This is the first #SaturdayScenes installment for my in-work Ghost Writer, book 6 of the Our Cyber World series. You may access the story summary and other sample excerpts through the table of contents.
Let me know what you think!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Earth to Vivian Matisse.” The remark pulls me out of my haze. For my stupor, I’d like to blame this weepy morning gloom that wraps around me with almost suffocating coolness. But the way I’m sinking now, inside and out—that comes from something else.
“Do we have a bad connection?” Mark adds. “Perhaps I should call back.”
I sigh, enough that he should hear me. “I’m here. I can hear you just fine.”
I curl my toes into the chilly sand. With eyes closed, I take a long, cool breath. I open my eyes again. The airborne moisture blends with my tears. The salt I taste on my tongue—is it mine, or does it come from that ocean that crashes not far from me, irresistible and relentless?
“I’m here,” I sigh.
“Everything all right?”
Why does he ask that? He above all people should know. I’m not here by choice. This romantic life in a beach house, banging away on a keyboard to conjure up inspired prose—not where I’d thought I’d find myself now. But I shouldn’t blame him, should I?
Still, I resent him for it. I see him as my slave master, the one who’s set me up here after my movie star career came to an abrupt end, not when I lost my blistering hot celebrity status, but because my drive to hold on to it caused the death of the man I loved. Sure, I decided to take this life path. I had the sense to gather my assets, sell my Malibu house, simplify my expenses, and go house-sit a more modest home looking out to the sand berms that rise north of Seal Beach Pier. But I didn’t simplify my life for the sake of financial prudence. Rather, I gave in to anguished dejection over a love and hope that burned inside the chaparral atop a Malibu Canyon ridge.
“What can I do for you, Mark?”
Silly question, I know. It’s Monday, 7 AM my time, and 10 AM back in New York. From a mahogany desk Mark is making his weekly call to see how my second novel is coming along. It needs to be going well, he will remind me, since my first novel took off like a rocket on the first week out, thanks to my celeb status, then came crashing once critics and regular readers alike noticed the amalgamation of depression-driven drivel the story embodied.
“Wanted to see how you are doing this beautiful morning.”
What a nice way to put it. How open-ended of him. It sounds so personal, even if his primary concern centers on the two book advance his employer handed me and whether it will drown in my depression.
“I have some good news,” he adds to make up for my silence. “Two bits of good news, actually.”
“Oooh. I’m always up for some of that.”
“Glad to oblige.”
“Well?” I ask, hating myself for sounding impatient and rude.
“Well, indeed, my dear,” he says, letting his British accent ring out with full fervor. “First, I’m happy to report we’ve had a bit of an uptick in your debut novel’s sales. You should be getting a nice royalty check the next go around.”
By next go around he means at the end of the quarter, which for once would come sooner than usual, at the end of June, by my accounting. Then again, I’m sure they’ll find an excuse to keep the cash flow on their side of the ledger, like that little clause in my contract that says if I don’t show enough progress on my current manuscript, the publishing house reserves the right to garnish my royalties against the advance.
Once more, I start lashing myself for signing that contract, that ode to indentured servitude when Mark interrupts me with, “Should come in a little north of five fat ones.”
“I hope that means 5K.” I say this while I tell myself to expect $500 or most probably, $50.
“Most certainly.”
This brings me pause. “Really? Isn’t that—?”
“Yes, Vivian. That would be the largest check you’ve received since the first quarter of record.”
Here I pause again. What could possibly explain this? “That’s interesting,” I say, opting to keep my I-used-to-make-millions cool.
“It seems there’s been a corresponding uptick of positive reader reviews,” Mark explains. “In particular in response to that blogger, the one that claims to be an artificial intelligence on the lam.”
“You don’t say.” Though I don’t mention it, I know he means CybErin, the one with the Twitter handle of @artintErin. She’s a writer in her own right, publishing eBooks she gives away for free since, as she likes to point out with lots of LOL sprinkled on top, a virtual personality with a computational muse need not worry about paying rent or buying groceries.
“Dear Erin has got quite the cult following, it seems,” Mark notes. “As luck would have it, the disaffected, rebellious lot of them connected with your first novel hook, line and sinker. They’re burning up the boards and online reviews. Your eBook sales are burning like lava through dry grass.”
I roll my eyes at his failed attempt to concoct an evocative simile.
“Check it out when you get a chance,” Mark adds. “Go to her blog and read her review. I must say, AI or not, she gets it. It seems like she and her fandom are the niche we’ve been looking for all along.”
And the one his shoe-string budget and half-baked marketing budget could neither identify much less tap into, I almost shoot back.
“You think it’s true?” I ask instead.
“What?”
“That she’s some government designed AI gone rogue.”
“Ha!” He chuckles a bit. “It’s a nice piece of fiction, if you ask me. The sort intended to keep the buzz going. And it’s working quite well so far. Quite the trick. Is she or isn’t she? Whether you believe it or not, she commands the attention.”
“Maybe I should try that. Am I real or not? I know. Let’s start a real rumor that the real Vivian Matisse was murdered and chopped into ten pieces now tossed here and there in Mexico.”
“Have you seen how many followers she has?” he asks.
“I’m sure it’s impressive.”
“50K on Twitter alone.”
“Oooh.”
“Do check her out. It will be worth your time. Help you to keep the bullseye for your target audience clear, and so on.”
“I’ll do that,” I say. “Check her blog, I mean.”
“Yes, yes. Super. But that, dear is not the best of it.”
“You don’t say.”
“Oh, but I must. We have a great opportunity for you. Now, I do need you to do something for me.”
“And what would that be?”
“I want you to hear me out, all the way through, before you make up your mind. Then promise me you’ll at least sleep on it before you make a decision. Tell me you’ll do yourself a favor and keep an open mind.”
“That’s not sounding like good news, Mark, dear.”
“Here’s the scoop,” he rattles ahead. “You know Cynthia Spencer, the one who was nearly abducted by Iran-backed terrorists? The very attack she prevented with nothing but her bare hands?”
How could I not, I would say, given the round-the-clock TV coverage over the past three weeks, but he mows ahead with, “Well, it seems the powers that be have decided her heroism and instant-celeb status, along with her past career as a business woman, uniquely qualify her to run for U.S. Senate on behalf of the People’s Republic of California.”
“Yeah, I think I heard something about that last night,” I say, surprised I can claim as much since I’ve done my best to avoid the unending news coverage.
“Of course, you did. And here’s how the dots connect, since I sense by now that sharp mind of yours is no doubt asking what in the world this has to do with you.”
Though Mark pauses to stoke my curiosity and waits for me to bite on the obvious bait, I don’t respond. Instead, I sip from my coffee and look north toward the jetty where a sail boat is heading out into the Pacific’s gloom. In the distance I can almost make out the Long Beach skyline. Maybe I’ll go there tonight. I’ll find a nice restaurant along Pine Street, have a quiet dinner for one, and maybe even order a respectable glass of wine.
“Well,” Mark says after letting a few seconds pass. “The spin doctors want to go into full court press. Among other things, they think she will benefit immensely from having a quickie memoir hit the shelves ahead of her nascent campaign.”
“Sure,” I say. My mind is beginning to wander and turn him off. I am walking down the dune, approaching the shore.
With each step, my feet sink into cool sand. It turns harder and more frigid as I approach the surf. I stop before a long piece of seaweed. It draws a near perfect oval at the top of which it traces a single line that points at the pier.
“So you’re on board?” Mark asks.
“On board?”
“Yes, are you up for the job?”
“What job?”
“To write her memoir, silly. As her ghost writer.” He stops there. Now I know what he meant when he mentioned my need to keep an open mind.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Keep reading…
Comments are disabled for this post