He took a deep breath.
“She, you know, she undressed. As one does. But it was the first time I ever saw anything like that. And I remember it so clearly. Like it was yesterday.”
“Fascinating,” I said. “I don’t know if it’ll really fit the tone of your biography, but…fascinating.”
He folded his arms across his chair, leaning back on the sofa. “I don’t know why I didn’t want to tell you.”
“You’re embarrassed,” I said. “But you shouldn’t be.”
***
Excerpted from Daniel Thorne: A Life
Daniel Thorne will be the first to tell you that no good idea comes without a price.
It would come as a surprise to most people that the man who has consistently created some of the world’s most cutting-edge, technologically advanced handheld devices spent the first ten years of his life without so much as a video cassette recorder. Sitting in the living room of his parents’ trailer, eyes glued to the thirteen inch TV set with the rabbit ears on top, Daniel did something that many other children in his situation did: he dreamed of something better.
But in his particular case, those dreams turned into a multi-national corporation whose devices became household names. It’s reasonable enough to wonder: what is it, exactly, that sets him apart from the crowd?
I first met Daniel when he was poised on the brink of world fame. At the time, he struck me as stern and quiet. Somewhat aloof. I assumed he was like all great men: self-obsessed, convinced of his own greatness, and used to getting his way. The fact that he rarely spoke to his subordinates seemed to support my ideas about him.
The truth of Daniel Thorne is somewhat different. Those who’ve had the privilege to speak to him at any length will tell you the same story; he is often surprisingly humble and self-effacing, and in general, he dislikes talking about his own accomplishments. When he avoids interactions with others, it’s not out of some sense of superiority. It’s simply because he is shy.
At times, he makes it difficult to talk to him. Sometimes he will try to circumvent the facts, but he hates dishonesty, and so you will find yourself poking and prodding, asking and re-phrasing the same questions over and over again.
But when a smile is coaxed out of him, it makes the whole experience worthwhile.
When it was suggested to Daniel that now was the time to get an autobiography written, he was charmed by the idea. But once the process began, he started to realize what the trade-off was. If he wanted people to know his story, he would actually have to tell it. Warts, skeletons and all.
As always, no good idea comes without a price.
It was, of course, a delicate proposition. Daniel would need someone with whom he felt comfortable, which is no small feat for a man like him. They would need to be able to capture, not just his stories, but the essence of him. It’s been said that no human being can really fit into a book, but he needed someone who would at least try.
The search was grueling. I looked at manuscript after manuscript, because he didn’t feel qualified to make such an important decision on his own. But ultimately, our search led us right back to our own living room.
When Daniel first asked me to write his biography, I balked. I’m not a writer, I told him. I’m not qualified. But he thought all my excuses were nonsense, and finally, I came to recognize the task for what it was: an opportunity to learn about my husband.
Daniel Thorne is an intensely private man. So private, in fact, that writing his biography at all seems absurd. He’s so withdrawn that most of what I’ve written here, in this book, was news to me just as it will be news to you. When it came time for publication, I thought for certain he would balk. I expected him to think twice about allowing everything he’d told me to become public knowledge. But he never said a word.
Because, after all, no good idea comes without a price.
Three
“Maddy, how are you?”
I turned around, slowly. My yoga teacher rarely said more than few words to me personally; she was a busy woman with a lot of students, and that was absolutely fine with me. So why on earth was she suddenly making a point of talking to me?
“Fine,” I said, cautiously, rolling up my mat. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I just…” she was eyeballing my midriff. Oh, God. Please no please no please no. “I just thought - I have pregnant yoga class too, you know. If you’re interested.”
My mortification must have been written across my face, because she immediately stepped backwards, raising her hands a little. “I know, I know, I shouldn’t say anything. But it’s just - not all of the poses we do in here might be the best thing for you, if you’re…” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Do I look pregnant?” I realized I was putting her into an impossible position, but she had violated the cardinal etiquette rule about assuming pregnancy - tabloid or no tabloid.
“Well - no. I mean -” Her eyes were very big. “Of course not. I just thought - I read that…”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, flatly, shoving everything into my bag and heading for the door. I was so consumed with my irritation that I almost collided with someone as I came out of the door and went around the corner.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I exclaimed, as the other person jumped out of the way just in time. As I looked up, I realized that it was Genevieve Winters.
“Hello,” she said, smiling a little hesitantly. “How’ve you been?
Genevieve was one of the only journalists who’d been kind to us during Daniel’s insider trading scandal; in fact, my current success as an artist could be mostly attributed to the fact that she featured a picture of one of my sketches in an article she wrote. But due to her obvious crush on my husband, relations between us were slightly strained.
“Fine, thanks,” I said, re-adjusting my bag on my shoulder. “Why are you stalking me at yoga?”
“Stalking is a strong term,” she said, still smiling. “Is there somewhere we can go and talk?”
We ended up at a hole in the wall deli a few blocks away, sitting in front of some “world famous chicken salad sandwiches” so we wouldn’t get odd looks for sitting down without ordering anything.
“I hesitate to even bring this up,” she said. “Because it could just be some lone crazy. But, I thought it merited someone’s attention. And Daniel…” She took in a deep breath through her nose. “Well, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you what happened.”
“Please do,” I said. I took a bite of the sandwich, because it was something to do. Damn, the chicken salad was pretty good.
Gen interlaced her fingers and started to talk.
“A few weeks ago, right after that ridiculous ‘baby bump’ story broke, I got an anonymous email asking if I knew whether or not it was true. I have no idea how the person got my email address, unless they just guessed at it. That’s the downside to corporate email accounts, they all have the same structure. I get some weird ones occasionally. This one included. I had no idea why he thought I would know that, and I told him so. He responded that he’d seen my name on the byline of that ‘very nice’ feature from back during the insider trading thing, and he thought I might have some kind of contact with you and Daniel. I said that I didn’t really, but that as far as I knew, you weren’t pregnant.”
“I’m not, by the way,” I said, around a mouthful of chicken.
“I figured.” She smiled, briefly. “Mind you, all of this happened in the space of a few hours. When a few more days passed and he never responded, I assumed he was just some wannabe stalker or something. I kept them on file in case anything came up down the line, but with things like this…you know, you just tend to forget about every little lone odd thing that happens, right?”
I nodded. I had no idea where this was going, but I was beginning to feel a distinct sense of unease about the whole thing. I set my sandwich down, half-eaten.
“Sure, go on,” I said, finally, when it seemed like she was hesitant to continue.
“I will,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s just…it’s just that it’s so weird, and you’re going to think I’m completely insane for even entertaining the idea.”
“Just spill, for Pete’s sake.”
She took another deep breath. “That’s when everything started to get very odd.”
After another moment of silence, she absently picked a rosemary leaf out of her bread, twirled it around in her fingers, and then finally began to speak again.
“He sent another one, asking how well I knew Daniel. I told him that professional courtesy prevented my going into details about my sources and the people I feature, and his next request was that I put him directly in touch with Daniel. I told him that I absolutely couldn’t do that, but if he had something to tell him, I could certainly do my best to pass the message along.
“At this point I figured I was going to get some kind of insane diatribe about Area 51 or something, but instead, he just repeated his plea to be put directly in touch with Daniel, saying that the subject he wanted to discuss with him was ‘private and important.’ He told me that he understood it was unorthodox, and that I had absolutely no reason to trust that he wasn’t a crazy stalker or someone who wanted to otherwise harass Daniel, but that I ‘just had to trust that he wasn’t.’ He wouldn’t respond to repeated requests for further clarification, and eventually, I told him that I absolutely couldn’t help him unless he told me exactly who he was, and why he needed to talk to Daniel.
“He was silent for a few hours, then responded, saying he wanted to speak over the phone. I have a few throwaway Skype numbers that I use for things like that, when I don’t want someone to actually be able to contact me after the fact, so I agreed.
“The voice wasn’t what I had imagined, at all. He sounded older, and very tired, and very sad. He told me that he’d once known Daniel personally, and that he wanted more than anything to ‘reconcile’ with him. When I asked him what he’d done that he needed to ‘reconcile’ about, he told me that he’d once disappeared out of Daniel’s life, a few years ago. He wanted to get to know him again. He wanted to get to know you. He wanted to ‘make things right.’”
I felt like my heart was resting on the bottom of my stomach.
“I told him I would do my best to explain the situation and see if Daniel would be interested in talking to him,” said Gen, softly. “But now you see…it’s insane, isn’t it? But all the pieces fit together. Daniel told me about what happened to his father - or about what he thinks happened to his father, and I know if I came to him with this, he’d just reject it out of hand. But I thought you might…” she sighed. “I don’t know what I thought, exactly. It could just as easily be a horrible prank or a ploy or something, but he hasn’t actually made any claims about his identity. I’m just putting the pieces together, as improbable as the outcome is.”