers recommended. But you’re my first choice, based on what I’ve read; the perfect fit of style with material.”

  “This is all very flattering—”

  “There was a marvelous book years ago, Possession and Exorcism by Traugott Oesterreich. William Blatty, when he wrote The Exorcist, was an admirer of it. But we don’t have anything that’s contemporary and smart. I know you can write. What I would need, from my end, is an outline, which we would pay you for, naturally. I don’t want you doing any work without being paid. Your agent is …”

  Nancy’s boss, Jenna Hawkins, intervened on fees for a couple of Ronnie’s articles. Ronnie assumed Hawkins would handle a book deal for her, should she decide to proceed.

  “Jenna Hawkins.”

  “Excellent. Have her call me. Let’s go into business.” He shook hands and departed.

  “Do you have somebody else coming in, to complete the salesmanship?

  “I think it’s a wonderful opportunity. If you could come by at seven tonight, I could get you started on some things to think about.”

  After she said good-bye to Richard at the restaurant Ronnie went to the Mid-Manhattan Public Library, where the computer indicated far more books in the collections than she ever would have imagined, the material catalogued in library terminology as “demoniac possession.” She took notes and was going to return with her laptop since several of the books were noncirculating volumes. She called Nancy and asked if she could drop by the office if her boss had a few minutes to spare.

  Jenna Hawkins was in her late sixties, five feet seven, her auburn hair loose around her shoulders. She had been an agent for forty plus years, with a wide-ranging client list from best-selling authors of popular novels to historians of such things as Chinese agricultural practices, a nine-hundred-page book Nancy was obliged to read as her first project when she went to work there. Ronnie described the lunch and the guest appearance by Antoine Burns.

  “Very professional, to offer to pay for your time on the proposal. They did do a good job on your friend Richard Smith’s book. A little strange, though, some of their titles. A book on satanic possession is right in their sweet spot, which tells you something about them. What really counts here—is this something that interests you?”

  “I’m not sure. I can’t take possession seriously. What is to be taken seriously, is that some people do.”

  “I think that’s the crux of it. If you can write a book and tell the way people have behaved in possession and around possession, you’d have something.”

  “Let me think some more.”

  “You have to ask yourself if you want to stop writing articles for a while, lose out on getting the immediate gratification—which we know you get, everybody who does it gets it—for a longer lead time with a book.”

  “Shouldn’t we find out the money?” Nancy offered.

  “Yes, let’s see what we’re talking about. Who is this Richard Smith? Is it serious, Ronnie?”

  “I’m not sure who he is, so I wouldn’t say it’s serious.”

  “Well, he may have helped put a serious offer on the table, so that’s serious support anyway.”

  Richard led her into the living room, poured some wine, and brought out some of the volumes he thought she would be interested in looking at, as well as a printout of titles she might consider exploring. He thought they could have a kind of working dinner, going over the material, and he ordered a meal from a French restaurant nearby. This fascinated her. She thought in terms of pizza and Chinese take-out. The idea of ordering a real meal—salad, lamb chops, dessert—from a restaurant would never have occurred to her.

  He managed to prepare hot tea at the conclusion of the meal and she teased him about his limited expertise in the kitchen. Richard was lobbying for her to take on the project. She could present an overall picture of satanic possession through the ages within her voice; wry, if need be, skeptical if need be, and respectful. He added “respectful,” he said, out of his own beliefs.

  The editorial portion of the evening was coming to an end and she was already anticipating. The feeling reminded her of senior year of high school when she was Bobby Muzo’s girlfriend and whatever they did, movies, bowling, a Yankee game, at the end of it, the last half hour, the last few innings, she was already thinking ahead, of having his mouth on hers, and his hands on her, and Bobby inside her, with the realization that she wanted him as much as Bobby wanted her; beautiful Bobby, who went into the army when she went off to college, and died in Afghanistan.

  “What is it?”

  “I was thinking that I’m tired of talking and I’d like to be in bed with you.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “And I was thinking of a boy I knew who died.”

  “Were you in love with him?”

  “In what love would have been then, yes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No more speaking, okay, unless you want to tell me one more time you’re really not married.”

  “You’re impossible. Really not.”

  In bed he was so deliberate and knowing it was the mixture for her of something almost unbearable with something so pleasurable she cried out once again. Did anyone hear? The downstairs Europeans were never there. The next house? She didn’t care.

  He hadn’t left in the morning. She was primed for the note left behind, but she heard him in the bathroom taking a shower. She sat up in bed and he emerged and kissed her on the forehead. “Would you like to go out to breakfast?”

  “I didn’t know that was part of the deal.”

  They went to a neighborhood coffee shop on Second Avenue and that suited her very well; a regular place, not a hotel dining room or a fancy restaurant, something that spoke of normal life. You sleep with someone, you go out for breakfast, and it’s natural, what people do. They talked about the book, she was going back to the library to do some more research, he was going to arrange for a couple of volumes to be sent to her. Catching her off stride he asked if she wanted to see a movie that night, a restored print of Ingmar Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly was playing downtown. He would be leaving again, that she expected, but not for another day. The thought of a normal people evening, a movie no less, seemed delightful to her.

  After the movie and dinner they went back to his place for the sex she had been anticipating, the consuming sex, nothing else existing in the world at the moment.

  They went out for breakfast again. She was on the cusp of feeling that it didn’t matter if he were married, and that was how, she supposed, women became entrapped in those situations—this is better than anything else I know, and if it’s not perfect or not even close to perfect, it’s better than what I’ve had, so it’s okay—and yet he was insisting he wasn’t married, and when he said she would hear from him in a couple of weeks when he was back from researching a cult in Vancouver for a behavioral studies journal, that was something she could live with. And whether he was a new boyfriend or not, whatever he was—an amazingly good-looking, amazingly good sexual partner, who had given her the opportunity, if she wanted it, to write a book—she was going to wait out the time, closing off all entreaties from the Tony Westons who emerged now and again. The Bergman movie at the Film Forum, the breakfasts, mov
ed them away from the too-precious Ritz-Carlton plateau toward what she considered real life. She was, she announced to herself, in some sort of relationship.

  “They’re offering five thousand dollars for you to do an outline, for your time researching and organizing the material. Actually, it’s crucial work,” Hawkins said to her on the phone, “and in a way it’s the most important work on the book, but I think it’s fair. I’ll ask for it all up front so you can have a comfort level. Any feelings?”

  “I spent the last three days looking at books. And Richard sent a couple of books to me. It is fascinating. Some of these people in possession-land are looney tunes. But as long as I don’t have to sign on to endorsing possession—”

  “Burris understands that. He wants your take, but he wants a rounded view.”

  “Could be fun to do a book.”

  “Don’t say fun. If it’s fun, you didn’t do a good job. It could be, as you say, fascinating, it could be interesting, it could be challenging; it won’t be fun and shouldn’t be. It’s work. Let me go back and see if I can get a commitment on the actual contract. He was a little cautious there, I guess, because he didn’t know if you’re interested.”

  “I’m interested.”

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  The deal was for a fifty-thousand-dollar advance for hardcover and soft-cover rights. Hawkins described it as a fine offer for a first-time author on a book that was questionable as to whether it could cross over from historic/religious and library interest to general interest. First, Ronnie would need to do the core research and write the outline; the offer was contingent upon acceptance of that outline. Hawkins tried to negotiate the five-thousand-dollar advance for the outline to be separated from the book, but Burris drew the line there—it was fifty thousand for everything. She would receive five thousand for the outline, and when the outline was accepted, ten thousand for the first phase of the book with payouts at intervals in the writing process.

  Ronnie was getting intrigued by the material she had been reading and had begun to seriously accumulate notes. For several days she familiarized herself with historic accounts of alleged possessions, which she found to be, by turns, laughable and heartwrenching. She had an exchange of e-mails with Richard and he was very pleased with the events he had set in motion.

  So excited at the possibilities for the book. I feel I should be paying someone a finder’s fee, for finding you.

  She took it as fairly romantic from a straightforward man.

  On a Saturday morning, Bob and Nancy were going for a jog in Central Park and asked Ronnie to join them. Running with Bob, the former college runner, was something the girls particularly enjoyed. There hadn’t been any black cat or death skull incidents since the last and Ronnie was moving freely around the neighborhood and the city; they hadn’t derailed her with their behavior. She trotted at a light pace to Central Park West and Ninety-sixth Street where she was meeting her friends, who were stretching when she arrived.

  “Big time today with Big Bob,” Ronnie said.

  “You ladies make me look good.”

  “That’s what we think about running with you,” Ronnie said.

  “This new boyfriend of yours—”

  “I don’t know if we can call him that …”

  “This new—”

  “Squeeze,” Nancy said.

  “Does he run?” Bob asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “I would’ve invited him to join us, to check him out.”

  “He moves around. He’s in Vancouver. Like seeing a hockey player.”

  A man in his late twenties wearing running gear and a baseball hat with a Z on it approached them.

  “Interest you in the Zip-Ade Run? Five K. About three miles.”

  “We’re just joggers,” Nancy said.

  “Free prizes for all participants. Starting in a half hour from Eighty-sixth Street. You could just amble on over there.”

  “What prizes?” Bob asked and Nancy threw him a look.

  “Free T-shirts for running. Gift certificates from Foot Locker for the first three men and first three women.”

  “We might be interested. Ladies?”

  “I don’t think so,” Nancy said.

  “Come on,” Bob urged, “free T-shirts.”

  As they headed over at an easy jog, Nancy said, “Ringer. How many of these people do you think are going to be Big Ten three-thousand-meter champions?”

  “A lot of serious runners show up around here.”

  “For the marathon, honey, not for this.”

  They signed in and received numbers from the crew working the event for Zip-Ade, which was a new electrolyte drink. About two hundred people were assembled in the starting area. Many appeared to be in trim shape, some were less than world-class-looking. Ronnie, Bob, and Nancy lined up together in the middle of the runners. A gun went off and they started out at a smooth, easy pace, Bob controlling it for the trio, letting the other runners settle out in front of them. After a few minutes, Bob’s competitive instinct took over and he increased his pace. His friends did not attempt to keep up with him and they let him move forward.

  “See you at the end,” Nancy called out.

  “See you,” as he moved gracefully up with the front-runners.

  A snakelike formation comprised the pack of runners, Ronnie and Nancy running recreationally with Bob now out of view. In her competitive zeal, a woman runner bumped into Ronnie while getting past her.

  “I mean, who cares?” Ronnie said to her as the woman pushed on.

  At about the 1.5-mile mark Ronnie and Nancy were cruising along, enjoying the exercise, not having spoken for a couple of minutes when Ronnie began to increase the pace.

  “Hey, slow up.” She kept increasing the pace, leaving a five-yard, then ten-yard distance between them. “What are you doing?” She didn’t appear to hear Nancy. Her face was expressionless as she pressed on faster and faster, passing runners, male and female, oblivious to them as she passed them. Her face was empty, a sleepwalker’s, but her eyes were open as she continued passing people, the lithe and athletic among them, her strides fluid as though she were a finely tuned runner. She had passed every one of the women with only a handful of men ahead of her, and she did not appear to be conscious of that, her empty face unchanged as she pushed on.

  Bill broke the finish tape first among all runners, ran a few strides to slow his momentum, then turned back. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Running toward the finish line within a group of trailing men, with not another woman nearby, without a trace of strain or exertion, her eyes strange and unfocused, was Ronnie, the first woman to cross. She kept running, unconcerned with the finish, looking as though she would run right to the end of the park or to the end of the city. He stepped in her path and caught her, breaking her stride and holding her in his arms.

  “Ronnie!” She blinked and looked up at him as if he were just coming into focus. “Ronnie, God. Are you all right?”

  “Bob!”

  “You won!”

  “I did?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “No. I won?”

  “Yes, you won. Jesus, you’re freaking me out.”

  A race official came up to them and placed wreaths on their heads, and a photographer took their picture together. They were both stunned.

  “How much have you been running?”

  “Not much. Guess I didn’t know I had it in me.”

  “You looked so spaced. Did you take anything before?”

  “I didn’t.”

  They sat on the curb waiting for Nancy to cross the line, both with hundred-dollar Foot Locker gift certificates in hand. Nancy eventually ambled along with a flock of other recreational runners.

  “Ronnie, what were you doing?” Nancy said.

  “I won. So did Ronnie,” Bob announced.

  “What?”

  “I don’t understand it. I wasn’t conscious of anything,” Ronnie said.

>   Her face wasn’t empty now, it was filled with concern. How could she possibly win a race that was a total blank to her?

  5

  “IN THE ZONE.” BOB offered the concept during the postmortem—the feeling athletes describe of being so “on” that everything in the world seems to vanish and the athlete feels invincible. The word “unconscious” was even used to describe the state. He had experienced it a few times himself when he won races during college meets and he had heard fellow runners describe it as well. In the act of running the mind drifts, much like blacking out, he said, so he could understand how Ronnie could reach that place. But he couldn’t reconcile it with her previous running experience. How did Ronnie, an occasional runner, run past people who probably ran regularly?

  They were sitting in the Fairway Restaurant on Broadway eating breakfast. Their spoils, the T-shirts, garlands, and winners’ gift certificates, were on the table.

  “You run around the reservoir a couple of times a week?” Bob asked.

  “Couple of times around, if I can.”

  “Twice around is three miles, twice a week is six miles. What kind of pace?”

  “I don’t time myself.”

  “You never ran a race before, did you?” Nancy asked.

  “Not a formal race, no.”

  “So we wouldn’t know what she was capable of. Until she did it,” Nancy said to Bob.

  “I guess. Maybe you’re just a natural and didn’t know it.”

  “Maybe. If the writing doesn’t work out—” she quipped, and they drifted into the day when Bob won the Big Ten three-thousand-meter championship, which served to direct attention away from Ronnie’s race.

  The race was over, she didn’t want to think about it anymore. She didn’t like the out-of-control nature of the experience, wasn’t going to join the Road Runners Club or start competing against runners in Central Park. She worked more intensely on the book proposal and could see a huge problem ahead. Even at a fifty-thousand-dollar advance, the book could be quicksand. Any one of the chapters suggested in her outline could nearly be a book unto itself, and in some cases, the material already had been the basis of an entire book. She exchanged a few e-mails with Richard about her concerns.