Free Four Days with Hemingway's Ghost by Tom Winton

ceilings and lots of windows.  Beneath the windows on one wall, a long bookcase full of Ernest’s favorite reads stretched almost the entire length of the room.  I touched some old book covers; then I pulled two out.  They were The Brothers Karamozov and James Joyce’s short story collection Dubliners.  Both looked like they had been individually cleaned.  Several trophy animal heads adorned the uncluttered walls along with a few pictures.  The period furniture was sparsely arranged, and a well-stocked bar took up most of one side wall. 
    Even though the old place lacked air-conditioning, it was cool in the spacious room as I walked around with the knowing grin of an inside trader.  When the welcome smell of hot Cuban food drifted in from another room, that grin stretched into a smile.  Nodding my head I muttered, “ Mmm hmm, dinner’s on.” 
    Suddenly appearing in the room like a, well . . . like a ghost, Ernest said, “Everything looks to be in shipshape, Amigo.  What do you say I mix us both one before we sit down to eat?”
    “Why not?” I said, parking myself in an upholstered chair by the bar.
    “What’s your preference?”
    “Doesn’t matter, whatever you recommend.”
    In a flash Ernest handed me a stemmed glass.  It was a Daiquiri, complete with lime juice and sugar.  He sat in the chair next to me, and I asked him, “What’s the most important thing you can tell me about writing?  I’ve been meaning to ask you . . . just in case.”
    Stirring his drink while he spoke he said, “You have to write about what you know.  That’s the most important advice I can give you.  If you don’t know what or where you’re writing about, they’ll spot it in no time.  You’ll come across as a fake.”
    “Must you have been to a place or experienced an event before you can write about it?”
    “It’s always better if you have, but it’s not absolutely necessary if you . . . .”
    Right then Ernest was interrupted.  There was a knock at the door, and the loud rapping sound echoed throughout the spacious room,
    “Who in the hell could that be?” Ernest said. 
    Resting his drink on a table between us, he got up and lumbered toward the glass paned door.  As he approached it he said, “I don’t see anybody out there.”  But then he swung it open, and the moment he did, an entire crowd of what sounded like fifty excited voices shouted in unison, “HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY ERNEST!”

Chapter 1 0
     
     
     
     
    As I rose from the chair, my eyes bulged, and my mouth slung open.  I simply could not believe what I was witnessing.  One by one, dozens of people from Ernest’s long-gone past filed through that doorway. 
    The first to come were his wives.  In the order he had married them—Hadley, Pauline, Martha, and Mary—all gave the birthday boy a hug and a kiss.  His last wife, Mary Welsh-Hemingway, held him the longest.  Once all four of them moved to the bar in a cluster, the next person stepped inside.  It was Gary Cooper.  Tall and rangy with boyish good looks, his smile brightened the room even more.  Then in came Marlene Dietrich—the famous German-American actress of their time.  I heard Ernest affectionately call her “my little Kraut” as they embraced.  After her grand entrance, two matadors in bullfighting outfits followed.  Behind them were Charles and Lorine Thompson—two of Ernest and Pauline’s closest Key West friends.
    All of Ernest’s closest pals, known as his Key West “mob,” came in together.  They were a jovial bunch, and though they were bunched together inside the doorway, I think it was Sloppy Joe’s voice that shouted, “Let the games begin!”  I may be uncertain about that, but I’m positive that, with a wide grin and a raised fist, Hem said to Josie, “I really should cool you for not telling me about all this.”
    Max Perkins, Hem’s editor at Scribner’s, showed up as did F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda.  Gertrude Stein,