Page 73 of You Can't Hurt Me

“Don’t look like that. You got too involved. Remember, when you’re a ghostwriter, you’re only ever the midwife, never the mother,” she says, standing up to leave, a lightness in her step now it’s all over. “There is one more thing I need to tell you,” she says. “It’s about the book launch. I probably should have said this earlier but—”

“You don’t want me to be there?”

“It’s not me actually, it’s—”

“Sure, of course. I get the message.”

“Nate asked me to ask you. I think after everything that’s happened it’s for the best, don’t you?” She watches me steadily. “We’re both counting on you.”

“Count away,” I say, childishly defiant. “You can rely on me.” Her features tighten, two tiny indents form between her perfect eyebrows. “For your own sake, Anna, you should stay away.”

29

7 December, 2022 7:30 p.m.

I am a ghost in the room tonight. A shadow no one will notice, exactly as it should be. Guests arrive, flowing toward the heat and hum of the glass atrium at the back of the bookshop and I slip in unobserved.

It is easy enough to lose myself here, hovering at the back behind a pillar. I’ve been paid to melt away into the ether but I doubt they’ll be looking out for me.

So why risk coming along at all, what will it solve? I realize I need closure, to make my peace with the memoir, with Eva. I couldn’t keep away.

I watch Nate climb the stairs to the balcony for his speech, now a mere stranger. He draws his fingertips through the back of his hair.

My mind spools back to the last time we met here, under very different circumstances. It was just before we began the book, a reconnaissance mission, he called it, to see what was already out there. What to avoid, what to magpie.

“Here you go. My gift to you,” he said as we browsed the shelves of Memoir & Autobiography.The Art of Ghostwritingby Alan D. Mackintosh.

“Riveting,” I said, opening the first page and reading aloud:

“Ghosts can start out as a friend, muse and therapist, but you need to adhere to strict rules if you want it to stay that way. By the end of the contract, they can be pushed to arm’s length, ranking no higher than a nanny or a secretary, or worse.”

The quote’s earnest tone had made us both laugh. He bought me a copy but I never did bother to finish it. I was irked by Mackintosh’s outdated voice, the author’s presumption that a female ghostwriter is subordinate, likely to be exploited, then dumped.

His book—our book—is displayed on a table next to me. I leaf through a copy, turning to a random page. Those familiar words and phrases take me back to the endless hours we spent, the perfect collaboration, transmuting his raw experience into gold.

What would Eva think of her life packaged up for public consumption like this? Her true story, her authentic voice extinguished. Nate has made ghosts of us both.

Something in me deflates. I know that it’s all over. I walk to the end of the aisle and stop in my tracks. There are Nate and Priya standing just yards away. As I walk briskly past them toward the door, he looks up and our eyes lock. Priya reaches for his arm. He pushes her away, follows me outside.

“Wait, Anna,” he shouts after me. I won’t wait a second longer. I have spent too long under Nate’s skin and now it’s time to burrow out.

I take off my heels, stuff them deep into my bag and start to run. Away from him. Still I hear his voice, urgent and cracked, calling my name. I turn a corner and break into a sprint, my bare soles slap the cold wet pavement.Keep going, I tell myself, my breath ragged, my lungs burning.

I turn off Marylebone High Street and weave my way through the smaller streets, each turn taking me farther away from him.

When I reach a small garden square, I lean against the wrought iron railings surrounding it to catch my breath. The sky is inky and starless. A light flashes on in the townhouse opposite and I find myself looking into its kitchen. An elderly woman opens her fridge, starts to wash up, stares blankly back at me.

I wipe the back of my neck, slicked in sweat, turn toward the sound of footsteps somewhere at the end of the street. I could, I should, run but my energy deserts me. I am strangely rooted to the spot. Nate stops until we are facing each other, he’s more out of breath than me.

“Anna?”

The woman in the window draws down her blind sharply and Nate’s face falls into shadow as he steps closer.

“I know I asked you not to come tonight. I’ve been furious about what happened, I know you have too. But I’ve been thinking, we both deserve the truth, one more chance to talk. I’m flying to New York tomorrow and I won’t be coming back.”

I close my eyes, shake my head.He knows you have the receipt. Don’t place yourself in yet more danger. Don’t be taken in, not again.

“I can’t talk anymore, Nate. It’s too late. But not to worry, I won’t be going to the police, so your precious career is safe.”

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