Indeed, as she wrote, the question of St. John began to occupy space at the back of her mind. How did a person become a mystery writer in the first place, she wondered. And now that she was writing his book, what did he do all day? Karin had other work to do, other deadlines, but this was somehow always the file that remained open on her monitor. She was even enjoying the almost mathematical progression of the book's formulaic plot. Each chapter set up clues that would come to fruition later in a tidy, satisfying sequence; even the dead dog turned out to have a role, as it had been killed just when it was about to bark at the ghost.
Before she knew it, almost, she'd written four chapters. Not wanting St. John to know how much time she was devoting to the book, she waited a few days before e-mailing him the work she'd done. She expected him to write back immediately — at least to acknowledge receipt — but after three days she'd still heard nothing. Not knowing what else to do, she began writing chapter eight, in which the custodian and the lesbian nurse were now in cahoots, though she wasn't quite sure about what. No word yet from St. John. She was too distracted to concentrate on her other work, the medical journals and newsletters. All she thought about was The Hospital Was Haunted. At night she even dreamed of its creepy linoleum floors and Gothic shadows, waking not afraid but feverish, itching to get back to writing.
Finally an e-mail arrived: Come for lunch tomorrow.
This time she dressed up, in a dark purple dress, a black blazer, and boots. She put on lipstick and corralled her hair into a bun — not a librarian's but a sexy one, at least she hoped, with a few fetching loose strands. She wasn't out to seduce Donald St. John; she just wanted to dress like someone who had taken command of the situation. As she sat in the car checking her makeup, she glanced up at the second floor, mentally preparing herself for the conversation to come, and was stunned by what she saw. St. John was walking around the room without a stitch of clothing on. Clearing a stack of files from his desk, tapping a book's spine into place on a shelf, he roamed around his office and then stood at the window surveying his spoiled view. His body was pale, vaguely muscled, bulging at the hips above legs that were thin, delicate, practically feminine. At his crotch was an enormous spray of dark hair, thickly streaked with gray. Karin looked down at her lap, blushing, finding it impossible to fathom. Was this show being put on for her? Or was it his daily habit to inspect his kingdom like this? Was she imagining the whole thing?
People in glass houses, she thought, shouldn't walk around naked.
When she pulled her briefcase out of the car, her hand was shaking. Corazón met her at the door in her usual smiling silence, then led her upstairs. By the time she entered the office, St. John was dressed in a white button-down shirt and khaki pants.
He smiled a perfunctory, vacant smile. On his desk was a single file folder, and he motioned her to a chair beside it. “So, Karin,” he said in his stagey baritone, “lovely to see you. Tell me, how is everything going with you? How is your family?”
“My son is a freshman at Penn,” Karin said, sitting down. The folder was open, and she could see that the manuscript inside started with chapter six, her first chapter. She knew the opening by heart. Rumors flew wildly among the nurses about the custodian, Jack. Some said he was an orphan who had grown up on the grounds of the hospital. Others said he'd been to jail for killing a man in a barroom brawl. Still others thought that he was brain-damaged as a result of a drug overdose. One thing they could all agree on: Jack couldn't be trusted.
“Penn, really?” St. John said. His heartiness couldn't have been more forced. “Excellent school. I'm a Yale man myself.”
She was unable to stop picturing him naked, which made conversation difficult. “Are you married?” she said.
“God, no,” he said. “I'm a lone wolf. Marriage would be hell for me.”
“It's hell for a lot of people,” Karin said, “but they do it anyway.”
“Indeed,” he said, nodding sagely, “you're quite right.” Then he cleared his throat and wheeled his chair over to the manuscript. “Well, about your work.”
Her stomach seized. She crossed her legs and waited.
“Let's take a look, shall we?” He read the first paragraph out loud, paused, then sighed, rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hand, and looked up at the ceiling as he spoke. “The problem, you see, is that it's not well written at all. It's awkward and blocky. It is simply not publishable.”
“I see,” she said. The blood rushing in her ears made it hard to hear what he said next.
“I'm not saying you can't get there,” he said. “It's just that you have a ways to go. It's like — how can I explain this? Do you like baseball? It's like the difference between the major leagues and the minors. What you've done with my book is not wrong, but it's minor-league. I suppose it's not surprising for a novice. I knew I was taking a chance. On Sid's word, of course. He's a big fan of yours. I understand you and your husband have been friends with Sid for many years, children going to school together, that sort of thing. These sorts of connections are epidemic in our little area, I've found.”
Finally he stopped talking. Karin knew she could never speak the thought in her mind: that she'd had to make the writing awkward and blocky so it would match his own. That he was a terrible writer. That, if anything, the problem with her contribution was that it wasn't bad enough. St. John was looking down at the manuscript, his brow furrowed pensively, and she realized he wanted her to beg for a second chance. She stood up. “I'm sorry you were disappointed. I'll send your check back.”
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Life is disappointment. If nothing else, the two of us have learned that much by our age, haven't we? Why don't you try again? Just pitch it a little higher this time.” Now he stood as well. “Corazón will see you out.”
Driving back, Karin cursed St. John and all his terrible, terrible books. It couldn't be true that she had done such a bad job. She refused to believe it. At home she took the dog out, jerking her along by the leash at a breakneck pace until she dug her paws into the ground and refused to go farther, begging her with soulful eyes to be reasonable.
For days, instead of looking at what she'd written, she plotted revenge and vowed to expose him as a hack. She could write her own best-selling mystery series, whose very first villain would be an aging writer living in a glass house; she would accept accolades at the launch party, and when St. John approached her with his pitiful congratulations she would pretend not to remember his name.
Over time, she let this idea go. The problem was that the hospital and the town of St. Lucent and Rusty and Rose and even the custodian had somehow lodged themselves in her brain, and she wasn't prepared or able to let them ago. She didn't want to write another series; she wanted to write this one. The book, she felt, had become hers.