Since the money Cheryl was using to pay for lunch came from her father, Nathan didn’t feel bad about letting her take the cheque. Later in the future he would likely be using royalties from his Dad’s books to buy a lot of things, hopefully a few for Cheryl so it was all good. Lunch was indeed amazing, and he was so happy that he let Cheryl pick the place because he would not have been brave enough to pick a place so fancy and of high quality. The only thing that was missing was a bottle of wine, but they were both not of age and were willing to wait for that day to come rather than have to spend some more community time with the Retro Highwayman. They walked out and once again were hand in hand as they walked down the street towards their next intended destination. Same as the last time they walked together, Cheryl was the only one who had any clue to where they were going so Nathan held her hand and let her lead he way. It didn’t take long to make it to the bookstore, and when they did arrive it was everything Nathan had hoped for and more. It was one of those old, family-owned books shops that had books on every floor. Some sections had a small sense of organization but most of the books were stacked into shelving units by genre. As they walked inside, Nathan could feel the cool air and knew why this was going to be a lot of fun. He had saved a lot of his own money for this date, eager to get a few books. It looks like Cheryl had her own plan to get a few books herself and was giddy as a schoolgirl as she walked in and started to look around. Nathan was slower walking in but it was his first time there, so he was just taking it all in. The place looked a lot smaller on the outside but had books all over the place from one wall to the other and then a ton of shelves in the middle. He had no idea where he wanted to start.

“Excuse me, young fellow.” said an old man that worked there in the store. He could tell Nathan was amazed and confused at the same time and he was there to give him friendly nudge in the right direction. “Is there a particular title or author you’re looking for?”

“As a matter of fact, there is.” Nathan replied excitedly. “I’m looking for books written by Peter Anderlini.”

“Good choice my friend.” The old man said with a huff. “To get those books, you’re looking for mysteries and thrillers on the second floor. I’m pretty sure we have a good selection. He’s pretty popular in these parts.”

“Is that so?” Nathan said.

“Rumor has it that Mr. Anderlini occasionally spends some time down here every summer.” The old man said with a wink.

“How do you know that?” Nathan said, well aware the rumor was true.

“I have proof.” He walked back to his counter and pulled out a book. “One day I put this book on the shelf, and it was in mint condition. There was a mark on it. Not one dog tag or anything inscribed within it. That’s why I asked for a fairly reasonable price for it being in such great shape. When I was reorganizing that section, I found this.”

He opened the book to the second page and there was something written on it:

To my endearing fans,

thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Peter Anderlini

Nathan looked at it and pretended to be surprised. “One day it wasn’t there and then suddenly it was?”

“I think he was here in this store, browsing for a book of his own. Maybe he was waiting for a girlfriend to pick out a book and got bored so he decided to autograph a few books while waiting or her to make up her mind. It’s happened a few times over the years, I’ve just never caught him in the act.

“That’s cool.” Nathan said as he looked at the autograph. “Most authors charge for this, don’t they?”

“More than that, Mr. Anderlini doesn’t do book tours or autograph sessions anymore. He hasn’t done anything public relations related in close to ten years. Lives a very private life I’m told.” The old man huffed as he went back to his desk to put the book away. “But I don’t blame the man; all he wants some privacy to do his art. I say let him have it.”

“I agree.” Cheryl said as she came back to join in the conversation. “Did you find out where the Anderlini books are?”

“Second floor.” Nathan answered. “Thrillers and mysteries section.”

“Then let’s go.” Cheryl said with a smile.

They slowly crept up the staircase to the second floor and Nathan found looking for books up there to be a little stressful. Every time he took a step to wander around the floor, the boards beneath his feet kept creaking and that rattled the hell out of Nathan. He kept thinking that his weight combined with the weight of the books was going to cause the floor to cave in and crush the nice man on the floor below them. After looking around for a few moments, they came across the section they were looking for. Cheryl and Nathan split up and started to look around.

Finally, after a few moments, Cheryl was the first to find something. “Here.” She said as she pointed to a small stack. “There’s a small batch of soft covers on this side.”

“I found a lot more over here, almost a dozen hard covers and a few more soft covers on the side.” Nathan said as he got down on his knees to take a closer look. There were a whole mess of titles and their prints and date of publication varied. Some were new prints while others were older and their covers more retro to the time they actually printed. Nathan found one book in particular that caught his eye as he took it out of the shelf and inspected the cover. It was the same book that Ray had loaned to him, but in much better shape and still had this one still had its dust jacket. Nathan has decided to get his own copy to finish rather than carry around someone else’s beat up hand me down copy. He was inspecting the other books when he came across a soft cover book that was in the same section, but it was written entirely by someone else. What was this book doing smack dab in the middle of a section of books written by someone else? Nathan reached for the book, eager to remove it from this section where it clearly didn’t look like it belonged. When he pulled it out from the pile, he suddenly realized why it was there. He looked back at Cheryl with a stunned look on his face, as if someone had just slapped him upside the head with a clean backhand. “Oh my.” He whispered.

Cheryl looked back at him, “Are you all right?”

“I might be, I don’t know.” Nathan said as he looked at the book he just pulled out of the pile. “I might have found the answer, but I don’t know if I should look at it.”

Cheryl came over from the other side of the shelf. “What on earth did you find?” She grabbed the book and took a quick scan of the title:

The Unauthorized biography of Peter Anderlini

Written by Silvia Snider

“Oh, crap.” Cheryl finally said as she looked at it.

“It’s not every day you find something like this.” Nathan said as he took the book back from her. “Should I buy it?”

“If there was a book floating around that dished all the dirt on my parents, I would want to read that thing in a heartbeat!” Cheryl said, as there was a slight hint of jealousy in her tone. She really would have wanted to read a book like that, just to know everything that everyone else knows. It would be awesome. She looked back at Nathan, who still had a puzzled look on his face.

“Are you all right?” she asked him.

“I’m not sure.” Nathan said as he kept staring at the cover. “I want to read this but it’s unauthorized, which means Dad refused to confirm what was said in here. Do I really want to know what’s in here?”

“I know what’s in there.” Cheryl said as she grabbed the book from him and flipped past the first few pages. “Look at the title of chapter ten: divorce and rock bottom.”

“That doesn’t sound very nice.” Nathan said, but that chapter contained the information he wanted. He grabbed the book back from her and opened it up to chapter ten:

Anderlini had been basking too much in his success because his family had been suffering from neglect. They never saw him as often as they used to. He was always on some book tour or promotional event. His own family began to feel deserted, and it took more than money to make the unit function. No one felt this desertion more than Christina, Anderlini’s wife, who decided to respond to her husband’s long absence by finding another man to take his place in bed. She had an affair with an old childhood friend for over six months until the truth was discovered by Anderlini…

Nathan looked back up at Cheryl. “This is it: the betrayal that Frank was referring too. Having the one you love stray and have an affair with another person, another man in this case.”

“That’s terrible.” Cheryl said as she felt sad.

“I know.” Nathan said as he looked back at it.

“Your Dad must have been heartbroken.” Cheryl replied as she could tell that Nathan was unsure if he wanted to read on. “Here, let me take this. We can take turns reading the next few pages.”

At first Anderlini’s response to the affair was quiet. Without saying a word to anyone, he packed up everything he owned and immediately moved out of the house he had called home for over a decade. He never even said goodbye to his son Nathan, nor did he explain why he was leaving. Word from his former agent was that he did this to avoid conflict rather than have an event that might require friends or the police to intervene. He left the house quietly and moved into a condo in the heart of the city and that is where things started to go downhill for the writer. He started to miss deadlines, refused to work for long periods of time, and then started to drink and experiment with narcotics…

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Cheryl stopped there and paused for a moment. “Are you all right, Nathan?”

Nathan nodded. “I’m doing okay. Would you mind doing the reading for the time being? Just for the next few pages.”

“Not at all.” Cheryl said as she found the place where she left off.

Much like his character Frank Slate, whose book had yet to be created or released, Anderlini drank whiskey and anything else he could get his hands on every night and try to find something he had lost with prostitutes and cocaine. Things almost came to an end when papers were officially filed in court. Anderlini had responded to the official filing by getting more drunk and high then he ever had before, to the point where he attempted to take his own life…

Cheryl gasped and stopped reading for a second. “Are you okay? We can stop if this is bugging you...”

“I’m all right.” Nathan said as he cracked a smile. “We kind of know he didn’t do it since he’s back at the summer home writing another book right now.”

Cheryl smiled and brushed his hair with her left hand. “That’s a great attitude to have concerning this. Remember, this thing is unauthorized so we should probably take it all with a pound of salt. Sometimes these writers will just pen anything if they know it’s all going to be denied anyway. Alright?”

“Okay.” Nathan answered. “Keep reading.”

“Alright then.” Cheryl made herself comfortable. “Let’s see where we left off.”

Anderlini had consumed a great deal of alcohol and narcotics to the point where he likely doesn’t remember anything about his attempted suicide. It all occurred in the small town on the coast of North Carolina. Anderlini had been staying with a friend and went out to a bar without him and got completely smashed. It was then when Anderlini went out to a bridge and spent the better part of an hour threatening to jump into the waters that were fifty to sixty feet below. The water was shallow so odds of him surviving such a jump were minimal. Anderlini was only half dressed and screaming very disparaging things about his soon to be ex-wife and her affair as the reasons for wanting to jump and end it all. It was then when Anderlini’s friend came to his rescue, talking him off the bridge and into police custody. Once in their custody, Peter was taken to the station downtown where he was forced to sober up in a drunk tank before being released. Anderlini never faced any charges for this incident as his friend happened to be a deputy in the local police force. He had habit of helping Anderlini get out of jams like this throughout the years and it’s more than likely he made this night and the charges that should have come with them disappear.

“That had to be Ray.” Cheryl said as she stopped reading. “Our retro highwayman is the guy who saved your father’s life that night! He talked him off that bridge and then probably tossed him into the tank probably for days until everything wore off.”

“That sounds like Ray,” Nathan concurred, “I wonder if he made Dad do any community service for it.”

They both laughed for a few seconds.

“Somehow I doubt that,” Cheryl replied.

There was a lot of information for Nathan to take in, a lot of it wasn't pleasant but he was curious to know what part of it was the truth and what part was expanded to just sell more copies of a trashy biography that wasn't approved in the first place. Even though there was a part of him that didn't want to know anymore, he couldn't help himself. Nathan took the hardcover copy of the same book that Ray had given him and also took the unauthorized biography and put them aside in a pile.

“I'm getting both.” He said as he kept looking through the other books that were there by J.P. Anderlini. There really wasn't anything that caught his eye, so he decided to stick with the two he already had selected.

“You sure you want to buy that one?” Cheryl said as she gestured towards the biography. “I mean it’s been pretty intense thus far.”

“Do you want to know more?” Nathan asked back.

“Forgive me if I sound really nosy, but yeah, I do.” Cheryl answered.

“So do I,” Nathan said as he took the biography and opened it back to chapter eleven where they had left off.

Anderlini had been talked of a bridge whose fall from would have surely killed him and then proceeded to spend almost the entire week locked up in the county jail, more of a visitor than a prisoner since any charges from the incident were squashed. Turns out both his agent and lawyer didn't have an issue with his stay in drunk tank as it would have been a lot longer had Anderlini ever answered to charges that could have been brought forth from his activities the night before. It was clear his friends in the town Sheriff's office didn't want the embarrassment and appreciated the business and money he brought in every summer when he came down to relax and work on his novels. This however was the last summer he would spend in this small town until many years later when he would return with his second wife Sonya and their children for a family vacation, close to a decade after his infamous bender. The town seems to have forgotten and even forgiven Anderlini for what transpired. He returned a new man with a new family and everything that came with them. They looked as American as apple pie, your typical white picket fence family.

Nathan closed the book and looked back up at Cheryl. “He must have been seriously messed up if Ray had to keep him in that cell under lock and key for more than a few days.”

“No kidding,” Cheryl said as she sat back against the bookshelf. “He had to be seriously messed up to be in there that long. Ray was really looking out for him then and he was only a deputy at the time.”

“Still had some pull with the boss I guess.” Nathan said as he started to flip through other parts of the book.

There were chapters dedicated to the benders he went on right after the divorce, some that were much worse than the binge that landed him in jail for the week, but nothing serious happened those nights, except a lot of serious drinking, drugs, and the occasional prostitute according to the author. The book really didn't hold anything back as it went into full detail how his father completely fell apart after he left the house that he called home for over ten years. The whole incident of his wife sleeping around drove him mad with rage and that lead the destruction of several cars, a few doors and even some hotel rooms that led to his father being banned for life from certain hotel chains across America. The details of his crash and burn from the point of view of this author was off the charts. He couldn't believe this was the same man that was his father. He had never seen his Dad do any thing like this. Nathan couldn't even remember the old man having a glass of wine, let alone raiding liquor cabinets and downing whole bottles of whiskey like Frank. Nathan took a deep breath and handed the book back to Cheryl.

“You want a moment to flip through it?” he asked.

“I'm okay for now.” Cheryl said as she politely declined. “I think I've had enough dirt from your side for one day. I'll tell you this much, I'm not going to complain the next time my Dad decides to have a few glasses of wine. It's a hell of a lot better than downing a few bottles of whiskey.”

“No shit,” Nathan said as he took the book back and placed it on the other that he intended to purchase. “It's not every day a notebook in your family's dark secrets just happens to fall on your lap.”

“Are you going to tell your Dad about it?” Cheryl then asked.

“Not yet.” Nathan said as he seemed pretty sure of himself. “I want a chance to read more before I tell him about it.”

“Just remember the book isn't authorized.” Cheryl said as she stood to leave, “That means some parts might not be true. I'd find a way to have a talk to your father about this and see which ones he'll back and which he'll flat out deny. I'm pretty sure some of that might have been embellished to drive up sales.”

“Duly noted,” Nathan said, standing up. “I've been kind of curious about that myself. It will be interesting to see which parts he would confess to and which he's going to distance himself from.”

Nathan had an idea which parts he might back up and which he might try avoiding but was curious to see if Sonya had ever seen this book or if she ever wanted to. Nathan was also confident that if his father ever caught him with this book in the house, he was likely going to take it away and throw it out. If the book had even just a few lies, that was a few too many in his father's eyes and he wouldn't want that anywhere near his family, Nathan thought to himself. He walked down the stairs with Cheryl and over to the cashier to purchase the two books. It didn't cost Nathan that much to get them, around ten dollars which wasn't bad considering one of the books was a hardcover copy. After they left the shop, they took a few moments to browse around a few more stores before walking back to the part where it all started. Cheryl had to be back there by a certain time because that was when her mother was going to drive by to pick her up to head home. Nathan said there with her at the park until the car she was waiting for arrived.

“Thanks for the wonderful day.” Nathan said, as he was grateful for the time.

Cheryl walked over and gave Nathan a big, soft hug. “Thank you for putting up with me today. I had a lot of fun.”

“So did I.” Nathan agreed. He waved to her as she walked away towards the car and slipped inside. Once the car had pulled away, Nathan sat there and decided to do a little more reading before calling Sonya for a ride home. He read through a few more chapters in the autobiography and was more curious about this time as it looked like that author had been exaggerating for the sake of selling some more books and making more money. Nathan had been pretty sure there was only so much stretching the author could do without being sued by his father for libel, which was the print version of slander. The young man sat there for another hour, reading various chapters, and learned a great deal about the man who was his father. They were never that close before, but this was likely the stuff his Dad wouldn't want him to know for years to come if ever at all. Only a short time after he made the call, Sonya arrived in the minivan that Nathan had previously taken for a joyride. As Nathan stepped into the car, he had already put his new books back into his bag along with the other things he had picked up that day.

“Thanks for the ride.” Nathan said as they started to head back home.

“It was no trouble at all,” Sonya said as she kept here eyes on the road. She waited for a few moments and then curiosity finally got the best of her. “How was your day? Did you and Cheryl have a good time?”

Nathan looked back at her. “How did you know her name?”

“Ray stopped by to check up on you and your father,” Sonya said with a smile. “I told him you were meeting someone for lunch, and he told us it was likely this Cheryl girl you had been hanging out with this week. Was he right?”

Nathan was about to negatively react about his lack of privacy but then remembered there was a whole book of hypocrisy lying inside his knapsack, so he decided to let it go.

“Yeah, it was Cheryl.” He confirmed, “We had a great time together. We did a bit of browsing, picked up a few things and even took a look at a lot of Dad's books at the local bookstore. I didn't realize he published so many books.”

Sonya appeared taken back by Nathan's sudden interest in Peter's work but took it all in stride.

“He's worked hard to them,” Sonya replied, “Some were easier than others while some have his entire heart and soul inside them.”

“I can tell, especially with the one I'm reading right now.” Nathan said as he didn't look right at her. “Did Dad know someone like this Frank guy. Someone who hated women and didn't want anything to do with because of what happened with his wife? The dude feels so angry to me, and I don't like how he is acting towards some people in it.”

“I'd be more than happy to speak about the book,” Sonya said, “But I don't want to spoil the ending. You finish reading the book not only will we talk about it, but I'll be waiting for you with what is my favorite book for you to read. Sounds good?”

“Yeah, that sounds cool to me.” Nathan answered, “I can't wait to see what book of his is your favorite.”

At that moment, Nathan felt it was time to stop prying into what was likely his father's own personal life. He was the boozer who couldn't control himself to the point where Ray himself had to talk Dad down from a bridge before locking him away in the drunk tank almost a week to sober up from the incident. Nathan believed that part of the story because it perfectly matched exactly what Nathan thought Ray would do if he was put into that situation. Nathan believed that Ray might be right person to approach next regarding this story and might be more forthcoming with the details than his Dad might be. Ray after all did loan him a book that hinted to what his father's past was like, so Nathan thought he would use that book as the excuse to talk him into revealing more than the unauthorized bio he had in his bag. Nathan slouched into his seat and quietly watched the trees go by as they rushed back to the summer house. He went into the house and rather than read more of the biography, he chose to read the story about Frank instead. He thought hearing out his Dad's partial side of the story first might be the best way to go.