22
Lying in the bed that was once mine, in the flat that was once mine, I bring the two notebooks out from under the mattress. A second ticks by while I struggle to choose which to open first. In my left hand, I hold the notes for the novel I’ve been working on since university. Yellowed, tattered pages hang out of three sides. In my right hand lies my journal, a black leather-bound volume, one of many I’ve filled in my life.
Answers first.
I flip the journal open, and stare at the first entry. Third of August 2014. Incredible. This is the same journal I was writing in before I boarded Flight 305. How? I usually fill one every year. My journaling rate must have slowed considerably. Or . . . the entries stop soon after 2014. I hadn’t thought of that. This could reveal what happened here.
For a moment I consider taking the journal back out to everyone in the living room, but I need to read it first. I almost dread discovering what it will reveal about me.
I page to the place where my next entry would have been—the day after the plane should have landed.
15 Nov. 2014
Certainty. Certainty is certainly the word of the day. See what I did there? Yes, of course you do, because I would, and I do. That was certain. And so is my fate, because I’ve selected certainty.
Okay. I’m giddy. It’s the relief, the lifting of the burden, the crushing, paralyzing decision made: I will write Oliver Norton Shaw’s biography, the sure-to-be-self-aggrandizing, overhyped tome that will change nothing, except for perhaps my fate. I will be well paid. That is certain. I can then use that money to pursue my true passion: Alice Carter and the Secrets of Eternity (note: I have renamed it since yesterday, when it was Alice Carter and the Knights of Eternity; let’s face it, everybody likes a good secret, and with knights we rather know what we’re getting, don’t we?).
The biography will take a year to write, nine months if I can swing it, and it will be out in another year, after the unkind critics have had a chance to pick it apart and the printers have killed enough of a forest to get the door stopper into stores. Two years. My advance to be paid a third upon signing, a third upon approval of the finished manuscript, and the final third upon publication. Then every six months, royalties will be paid, via check, minus my agent’s fifteen percent (well worth it, I still think).
Certainty. I’ve decided to write Oliver Norton Shaw’s biography. I am certain that in two years I will be a full-time fiction writer, my life dedicated to a young British girl, Alice Carter, who discovers that she’s capable of far more than she ever imagined, that her choices and her unique abilities could change the course of history and save her world. I like that very much. That’s something to look forward to. Twenty-four months to go.
So I took the job. And how did it turn out? Luckily I hold my own autobiography in my hand. I flip through the pages, reading the dates scrawled in my handwriting, searching for a day around two years on . . .
21 Oct. 2016
Success. I am A Success. Foregoing capitals grammatically uncalled for but necessitated by the following facts:
- The Sunday Times #1 Nonfiction Author? Harper Lane
- The New York Times #1 Hardcover Nonfiction Author? Harper Lane
- USA TODAY? You guessed it.
- Reviews. Not all bad. Few punches to the face here and there, but my editor has assured me, “The owner of the Post hates Shaw, has for years, ignore it.” On another hatchet job: “Gibbs thought he’d be selected to write it. No mystery why he’s got a bee in his bonnet. Don’t let him chop you up with the axe he’s grinding, Harp.” And on and on. But the consensus is clear: it’s a hit.
It’s not just the critics and the charts. The readers-and there are readers—people are actually reading this thing and loving it and writing to me, saying so, saying that it gave them some perspective, some courage to go out and change their lives. That’s powerful. Every day, when I open my e-mail, there’s another dose of it.
That’s one difference. With ghostwriting, I wrote to please my editor. They approved the checks, and the praise and pay came sporadically. Now the encouragement is delivered fresh every day, digitally, one click away. I’m writing for them now. I’m writing for happiness. For pride—in my work, and in the decision I made.
Interesting. I flip through the pages, searching for the thing I really want to know. Several months later, I spot the key phrase.
7 Feb. 2017
I’ve met someone. He’s smart (very, very smart), charming, well-traveled, and knowledgeable beyond belief. In a word, captivating.
But it’s not like that. He’s old enough to be my dad. He’s one of Shaw’s closest friends, another Titan founder, and his story demands to be told. The world would be a better place if it were. He says I’m the only person who can write it, that he will approve and support no one else. It’s me or no one. If I say no, the world will never hear his story, never know the trials, triumphs, and reversals of David Jackson. I’ve agreed to do it.
I turn the page, surprised at the date. She’s pouring every ounce of energy into Jackson’s biography and not much into keeping the journal. Another page turn, and I’m at the book release.
16 Sep. 2019
In this business, they tell you anyone can get lucky once (I don’t believe it). You do it twice, and they start to believe you’re the genuine article.
I’m gathering believers.
They say the biography of Jackson is better than Shaw’s, his life painted in richer tones, transporting readers to the place where he grew up, where he became the man who conquered the financial world and traded the fate of nations like pieces on a Monopoly board. Most of all, they come to understand his conversion at sixty, why he decided to join Oliver Norton Shaw, dedicating his life and his fortune to the Titan Foundation and the betterment of humanity. They see, in vivid brushstrokes, what being a Titan means to him, how it has made Jackson’s life, all his sacrifices, worth it. In short, people understand him. Not just people on the street, but even his most intimate acquaintances. Men like David Jackson aren’t overly personable, don’t form close mates, aren’t apt to emote by the fire with a drink in their hand. He’s told me that even his closest friends have rung him up, saying that they finally get him. People he’s known for forty years have come up to him at parties and confessed that they finally understand something he did decades before, and what he’s trying to do now. Best of all, he’s had calls from enemies, people he’s feuded with in public and private, people who now want to bury the hatchet and join him and Oliver, to become Titans.
He rang me yesterday, related it all, insisting that I did this, that my biography did this.
I swore it wasn’t true, and I believe that. It’s his life, his story, his fortune, that will make whatever happens possible. I’m just a storyteller, and his is a story people want to hear. I was just in the right place at the right time.
I had lunch in Manhattan with Jackson and Oliver last Tuesday. They billed it as a celebration, but they’re connivers to the end. There was a woman there, another Titan candidate, remarkable in her own right. Not as captivating as Shaw or Jackson, but her story speaks to me. And I know it will to others, to every woman, especially those who grew up in rural corners of the world, where opportunities come rarely and only the lucky escape. I like her, and I like her story. I agreed to write it then and there.
In my mind, I held them up, weighed them: my new subject and Alice Carter.
One is real. The other is a figment of my imagination, a bedtime tale at best.
One may inspire girls for generations. The other might be a hit for a few weeks or even a top-ten-grossing film in any given year, quickly buried by the sands of time and the hype of the next potential blockbuster. People won’t remember Alice Carter. But they’ll remember Sabrina Schr?der because she’s real. Every second of her struggle is true. Her triumph is an inspiration. Her story needs to be told.
It’s an easy choice.
Whoa. Didn’t see that coming. The bio must be on the bookshelf outside, one of the ones I skimmed past, looking for Alice Carter. I’ll check after I finish with the journal.
After 2019, the journal entries change. The inner dialogue stops. There are no more thoughts or feelings. It’s a bloody almanac now, a history of stats—mostly sales numbers—years, and the biographies I penned. No wonder the journal was never filled.
Then, suddenly, twenty years later, the terse, just-the-facts entries give way to something else.
23 Dec. 2039
Alone. Another year. And so is he. Nothing to do but write, my only friend. We’ve confessed our feelings to each other. He has a plan. He’s so brave. It would change everything. For the first time since my mum lay on her deathbed, I’ve been praying. I want it so much. It’s the only way. Without it, he’s unreachable. No, I am. Forbidden.
The Titans—our last enemy. It’s ironic. The controversial cabal I sold to the world is now the only barrier to my immortal happiness.