“No.” I sounded like an obstinate two-year-old, but I didn’t know what else to say. There was too much new information spilling around me. It felt like a dam had broken somewhere, and the water was rising. Fast. All I could do was keep pushing back.
“There’s been other stuff too, Meg. Reports from guests on the island. Weird occurrences. People getting hurt or sick. They blame Dorothy. They’re persecuting her because Frances has made them believe that she’s Kitten. A handful have even filed charges. I can show you the stories.”
I held up a weary hand. “Please, no.”
“I’m proposing you split the advance with Dorothy Kitchens, the real Kitten, maybe even the royalties. She deserves as much. If you go down there and talk to her, you’ll see.”
“Go down there?” I burst out. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Stay at Ambletern, the old hotel, for a couple of weeks. Interview Dorothy Kitchens. Hear her story.”
“You should pick up the phone and call one of the Kitty Cultists. Any one of those loons could write your book for you.”
“They can’t write it like you could. Not an expertly woven firsthand account of what Frances Ashley did to the both of you. No one else can write this, Megan. No one.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate for you. Because I’m not doing it.”
“Dorothy Kitchens has never given an interview. Not to anyone. Never. Not in all the years since your mother wrote her book. Are you hearing what I’m saying? Megan, listen to me. You’re the first person Dorothy has ever agreed to talk to.”
And he swung the computer around to face me.
KITTEN
—FROM CHAPTER 3
The child was a wonder, the guests always said, an absolute doll.
She had the most endearing habit of catching hold of the hand of anyone standing beside her. She would clasp it and study it intently, like she was memorizing the form. Sometimes she’d press the person’s hand to her own downy cheek and give it a little kiss. She was the dearest thing, everyone said. Too sweet for words.
That first night, when Kitten’s father arrived upstairs to tuck her in, Fay slipped out, closing the bedroom door softly behind her. But then she moved back, as if drawn by an unseen force. She rested her fingertips against the door and listened to the low murmurs of father and daughter. She couldn’t quite make out the words.
It sounded like a poem.
She thought of her own father. He’d never read to her, not once.
Ashley, Frances. Kitten. New York: Drake, Richards and Weems, 1976. Print.
Chapter Eight
I read the email on my mother’s computer screen.
To: Asa Bloch
From: Dorothy Kitchens
Re: Book
March 30, 2016
Dear Asa,
After much thought, soul searching, and prayer, I have decided that my answer is yes. I will consult with Frances Ashley’s daughter on the book.
I know my father never gave his consent to the book Ms. Ashley wrote all those years ago. He would have never agreed to allow anyone to fabricate so many lies about our hotel, our island, and me. But she did, and, while I don’t believe in harboring grudges, the burden of being Kitten has become too great for me to handle in the past few years.
As a result of harassment from paying guests, I have had to close the hotel I inherited from my father, drying up my main source of income and creating no small amount of stress. I have no family now—and forming lasting relationships has been impossible with the specter of Kitten hanging over every move I make. This island is all I’ve ever cared about—the only thing that matters to me. Seeing that it’s cared for and preserved in a manner that honors its roots and fulfills its destiny is the only thing that keeps me going. Can you understand such a thing?
I have turned down other offers because I never wanted revenge on Ms. Ashley. I never wanted recompense, but I no longer feel I have any choice. I cannot go on this way—destitute and desperate. So I will work with Megan Ashley on her book. May it bring healing to all involved, even Frances.
Please let Megan know that she is welcome on Bonny Island and that I will tell her everything I remember, exactly how it happened, about the summer of ’75, the summer I spent with her mother. Ambletern’s doors are wide open to her.
Warmly,
Doro Kitchens
I backed away, all the way to the door, grateful for something solid to lean against.
I still felt the nervous, buzzy fear inside me, but now, along with it, an incredible lightness too. Like I’d just shed ten pounds. Like if I didn’t grab onto some anchor, I might float up and out of the apartment.
Here was a way to finally uncover the truth about my mother. To understand the past—who she’d been before, how she’d written her book, why she’d become the person she was. I could finally unpack the hows and whys of my life too. Those never-ending, exhausting questions that revolved around my mother’s strange lack of love for me. Her distance. My unhappiness.
And maybe, if I could find the truth, I wouldn’t feel so trapped anymore. Maybe I could finally move on with my life. The prospect was terrifying and captivating, all at the same time. I glanced down and realized I’d curled both hands into tight fists.
Asa popped backward in the desk chair. “Well?”
“You already told Dorothy Kitchens I was writing the book?” I asked. It was all I could come up with.
“I may have intimated the idea.”
“You know, you’re wasting your talents in the publishing industry,” I said. “You should go into something like espionage. Or prisoner-of-war interrogation.”
He shrugged. “Christina Crawford wrote a tell-all. And Jane Fonda. The Styron girl and Joseph Heller’s daughter. And, believe me, nobody gives a shit about any of those people’s parents the way they care about Frances Ashley.”
“You do understand that if you actually sell this book, Rankin Lewis will immediately fire you.”
I was talking tough again. Doing that thing where I played the role of Megan Ashley, Jaded Daughter of Celebrity Author. But I couldn’t tell him what I was really feeling. I didn’t know that I was capable of explaining it to anyone. It felt too new. Too raw.
“Then I’ll start my own agency. With you as my sole client.” He leaned against the desk. “Let me tell you a story. I saw the original Kitten when I was ten, on late-night cable. I didn’t even know it was based on a book. But the next week, I found it at the library. I devoured it in a matter of hours, up in my sad little bedroom, and decided right then—somehow, someway, I was going to be a part of this . . . magic. Telling stories. Making books.”
I nodded wearily. I’d been hearing variations on this story all my life: I discovered Kitten when I was six/twelve/eighteen years old and decided then and there that I had to be a writer/agent/editor/psychotic serial killer. But this guy took it to a whole new level. I wondered how many insults I could throw at him before he gave up. How hard I could push him until he slunk away.
I wondered if I really wanted him to.
“I can’t write worth a damn,” he continued. “What I can do, however, is sell the hell out of just about anything. Literary masterpieces are nice, but what I really prefer are blockbusters.”