Kenzo #3
“His future stretched ahead, weighted with hardship and buoyed by hope, and when he crossed from the water to the land, from the dock to the steps, from the polished oak door into the gleaming foyer of Patrick Gallows’s house, he was one step closer to the life he wanted . . .”
Here, the dramatic pause. A last, knowing look at the crowd.
“And Kai knew he would do anything to get it . . .”
The audience draws in a breath, and Kenzo marvels, the way he always has, at the power of storytelling. Hearing people laugh when you want them to laugh, and gasp when you want them to gasp. Seeing the threads you’ve woven connecting you in real time to your readers.
It’s the only time in his life that he believes in magic.
As Kai enters the famous author’s house, as he meets the other desperate writers gathered in the sitting room, the whole group, so full of need, of hope, Kenzo sees them—not Bridget and George, Poppy, and Jasmine, and Cass, and Macks (get it, not with an X), the thinly veiled avatars he’s concocted—no, he sees Sienna, lovely, and bright, and tired, and her husband, Malcolm, the distance like a crack between their bodies.
He sees Priscilla, whose real identity he wouldn’t learn until after, and Millie, bubbling over like a too-full glass of champagne, and Cate, literally a wolf in sheep’s clothing, in her oversize cardigan, and Jaxon, hungry like they were all hungry, but unable to hide it.
“. . . little did they know as they stood, gathered at the bottom of the stairs, that this was a game of life and death, and only one of them would win.”
Kenzo closes the book, and a fresh wave of applause rolls through the room.
“Of course,” says the moderator, “if you want to find out who, you’ll have to buy the book.”
A pat phrase, but it garners a ripple of laughter.
She starts off by asking a few softball questions, about his process, whether he’s a plotter or a pantser—someone who knows the end or finds it as he goes—whether he likes drafting or revising better, or if, like Dorothy Parker, he hates writing and prefers having written, early bird or night owl.
Kenzo has never understood why people care about these things—or rather, he does understand; they’re looking for a mirror, a way to say, See, I’m doing it right, or hoping he’ll spill the formula, the step-by-step way to get from where they are to where he is, when the truth is, there is no formula.
No if P then Q. Still he runs through his answers—plotter, because he needs to see the end to work toward it; drafting, because so much of it is still potential; night owl (obviously).
The moderator nods and carries on. “How about your writing routine. Any rituals?”
At which point Kenzo pictures Jaxon, mocking the need for this coffee cup or that candle, declaring that rituals are just excuses. Jaxon, whose Moleskine was battered but blank, who found every excuse possible not to sit down and write.
Finally, when the moderator’s finished up with the easy round, she shifts in her seat and turns the page of her notes, and Kenzo knows it’s coming.
“Now, Mr. Gray,” she says, twisting toward him.
“The elephant in the room, so to speak. There seem to be some pretty obvious parallels between Patrick Gallows, the author at the heart of your story, and Arthur Fletch. Both extremely successful, and famously reclusive. Both tragically lost before their final book was finished. Was that intentional? Or simply a coincidence?”
The silence in the room is thick as smoke, everyone holding their breath.
Kenzo crosses his legs, arranges his face in a practiced smile.
“In writing,” he says, “it’s best to assume that everything is intentional.”
His gaze drifts past the crowd to the back of the room, where Eleanor stands, arms neatly folded, head tipped to one side, the way it is when she’s listening.
At her side, his editor, Holden—though Kenzo still calls him Rufus sometimes, in his head; first impressions are hard to shake—dressed in a navy sweater vest, hands in his pockets as he rocks heel to toe, like a nervous kid.
“Like so many writers,” continues Kenzo, “I was rocked by the news of Fletch’s death.
It’s every writer’s worst fear . . . aside from dying in obscurity .
. . to leave something unfinished, to die before we hit The End.
A painful reminder that time is never on our side.
But it also got the cogs in my brain going.
No matter what we write, authors don’t exist in a vacuum.
We’re influenced by what we see in the real world. Imaginations need ingredients.”
Imaginations need ingredients. For all Eleanor and Holden’s pre-approved language, that bit is his, a short, effective pull quote that will soon make the rounds as a sound bite and a headline.
“I thought it was a brilliant idea, to release Fletch’s final book unfinished.”
A quick look at Holden as he says it.
“But there are two words spinning at the core of every writer’s mind. Two words that propel us, regardless of whether we write fantasy or thriller, sci-fi or YA, romance or horror. Do you know what those two words are?” He surveys the moderator, the crowd.
No one answers.
Kenzo smiles.
“What if.” He spreads his hands. “What if there’s more to it?
What if I change one thing? What if I do it differently?
What if is a seed we get to plant, and grow a whole new story, or ending, or world.
And while every now and then truth is stranger than fiction, most of the time reality is pretty boring.
Fiction is where we get to play God. Where we not only get to ask What if?
, we get to answer. This book”—he raps the cover—“is what happens when a horror writer sees the news and says, What if?”
He sits forward a little.
“So yes, to answer your question, which I’m sure is everyone’s question, I was absolutely inspired by Arthur Fletch’s death—the timing, the nature, the void it left.
As horrible as the news was, it was also a perfect premise.
A famous author. A private island. An unfinished book.
Of course”—he sits back—“I was lucky enough to have the blessing of the late author’s agent, and the approval of his team at Merriweather Press.
And the fact is, if I hadn’t written this, someone else would have. I just managed to get there first.”
A tasteful laugh from the crowd.
Kenzo exhales, feels his shoulders loosen a little.
He was careful, of course; he had to be.
It’s a fine line between inspiration and a scandal.
But good writers know how to walk that line.
And Kenzo Gray has always been a good writer.
He might have even been a great one, on his own, before the deal, and the buzz, and the cogs of the marketing machine spinning into motion, spitting out cloth and calling it gold.
It’s hard to tell, in this game, when success is ten percent talent and hard work, and the rest is luck.
The right eyes on the right story at the right time.
Not that he’s ever been bitter. And even if he were, spite is lighter than people think.
It can buoy you, keep you afloat when others drown, if you know how to guard it, call it grit.
If you can weather the storm.
“One last question, before we open it to the crowd,” says the moderator.
Kenzo tenses, just a little, resisting the urge to look to his team. That’s not what they agreed on when they vetted the bookstore. But the moderator only grins and says, “Is there a movie in the works?”
He wilts in relief. Nods. “The rights have been sold,” he admits, batting away the applause, “but Hollywood is even more fickle than publishing. I doubt it will ever get made. And that’s fine with me,” he says, with a rueful grin. “After all, I’m in the book business.”
“Well,” declares the moderator, “I think we have time for a couple of questions.”
Holden gives him a cheery smile. Eleanor cocks a brow that says Don’t fuck it up. But there’s not much risk. A dozen hands go up, but he recognizes Holden’s new assistant, Eleanor’s nephew, and an older bookseller planted in the crowd.
It’s rigged, he thinks, trying to muster some indignation—but it’s not surprising, is it?
When there’s so much at stake. Besides, Kenzo’s behind on his next book and has a red-eye flight to the second city on the tour.
If anything, he feels relieved. The way a car must be after struggling down a gravel road, when it finally reaches one that’s paved.
How smooth the ground must feel. How nice the ride.
The moderator calls on Holden’s new assistant, a woman in her late twenties.
“What advice would you give to young writers struggling to break out?”
Kenzo studies her. There’s no resemblance, really, beyond the age, the light in her eyes, but still, he looks at her and sees Millie sitting cross-legged on an ottoman, biting her lip.
Millie, who wrote three thousand words every single day, just to stay afloat.
And he wants to say, This industry doesn’t care how hard you work.
It will break you, or you will break yourself. He wants to say Run.
But he doesn’t. Because this woman, who isn’t Millie, isn’t asking for the truth. She’s just teeing him up for what all writers want—and need—a reason to hope.
“Don’t give up,” says Kenzo. “That’s the only rule you have to follow, whether things are going well or they’re not.
The biggest difference between those who make it, and those who don’t, is”—(luck, wealth, a head start, an editor with something to prove, a publisher with money to burn)—“persistence.”
She smiles and thanks him profusely, as if he’s offered truly useful advice instead of something off a motivational poster.
“Next question,” says the moderator, and another girl in the crowd stretches her hand higher, an odd look on her face, halfway between a frown and a glare, as if her being there is a need, not a want.
But the moderator looks past her, points to the bookseller instead, who asks for a recommendation, something Kenzo’s read lately, and Kenzo almost tells the truth, which is that he’s been reading Penn Stonely (he picked up the latest, the last, trying to parse Sienna’s voice from Malcolm’s, and ended up getting sucked in).
Before that, he went back and read Jaxon Knight’s first novels, before the Lightspeed Saga.
And before that, Millie Mitchell’s YA. And the thing that surprised him, even though it shouldn’t have, was that they were good. They were all good.
Instead, Kenzo lists a handful of other books that haven’t broken out. Authors who still can, and should. And then the moderator is clapping her hands, once, like a schoolteacher silencing a class.
“Well,” she says, eyeing the clock, “I think that’s all the time we have.”
At the back of the room his agent nods, and his editor lifts an imaginary glass, and Kenzo sees Malcolm, a crooked smile on his lips as he raised his Scotch that first night and offered a toast.
To the man who brought us together.
Arthur Fletch.
“If you’d like to get your book signed,” says the moderator, lifting her voice over the crowd, “please line up over here . . .”
Kenzo uncaps his pen as the first person approaches the table and hands him the book, a little Post-it with her name on it already tacked in the right place.
“I don’t usually read horror,” she says, and he resists the urge to say that everything is horror, if you read it right. Instead, he just looks up and smiles.
“Well,” he says, signing his name, “I’m glad you made an exception.”
He hands the book back, and the next person comes forward, and the next, and the next, and from here, the line is so long, he can’t even see where it ends.
The End
(. . . or is it?)