Chapter Nine
Caroline was furious with herself.
Max had gone to so much trouble making the distillery feel warm and inviting. Bringing over his mother’s good china, and ordering a delicious Christmas Eve dinner. He gave her the tour of the distillery, and explained about different rye whiskeys. She couldn’t remember a man being so thoughtful.
Then he pulled up in front of his friend’s apartment and she froze. She could have said that she wasn’t ready to sleep with him. They still could have had espresso martinis at the Limelight Hotel, or strolled along Main Street and admired the Christmas lights. Instead, she jumped out of the car like a frightened rabbit avoiding a group of hunters.
Now she sat in her room, staring at the twinkling lights on the mountain. She remembered Christmas two years ago, before her mother was diagnosed with cancer. It was one of the best Christmases she’d ever had.
After they delivered meals to the women’s shelter, they stopped at Country Living Home and Garden store in Hudson. Anne hardly ever bought things for the cabin. But she picked out a ceramic Santa Claus cookie jar, and an antique candelabra with clove-scented candles. Sitting at the dining table that night, inhaling the scent of clove mixed with the buttery smell of mashed potatoes, Caroline felt like she had everything in the world.
Then last Christmas, Caroline had been so worried about her mother. All through midnight services, she kept glancing over at her. Anne looked paler than she had at Thanksgiving. She had lost more weight, her blouse hung on her, her cheeks were narrow.
This year, Caroline knew that she should be grateful that she and Daphne were together. But even seeing Daphne with Luke didn’t reassure her that Daphne knew what she was doing. And Caroline was worried about her own career.
Now there was Max to think about. All she had wanted was a little fling. A few days of interesting conversation and great sex with an attractive man.
So, what had stopped her from going inside with him, when he had only been following her rules?
It was 11:00 p.m., she guessed he was still awake. She sent a text thanking him for a lovely evening. She waited for the little bubbles to appear, but he didn’t reply.
After changing into a robe and slippers, she curled up in bed and opened the book the bookseller had recommended. The copy on the back cover wasn’t promising. It was a love story, told from the point of view of the guy. Caroline knew from experience that first-time male authors weren’t usually good at writing romantic fiction.
She’d try a few chapters. If she didn’t like it, she’d leave it in the room for the next guest to read when she checked out.
The next time she looked up from the book, it was well past midnight. Her neck had a crick and her eyes were tired from reading. She had been wrong. It was the best book she’d read in months.
Caroline knew editors who insisted that they could tell within the first ten pages if a book was going to be a bestseller. It was all about pacing and the author’s voice. She disagreed. Many books took a while to find their footing. The characters weren’t fully formed, or the action didn’t start until later. And yet, by the end she was captivated.
This time, Caroline knew what they meant. From the opening paragraph, she was swept away.
The book was set on a ranch in Colorado. It was about a guy and a girl who were wrong for each other, but couldn’t let the other go. The action traveled to Europe and back to the ranch, where they came back together before splitting apart for good.
The writing needed work. The heroine could be softer, the guy’s feelings weren’t fleshed out. But that would come in the editing. For now, Caroline had to find the author.
She made herself close her eyes and try to sleep. When she woke up, the wintry morning light filtered through the window. She heard the cranking of the ski gondola, jumped out of bed, and pulled on slacks and a sweater.
When she stepped outside, snowcats were grooming the mountain. She had almost forgotten it was Christmas Day. In a few hours, everyone in Aspen would swarm to the ski lifts and spend a gleeful day on the slopes. In the evening, they’d return to their hotels, giddy with the sunshine and perfect ski conditions, and eat Christmas dinners of turkey with stuffing, and pecan pie.
She sent a text to Daphne saying that she’d be back soon, and then she hurried along Main Street.
The lights in the bookshop were on, but the door was locked. She didn’t know what she’d been thinking. None of the shops were open. She’d have to wait until after Christmas.
She was about to go back to the inn when she noticed a young woman carrying a mug of coffee.
“You work in the bookstore.” Caroline approached her. “You recommended a book to me.”
“My name is Sarah,” the girl said. “Can I help you with something?”
Caroline held up the book.
“I was wondering if you knew the author of this book. I’m an editor at a publishing house in New York. I need to talk to him.”
“Nick Harris works at the Limelight Hotel.”
“He’s here in Aspen?” Caroline asked eagerly.
“He’s worked there since the summer. I see him around town.”
Caroline thanked her. The girl was about to cross the street.
“I’m glad you found me.” She turned around. “Nick deserves a break, I’ve never known anyone who wanted something so badly.”
The Limelight Hotel was a two-story brick building near the ski gondola. The front of the hotel was decorated with Christmas lights. On the side there was a giant Christmas tree, and a swimming pool that would be a glorious place to sit in summer.
Caroline walked straight to the concierge desk.
“I’m looking for an employee, his name is Nick Harris,” she said to the man behind the desk.
“I’m sorry,” the man answered. “We don’t give out information about our employees.”
“Please, I know it’s unusual. I promise he’ll be glad you did.”
The man shook his head. “I’m sorry, company policy.”
Caroline couldn’t leave without talking to Nick.
“When you were a child, did you ever want something so badly for Christmas, you were afraid to open your presents?” she asked.
The man looked at her, puzzled. “I beg your pardon.”
“When I was ten, I wanted a clock I’d seen in a shop window,” Caroline continued. “It was a miniature grandfather clock, white with yellow flowers. I wrote to Santa Claus, and even had my sister, Daphne, draw a picture because I was hopeless at drawing. I was afraid to open my presents. I thought the elves couldn’t make the same clock. It was the last present that I opened, tucked under the tree.
“That’s how Nick probably feels now. Wanting something so badly, but afraid he can’t have it. He wrote a wonderful novel. It’s published by a tiny press, every copy is probably at the bookstore on Main Street. I work for a New York publisher. I can get Nick’s novel into bookstores everywhere, if you tell me where to find him.”
Caroline couldn’t remember the last time she had given such a long speech.
The man hesitated. He clicked through his computer screen.
“Nick is in banquets. His shift ends at three p.m.”
Her face broke into a smile. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“My daughter is twelve, she wants to be a writer,” the man said. “I told her she needs to choose a practical profession. Maybe I was wrong. No one comes in here looking for a computer programmer to tell him that she can make his dreams come true.”
The hotel dining room was being set up for Christmas dinner. A gingerbread house stood in the corner. The roof was made of graham crackers, and covered with white frosting. The walls were different-colored jelly beans, and there was a picket fence made of gumdrops, and a red-licorice chimney.
Caroline approached a young woman wearing a waitress uniform.
“Excuse me, I’m looking for Nick Harris.”
The woman pointed to a man in his late twenties. He was sitting at a table, folding napkins. He was tall, with long legs and a narrow build. He had dark curly hair, and brown eyes.
Caroline walked over to him.
“Excuse me.” She held out her hand. “My name is Caroline Holt.”
He looked up from the napkins he was folding.
“Nick Harris. Can I help you?”
Caroline smiled to herself. Not many men who were close to thirty worked at hotels, folding napkins. But writers took all sorts of jobs so they could keep writing. Caroline knew an author who performed magic tricks at children’s birthday parties, and another who spent a year working on a cruise ship for the free room and board.
“I read your book. I’m a book editor in New York, I think I can get it published.”
“No, thank you. It’s already published.”
“By a small press. I looked them up, they don’t even have a website.”
“How did you read it?”
“The salesgirl at the bookstore on Main Street recommended it, I bet it isn’t carried anywhere else. If my publisher agrees to publish it, it will be in bookstores everywhere.”
For a few moments, Nick didn’t say anything.
“I wrote the book for myself. If other people read it, that’s great.” He went back to folding napkins. “Excuse me, I have to work.”
“You can’t be serious. Most writers dream of this opportunity.”
“I’m not most writers. Like I said, it’s already published.” Nick stood up and started walking. “It’s Christmas and I’m sure you have somewhere else to be.”
Caroline didn’t know why she felt so angry. She couldn’t let him walk away.
“It’s the simplest story. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, and overcome a dozen obstacles to stay together. But somehow, your writing makes it brand new. The ending is one of the best I’ve read. At first, I was angry at you for separating the lovers, but it couldn’t have ended any other way.”
Nick stopped walking. He turned around, and his brown eyes were full of anguish.
“I tried different endings. I wanted them to be happy: get married, start a family. But it wouldn’t have worked. Maggie was too independent, she hurt Josh too much.”
Caroline nodded. “I love Maggie, but she’s a free spirit. Josh has this quiet dignity. You think he doesn’t care, but really he keeps his feelings bottled inside.”
Nick was about to say something, but stopped. His brow furrowed.
“I’m glad you understood the book, but I’m not interested in a publisher. Unless you want to get me fired on Christmas Day, you should go.”
Caroline scribbled her full name, address, and phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to Nick.
“All right, but if you change your mind, you can text me.”
When she left the hotel, the snow was beginning to fall. There was a text from Daphne saying that she and Luke were going on a dogsled ride, and they’d be back for Christmas dinner.
Caroline turned onto Main Street and stopped in front of the bookstore. The lights were on, and the salesgirl Sarah was standing at the counter.
Caroline tapped on the glass.
“I didn’t think you’d be open,” she said when Sarah opened the door.
“We’re not, I’m here to restock the shelves. Tomorrow everyone will come in to exchange the books they didn’t like.” She gave a small smile. “You’d be surprised how many married couples don’t know each other’s tastes. Or the grandparents who buy a book for a middle schooler, when their grandchild is in third grade.”
Caroline grinned. One summer, she worked at a bookstore in New York. Almost every parent thought their child read above their reading level.
“At least they’re buying books,” Caroline reasoned.
“The owner is thrilled with our sales for last week, I’m getting a bonus.”
Caroline told her what happened with Nick. “I wondered how well you know him.”
“During the summer, he walked dogs for hotel guests. I used to put a water bowl in front of the store, and we’d chat. At first, he was really excited about his book. The Aspen writers’ conference was happening, and he was sure he’d find a publisher. It didn’t pan out, so he went with a local press.”
That sort of thing happened all the time at writers’ conferences. Aspiring authors met editors and agents and got excited. Then they’d learn how publishing worked. The editorial board had to fall in love with the book as much as the acquiring editor; the sales and marketing teams could veto the deal if they didn’t know how to position the book. By the end of the conference, the writer often felt disillusioned about the whole process. It sounded almost impossible to get their story out into the world. Most likely, their dreams would end up like scrunched-up paper, tossed in the garbage.
Sarah shrugged. “After that, Nick stopped talking about the book altogether.”
Caroline bought a few books and walked back to the inn. Snowflakes covered the benches and settled on the branches of the aspen trees. Two boys were having a snowball fight while their parents ate cinnamon rolls.
Caroline had been so certain about Nick’s book. She had already made a few edit notes, and was rehearsing how to present it to the editorial board. If she didn’t find something to show Claudia by the winter sales meeting, it was very likely that she would lose her job.
When she entered the inn, Nick was standing in front of the concierge desk. He walked over to her.
“I was hoping you’d be here, I need to talk to you.”
Caroline glanced at her phone. “You didn’t call or text.”
Nick fidgeted with his jacket. “I was pretty rude. I was afraid you wouldn’t talk to me.”
Caroline gave her brightest smile. “I’m in publishing, I’m used to anxious writers. Why don’t we sit by the fireplace and you can tell me the whole story.”
Caroline ordered two hot apple ciders and Nick let it pour out.
He grew up on a dude ranch nearby. He never liked horses and he wasn’t good at sports, so he spent most of his time at the library. He got a scholarship to a college in Denver. It wasn’t New York or Boston, but it was a city with history and culture.
The summer before his senior year, his parents asked him to work at the dude ranch. There was a new ranch hand. Her name was Savannah. She had strawberry-blond hair and a Southern accent. They fell in love. At the end of the summer, Savannah said she was going to stay at the dude ranch and not go back to college. Nick took a semester off, and then a whole year. They talked about getting married. Then one morning, he came down to breakfast and she was gone. Eventually, he tracked her down. She was in Greece, on an archaeological dig. Over one choppy international call, she explained that it was a pattern she couldn’t break. She’d fall in love with a place and a way of life. Then one day the feeling would disappear, and she’d move on.
Nick’s scholarship ran out and he couldn’t go back to school. So, he wrote the novel. It took five years to write. At first, he worked at the dude ranch. But his parents pestered him to take on more responsibilities, or get a proper job. He couldn’t do either so he moved in with a friend in Aspen and worked at the Limelight Hotel.
“I finished the book in April and started emailing agents and publishers. Some of them loved the manuscript. But I’d never been published and I didn’t have a social media platform so they wouldn’t take me on.” Nick nursed his glass. “Then I met an agent at the Aspen writers’ conference. She read the book in one night. Afterward, we sat for hours, and she told me all the things she wanted me to change. She gave me her email address, and asked me to send the revised manuscript.
“I worked on it for three months. I sent it to her in September and waited.” His brow furrowed. “Every morning I refreshed my emails, certain that her email had slipped past me.” He fished a business card out of his pocket and handed it to Caroline. “Her name was Anne Holt. I never heard from her again.”
It was the same business card Anne had used for years. Caroline often teased her mother. People didn’t use business cards anymore, they exchanged contact information on their phones. But Anne insisted. A business card was something you could hold, like a hardback book.
“Anne told me that her daughter was an editor. When I read the piece of paper you gave me, I realized that she was your mother. I trusted her. The least she could have done was say that she wasn’t interested.”
Caroline’s eyes filled with tears. She glanced up at Nick.
“She didn’t answer because in September she was in the hospital. She died in October, she had breast cancer.”
Nick’s face paled. He stared at his hands.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
“She was diagnosed last winter. But she went into remission over the summer. She adored discovering new writers, I’m sure meeting you made her happy.”
Nick smiled ruefully. “You must hate me. I wasn’t just rude, I was a complete jerk.”
“A lot of agents promise new writers the world. Their book will be a bestseller, they’ll get a six-figure advance and a movie deal. My mother believed that managing an author’s expectations was more important than anything. She wouldn’t have been so passionate about your book if she didn’t believe it would be a success.”
“I loved talking to her about it. She understood the characters better than I did.”
“Send me the latest manuscript and I can work with you on a final round of edits while I’m here,” Caroline offered. “I can’t promise my publisher will buy it, but I’ve got the same feeling about it my mother must have had.”
Caroline found she was holding her breath. She hadn’t realized how much she wanted Nick’s book.
“I’ll be hard to work with,” Nick warned. “I’m an insomniac and once I get an idea, I don’t stop until I get it down on paper. And I can argue about the silliest things. Whether a period should go at the end of a thought, or a semicolon. Why the character’s eyes have to be aquamarine, because I want to imagine the ocean when I think of her.”
A shiver ran down Caroline’s spine. For the first time since her mother died, she felt excited and alive.
“There’s nothing wrong with arguing about a period and a semicolon. A period is the end of something, a semicolon is the door to a new beginning.”
Nick shook her hand, and Caroline’s heart lifted. It was finally beginning to feel like Christmas.