The Mistletoe Inn (22 page)

“Faith,” he said softly. “Having a sense of self-worth is an act of faith.” He looked at me for a moment, then said, “Kim, your mother wasn't running from you. She was running from herself. When someone's depressed, it's like they're trapped in a burning high-rise. No one wants to jump out of a sixteenth-floor
window, but if it's that or be burned alive, they don't feel like they have a choice. I know.”

“How do you know?”

“I'm not as far removed from it as you might think.”

Something about what he'd said filled me with fear. “What do you mean?”

“I read somewhere that authors are twice as likely to commit suicide than the average person.” He looked into my eyes. “They're right.”

Fear's grip tightened. “What are you saying?”

He hesitated for a moment, then said, “It was right after my wife died when I tried to kill myself.”

“What?”

“I tried to kill myself by overdosing on painkillers. I was revived at the hospital. I'm alive today because I botched my suicide attempt.”

At that moment something happened to me. Something I couldn't explain and couldn't resist. An evil slithered from the darkest recesses of my mind, a fear I hadn't felt since childhood, a thick black serpent that wrapped around my chest, cinching tighter and tighter until I couldn't breathe. I couldn't speak. I couldn't think.

At that moment I wasn't in Vermont. I was a little girl standing in the doorway of her mother's bedroom looking at the blood running down her mother's arms, screaming at her to put down the knife. Everything around me turned to white. I began shaking uncontrollably. “No.”

Zeke reached out for me. “Kim . . . what's going on?”

“No,” I said, suddenly drawing away from him. “No. I can't do this. I can't go through that again.”

“Kim, I'm not suicidal. Listen to me. It was a really hard time.”

“Life is always hard. It's always hard. I can't do it. I can't.” Tears ran down my cheeks in a steady current. I felt like the world was spinning. I felt nauseous. “I'm so sorry, I can't.”

“Things are different now. It was a phase. A dark phase.”

My body was shaking and I began rocking back and forth. “I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.”

“Kim, I won't leave you. Ever. I promise.”

I covered my eyes with my hand. “I'm sorry. I can't believe you. There are no promises in hell.” Leaving my bags of presents, I opened the car door and ran into the hotel.

The night was a blank. I don't remember going back to my room. I don't remember getting undressed or hiding under the covers. All I remember was darkness.

The conference was over. Everything was over. I woke to someone knocking on my door. “Kim? Honey?”

I lay in bed with the lights out, the closed shutters glowing from the morning sun. I felt as if I had an emotional hangover. I didn't want to see anyone. I wanted the outside world to just go away. I wanted to go away.

“Kim, it's Samantha. Are you there? I'm going to call security.”

“Hold on,” I said, groaning. I got up, pulled on a robe, then walked to the door, opening it just enough to peer out.

Samantha looked at me with a concerned expression. I'm sure I looked awful. “Honey, where have you been?”

“I went away with Zeke.”

“Did he do something to you?”

“No. I left him.”

“May I come in?”

I moved back from the door. Samantha stepped into the room and put her arms around me. “I'm so sorry.”

After a minute I asked, “Do you know what day it is?”

“It's Monday,” she said.

“What time is it?”

“It's almost nine. Hotel check-out time is eleven. And I have news. Cowell's confirmed. He's speaking at noon. What time is your flight home?”

My mind was so jumbled that it took me a moment to remember. “Three, three ten. Something like that.” I sat down on the corner of the bed. Samantha sat next to me. She took my hand and held it in her lap.

“I don't even care if I see him,” I said.

“Zeke?”

“Cowell,” I said.

“Of course you do,” Samantha said. “You've waited years for this. You're not going to miss it. I won't let you.”

“I just can't go out.”

“No,” she said. “You're going through with this. No excuses, no regrets. You'll be angry at yourself if you miss it.”

After a minute I took a deep breath. “All right.”

“All right you'll go with me to his speech?”

I nodded. “I still need to get ready and pack.”

“Okay. I'll go save us some seats.”

“It's not until noon.”

“There's already a line. This is going to be huge. So don't you dare stand me up. I'll be inside the ballroom waiting for you with a seat.”

“I'll be there.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

She hugged me. “I'm sorry things didn't work out.” She kissed me on the cheek, then walked out of the room.

I lay back for almost twenty minutes, then undressed and went in to shower. I sat under the hot water for a long time, trying to avoid a panic attack. My mind was a labyrinth of thoughts. I had waited years to meet H. T. Cowell. So why was my mind fixated on another man?

More than two hours before Cowell's speech the room was already filled to capacity. There were at least quadruple the number of people in the room than had even attended the conference. I knew that Cowell's return was a big deal to me, but I had failed to realize that it was a big deal to millions of people—like
finding Jimmy Hoffa's body
big. There were television cameras lining both walls of the ballroom and at least a couple dozen photographers sitting on the floor in front of the dais.

I looked around for Samantha for nearly ten minutes, finally finding her in the front row. “How did you get front-row seats?” I asked.

“When I left your room they had the ballroom doors locked and there was already a long line to get in, so I sneaked in through the employee service entrance.”

“You were serious about getting a good seat,” I said.

“I did it for you,” she said. “After the man bomb I thought you needed it.”

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” she said. “How are you feeling now?”

I couldn't answer. My eyes immediately started to well up.

“Still bad,” she said. “I'm sorry. Love's a mess.”

“Then why are we romance writers?”

“Someone needs to clean it up.”

People continued to crowd into the ballroom, and still there were long lines outside the ballroom doors. Then a fire marshal walked into the room, and security began turning people away.

The excitement in the room was palpable. At noon the lights went down and the room fell into a hush. A single spotlight cast a broad light on the podium. Then there was a slight ripple of light on the curtain and I could see that someone was walking behind it, looking for the opening. Then a single hand reached out.

I once spoke to someone who had been to a Beatles concert at the height of Beatlemania. She said as the curtain lifted just enough to reveal the Beatles' feet and ankles, girls began fainting around her. That's what it felt like. Even with my heart aching, I could feel the collective energy in the room just waiting to explode. Suddenly the curtain parted.

“There he is,” Samantha said.

The entire room fell into total silence as the curtain was pulled back and a man emerged from the darkness. For a moment I was speechless. It was him.

H. T. Cowell looked the way I envisioned Tolstoy would look. He wasn't tall but he was dignified and straight and, as Zeke had ventured, old. He wore round wire-rimmed glasses and his hair and the beard that covered his entire chin were almost white. He walked slowly to the podium. For just a moment the audience was silent as the sound of his footsteps echoed in the room. Then the assault of the paparazzi began. The electric clicking and whirring of cameras was accompanied by bright, staccato flashes.

“You were right,” Samantha said. “He's old.”

“He's ancient,” I said. “But he looks . . . right.”

He was immaculately dressed in clothes that appeared custom tailored: dark wool slacks, a cashmere jacket, and an oxford shirt, which he wore open without a tie. As he stepped up to the microphone it seemed that the world around me disappeared. But it wasn't just me who had fallen into a trance; everyone seemed similarly hypnotized. The experience was like waiting for a monk who had taken a lifetime vow of silence to speak his first word. We waited in breathless anticipation.