GHOSTWRITTEN

I love my husband, which is why I did what I did. The news channels and internet chatrooms will say that I am a fraud. That what I’ve done to the world-wide readership of his fiction was unfair. That’s not true. I promise you that is not true. My husband wrote the books that he became famous for. He wrote every single word. But my husband, despite his talent needed a strict copyeditor and that was me. We worked on all of the books together, God’s honest truth. To the chat-sites and the naysayers I tell you Randolph and I were partners from the start. But maybe I’m beginning at the end, never a good place to start.

My name is Belladonna Glass. My husband is, or was, the famous fantasy author Randolph Franklin Glass, or better known to his readers as R.F. Glass. Anyone who’s anyone in the literary world knows of my husband’s first two novels; The List of Hall, and The Weeping of Hall. For those of you reading this now who may not have heard of Ran or his novels let me brief you on the world of Hall. As the story goes, since childhood Ran was fascinated with other worlds. When he was eleven my husband fell victim to a strange and un-diagnosable condition that left him comatose for nearly a month. He claimed that during this time he visited another world, actually lived there, and had whole histories among the indigenous people. He later named this world, Hall. Simple. Sweet, and to the point – Hall. When asked, and he was asked quite often, what Hall stood for Ran always smiled at the asker and just winked. Mystified, the person would usually walk away scratching their heads. When pressed for an answer my husband would simply say – ‘Meet the Rules of Hall: There are no rules of Hall. Everything is accepted. Nothing is denied, and screw logic, it’s a creatively bankrupt belief.’ This often received a laugh or a snicker from the person, or persons present. If it was a child who asked, Ran would drop to one knee, he was quite tall you see, look into the child’s eyes and whisper, ‘Magic.’ To which he would get a giggle and a rush of smiles.

Children loved Ran. He was tall and clumsy in a silly way that children understood. His glasses seemed to amplify his bright blue eyes in a heavenly way that, to a child at least, showed honesty. His thick tangles of hair atop his head were always fingered back out of his face making him look like a tasseled child.

We all loved Ran and his books while he was alive. The novels that were published posthumous were also cherished by his avid fantasy readers. When news of Ran’s untimely death struck the news circuits the chat-sites went wild with gossip. Was he really dead, or wasn’t he? He was only thirty-five years old after all. Was this another publicity stunt? Would R.F. Glass remerge from Hall with another book in his hands? You see Ran was always a practical joker. It seemed to be his stock and trade. He had pulled disappearing acts before. Being a minor magician of some note, he would fascinate audiences with his sleight of hand tricks during book signings. Slipping a bit of magic in at choice moments while speaking with an interviewer. Often comical, making the children in the audience laugh. Sometimes a little inappropriate for the more stoic moments. That was Randolph Glass for you. Always a surprise. Like his death, coming on the eve of finishing the last page of his third Hall novel – Death Comes To Hall. Unplanned as usual. Most of Ran’s activities were unplanned, and that title, a fitting title to be sure, was one might say prophetic.

The death and funeral then…

#

We’ll get to Ran’s death and funeral in a moment. For now an unexpected meeting.

In the halls of a university bookstore up north, Ran and I met as we wandered amongst the multitude of worlds stocked cozily on the hundreds of metal shelves in one of the university’s lesser known bookstores. Dust and knowledge collected among those hardbound and paperback pages that sat atop the nearly forgotten shelves lining the basement of that shop. Not a popular spot to be sure, which was probably why I was doing what I often did in those days, young in my early twenties, wandering with no destination, no college major in sight, no love life, no future of any kind when - BAM!, we struck like two semis’. Randolph was carrying a pile of dusty tomes. His wire rimmed glasses slid to the end of his sizeable nose, a long tasseled bang covered one eye like a comical pirate. His smirk caught me off guard and jolted me from my dazed state. I blinked and then took a plunge into the great blue waters of his eyes.

“Excuse me,” he huffed as he pushed past me on his way toward the stairs that would in turn lead him to the second floor of the shop and back out into the street where I would lose him in the crowd of college students. I smelled both sweat and tobacco on him with a hint of caffeine – coffee breath. It was the coffee breath more than the bump that broke me from my reverie.

“Hey!” I called to this tall lanky stranger fumbling with a pile of books.

He stopped on the third step, which would later be the name of his fourth novel, and looked back. His glasses were nearly off his nose now and the kindness in his blue eyes made me smile looking at this disheveled young man.

“I’m Bella, Belladonna actually…” it had come out before I could stop it. I reddened. Belladonna, really? My parents had a nasty sense of humor.

He just stared at me scrunching up his nose to keep his frames from slipping off. It didn’t work of course. He also swung his head back brushing his thick hair off his forehead. I saw the premature thought-lines etched deep in the tan skin of his forehead. Ran looked a little older than me, but not much. He wore a pair of poor man’s blue jeans with holes in the knees, nothing special, and a maroon colored threadbare sweater over an untucked navy blue Oxford. I stepped up to him and with one finger pushed his glasses back up on his long nose. Just a simple gesture.

“Thanks,” he said smiling.

“You’re welcome.”

“I’m sorry?” he said motioning to the stairs clearly needing to leave but not wanting to be rude.

“Oh, of course,” I said trying to sound as whimsically cool as I could. I think I had actually curtsied.

“Ah, I’m Ran…Randolph, actually. Ah, I’d love to talk longer but a little busy at the moment,” he tried to lift the books but it was clear that the stack of about ten were too much for him. He could barely lug them along, having to bend his tall lean frame forward to achieve even a modest ability of lifting the pile.

“Of course, no prob. Maybe another time,” I mused.

“Around campus, sure,” he winked.

I laughed as his glasses slid back down his nose again. I stepped forward once more and pushed the glasses back up his long nose and like that I met Randolph Franklin Glass.

For weeks after our first encounter at the bookstore I wasn’t able to find Ran around campus, not that I was actually searching you understand. Despite missing him everywhere I looked he was rarely out of my mind. The thing that bugged me the most was that this kind of thing never happened to me. You know, star crossed lovers, not that we were lovers, don’t think that, or that I had fantasized or anything, or…anyway, after about a month just when the guards were down and I was walking past that same university bookstore where Ran appeared to me for the first time, I saw that same tall slender figure standing at the cash register with a pile of hardbound books. It was Ran, he was chatting with someone at the cash register. My eyes shifted to the cashier, a young college student, auburn hair, green eyes, a figure to die for, the works. I hated her.

I heard the little bell above the door ring before I realized that I had rushed inside the shop. Both Ran and the cashier stopped speaking and glanced in my direction. I fled, but not back out the door the way I should have, instead I raced down the nearest aisle tucking my head as I went. My heart was beating like mad and I felt my ears burning. They must have been red as cherries, pulsating embarrassment. I stood, crouched actually, behind the shelf waiting for him to leave. After a few seconds I thought that I was in the clear. When Ran came around the corner of the aisle smiling I fled again. This time I moved to the back wall. Hidden among the dust bunnies and low track lighting I wrongly believed that I could hide from prying eyes.

“Hello…?”

I heard him walking down the aisles.

“It’s getting kinda dark…I’m afraid of the dark,” Ran whispered.

That made me smile. My face, though hot from blushing, began to cool again. By the time Ran arrived by the back wall I had almost returned to my normal color.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

“I’m Ran…”

“Randolph actually,” I said remembering our first conversation.

“Yeah,” he said laughing. “And you’re Belladonna, like the poison.”

I flushed again.

“Guilty as charged,” I said. Guilty as charged? Really? The red in my face deepening again. My ears flared like torches.

“Belladonna,” he seemed to taste the name on his wonderful lips. “I like that. It’s kinda different. Dangerous. Listen, Ms. Poison…it is Ms. isn’t it?”

I nodded, dorkishly. He grinned.

“Good. I got someplace to be right now, but maybe if you’re free some other time we can get a coffee, tea, or maybe a…beer?”

His bright eyes caught the dim track lighting beneath his polished lenses. I noticed that the frames were pushed up on his nose.

“All three sound great. We’ll make a day of it.”

I saw his surprised expression at my unexpected exuberance. My ears burned again.

“Ah, my number, your number.”

We each pulled out our cell phones and programed in one another’s numbers. I know it’s cliché to say that when our hands touched there was a spark, but boy was there. I felt it and Ran felt it too. Wow, lightning bolt city.

“Great. I’ll call you,” he said as he disappeared around the corner of the aisle.

I waited, feeling my entire body sweat. My heart beat so fast I felt like I was suffering a panic attack. Waving away the feverish heat I listened to hear the front door bell ring before I exited the back of the store. As I walked past the cashier she just grinned at me. I didn’t dignify that grin until I was outside then I did a little jig of my own. The gawkers on the street must of thought that the mental hospital on the hill had just released one of its inmates, because I was grooving all the way back to my bike that I had chained to a lamp post on the corner.

It was a beautiful day. I had not just a cute guy’s number programed into my cell phone, but thee cute guy, the guy I had been pining after for a month. God that probably sounds pathetic right? Well for those of you who have searched and found the one, the actual person who is your soulmate - another pathetic phrase to be sure - you’ll completely understand my excitement and dorkiness. Not a single thing could have brought me down that day. I was young. I was in love. Life was golden and eternal.