The Story
The Story THEIR VERSION: Pulitzer-winning biographer Hayden Anderson teams up with celebrity journalist Alice Scott on salacious new Margaret Ives biography From the Far Side of the World. • • • Our version: It’s a love story. Like everything I write, that’s what it comes down to. That’s what always matters most to me, about […]
Chapter 35
35 I CAN’T TELL them everything, but I tell them enough. That the job with Margaret imploded. That it took Hayden’s and my budding relationship with it. That it made me doubt myself and the work. “We can lighten your load at The Scratch for a while,” Bianca promises, “while you figure things out.” “I […]
Chapter 34
34 THE WHOLE DRIVE back to the bungalow, I’m fighting tears, trying to make some kind of plan and coming up against all the same walls every time. I can’t tell Hayden the truth. I can’t lie to him. My phone is full of messages from my friends, checking how the pitch went, asking for […]
Chapter 33
33 IN THE MORNING, I tiptoe past a sleeping Hayden and go to the kitchen. I drink water while my coffee brews, then drink coffee while I pack up my laptop and notes. I put my things by the front door, brush my teeth, wash my face, and then creep back into the bedroom to […]
Chapter 32
32 “I WOKE UP in an ambulance,” Margaret says. “But it was a short trip. We were only two blocks from the hospital when it happened.” Her voice barely wavers. I wonder how many thousands of times she’s played out this monologue in her head, maybe even practiced saying it aloud. I’ve read hundreds of […]
The Story
The Story THEIR VERSION: America’s “Royal Baby” on the way? • • • HER VERSION: Margaret wasn’t pregnant. The symptoms she’d been experiencing, the weight gain, it had all been a coincidence. No sooner had they learned this than the tabloids noticed her physical change and started to speculate on whether the Tabloid Princess had […]
Chapter 31
31 EARLY IN THE morning, I stop by the house for a hot shower and a change of clothes. With my hair still wet, I swing by Little Croissant and grab coffee for both myself and Margaret, along with a couple of pistachio croissants. Am I trying to butter Margaret up? Maybe. But I’m also […]
Chapter 30
30 ON TUESDAY NIGHT, I fill in my notes from my session in the garden with Margaret, adding details from my outside research as I go. Back in the sixties, when all of this happened, no one knew for sure what Laura had given the authorities to earn her own legal protections. Most people took […]
The Story
The Story THEIR VERSION: Laura Ives was the right hand of the high control group the People’s Moment for Metaphysical Healing. Laura Ives was just another victim of David Ryan Atwood. Laura Ives was a sucker. Laura Ives was a mastermind. She was a villain; she was a fool. • • • HER VERSION: When […]
Chapter 29
29 HAYDEN AND I wander the long, manicured paths of the old Bonaventure Cemetery, iced tea and coffee in hand, sun warming the tops of our heads. I’ve been here one other time, and it’s as beautiful as I remember, a gorgeous interplay of light and shadow cast by the hundreds of old trees dripping […]