I STILL CAN’T SAY WHY I did it, why I agreed to Greer’s crazy proposal when she came to me a mere three months before her death. Maybe because it was Greer, and I knew this was one of the last favors she would ever ask. Maybe some sort of delusional type of hero worship. My instinct, when she showed up in my Palm Beach apartment, was a hard, fast no. But, for some reason, it just wouldn’t come out of my mouth.
“Why me?” I asked. “Why not your sister?”
I could feel the energy in the room starting to shift. It was like the more panicked I became, the calmer she got, like I could almost see the energy leaving her and transferring into me.
“Why not one of your friends?” I asked.
“Because I don’t trust them,” she snapped.
Now things were starting to come back into focus for me; I was starting to see things more clearly, more rationally. I mean, I could do this. Every article I’d ever written, every interview I’d done, it had all been leading up to this moment. Because, with every profile piece, every emotional article, wasn’t I becoming the person I was writing about?
Every Greer selfie and vacation Instagram post and witty column was merging in my head, forming a vision of her, but also making me wonder if my vision of her was correct. Could I capture her complexity in a meaningful way?
“The only person I trust is Parker,” she said. “And Parker trusts you.”
Parker Thaysden trusts me.
It seemed foreign at the time. But when she said it, it all—nights chasing lightning bugs, the family cookouts, the neighborhood picnics, his face over mine the day I nearly drowned—came flooding back to me. Parker was my family. It was as simple as that.
“What did he say about this?”
She laughed. “Oh no, no, Amelia,” she said. “You’ve misunderstood. Parker can never know about this.”
“I could never pull this off,” I said firmly, realizing that was my insecurity talking. Of course I could pull it off.
This was not a typical business deal, a ghostwriting job set up and carried out by a publisher. I would be impersonating a person who the world loved, who women everywhere relied on. She already had one book out. Could I write a second so seamlessly that no one would be able to tell? I was messed up, I was fragile, I was terribly imperfect. There was no way I could even attempt to sound like Greer, the embodiment of perfection itself.
In retrospect, that’s when Greer started to win this argument. As soon as I started making empty excuses, that was proof positive I was pretty much on board with this crazy plan.
“I’m too weak, Amelia. I’m too sick. I sit down to start writing this book, to leave the world with what I want to say, and there’s just… there’s nothing.” Tears started to form in her eyes.
“So how does this work? Do I interview you?”
She nodded. “And I have some notes,” she said, as though she were too tired to even discuss this. “But, to be honest, not many of them.”
That was when I knew I was going to say yes.
“I can’t even write things for you to polish,” she continued. “It doesn’t come for me anymore. I just can’t do it.”
A cold chill ran through me, because that was one of the worst things I could imagine. We were writers, Greer and I. Being able to see something and tell a story about it, interpret emotions and feelings and facts in a way that moved someone to action, was what we did. For that to be taken away was unthinkable. I would do what she couldn’t.
“What I was hoping is that you could write chapters and then call and read them to me. I can help you edit them over the phone. But we have to pick times when Parker won’t be around.”
Or Thad, I thought.
It was crazy. But I was going to do this. I sighed. “Want to get started?”
Two. That’s how many chapters of Greer’s book I actually ever read to her. After that, she was too sick, too tired, her attention span too short. The cancer was in her brain by the time I got to chapter five. Then it was over. I was on my own. But, by then, my doubts were over, too.
The more I wrote, the more I became Greer, the stronger I felt, the more I realized that this was the most important writing project I had ever had, the piece that I’d waited my entire life to write. It didn’t matter that my name wasn’t on the book. That was irrelevant.
Her publisher and her editor knew, obviously. But we had all agreed that this was our secret. They even issued a press release on her death about how she had managed, against all odds, in true Greer fashion, to complete her final memoir.
It debuted at number six on the New York Times Best Sellers list when it released, a shockingly fast five months after her death. A book I’d written hit number six. It would never be on my résumé, would never be a tale to spin to my friends. It bugged me the tiniest bit, but really, it also made me proud. I had done it. I had pulled it off. I had talked and researched and become Greer so thoroughly that no one ever knew the difference. Not even her husband.
I took the absurdly large advance check she had signed over to me and donated it to her foundation. I weighed that decision for a long time. It was money that I could have saved for a rainy day, money that would have elevated the paycheck-to-paycheck life I had lived since graduation. It was money that my parents could really use. But, ultimately, it was Greer’s story, Greer’s voice. Her money should return to her, even indirectly. I’ll admit that I wasn’t as generous with the royalty checks that came every six months afterward. They weren’t huge, but on more than one occasion, they saved me. I was being reimbursed for my work in a reasonable way, in a way that helped me move forward, especially after I left Thad.
And so no, I would never be able to take credit for Greer’s book, the book I wrote. But she would never be able to take credit for my babies, the babies she made, which I was carrying right now, inside of me.
“Are we doing this?” I asked Parker for roughly the five hundredth time.
“Oh, we’re doing it, all right,” he said, taking his hand off the steering wheel, reaching over and patting my belly.
“You know I’ve never been an editor in chief,” I said stupidly, like that should have been my largest concern. I had actually argued with Parker when he told me his plan about Southern Coast. I told him I wasn’t ready. But he (rightly) argued back, “Amelia, you have worked in magazines since you were eighteen years old. You were the managing editor for one of the country’s premier publications, and you know this market and its needs better than anyone. A better candidate for this position literally does not exist. If I had never met you, I would have hired you on your résumé alone.”
We had tabled the discussion, but once I had hired the staff, set up the office, approved new layouts with the head designer, and brainstormed the content for the first issue with the skeleton crew that would be reporting, writing, copyediting, and fact-checking, Parker had insisted. He was right. I was ready. This was my dream job. With Parker as publisher and me as editor, we were creating a real-life family business. I had always thought that I would have to move far away to do the job I wanted. I had been wrong. I would miss Martin. I already missed Philip and Sheree. But they would all visit often. Sometimes, especially when one was on the verge of becoming a mother of twins, there was no place like home.