Halfway to You(65)

ANN


Mohonk Mountain House, New Paltz, New York, USA

December 1993

The New York I’d seen in spring—all short sleeves and steaming exhaust—had donned a gown of frost. Skyscrapers glimmered like glass ornaments, delicate and silver as tinsel. As I snuggled between Todd and Iris in the back seat of Keith and Barbara’s 4Runner, a world of gray flew past my vision. The heat was on blast, whirring in the silent cab as the miles multiplied.

Todd and I had barely spoken since the Whitakers picked us up at the airport. I hadn’t even had a chance to run my fingers through his new haircut. Like the air off the East River, our reunion had been colder than I anticipated. We hadn’t addressed the long-distance issue since April, and now all those unresolved feelings were stirring again. I didn’t know what to say to him.

Consequently, the 4Runner was full of brief glances and separate thoughts. Barbara was looking at a map; Keith was checking his side mirrors; Iris was galloping a toy horse along her windowsill. Manhattan slid away, a steely silhouette against a backdrop of slate clouds. The landscape grew more rural, bare trees shivering under more and more snow the farther north we traveled.

“So . . . ,” Keith said, “how’s the book going?”

Todd, Barbara, and I groaned.

“What?” he asked. “We weren’t talking about anything else.”

“Keith, dear, can’t you save the shop talk until after the festivities?” Barbara asked in her dripping-honey southern accent.

“I’m going to side with your wife on this one,” I said, and Keith squinted at me in the rearview.

Barbara reached back from the passenger seat and patted my calf. “Let her breathe, Keith. Women like to be wooed, after all.”

“What are you suggesting, she’ll hand over a book if I bring her chocolates and flowers?”

“Maybe,” Barbara and I said at once.

The men laughed.

Iris blinked up from her horse. “Mama?”

“Oh!” Barbara raised her hands, remembering something. “Hot chocolate, anyone?” She passed back three thermoses and a bag of marshmallows.

While I added marshmallows to Iris’s thermos and rescrewed the cap, Todd reached for the bag of marshmallows on my lap and tossed a handful into his mouth. He sipped his hot chocolate, offering a small smile over the rim of his mug, all crinkled eyes and cheeks. It was similar to the smile he had given when he peered over the edge of his wineglass at Carmella’s—and finally I felt the frost between us melting. His hand came to rest on my thigh, and he squeezed twice. I turned and kissed his shoulder, breathing in the scent I’d missed so much.

“I do have some pages for you, actually,” I said to Keith.

He glanced back. “Don’t tease me.”

I held up my hand, as if under oath. “You can read the first twenty-five thousand words when we get to the hotel.”

His expression was not unlike a child’s upon learning he could have ice cream for dinner. “Stop,” he said. “That’s a cruel joke.”

“It’s not,” I said. “I got some writing done this summer and edited it through the fall, just for you.”

“Is this the project you referred to as ‘hot garbage’?” Keith asked. “Which, by the way, is not something you should admit to your agent, no matter how much it stinks.”

Iris giggled, wrinkling her nose. “Ewwww.”

“It’s a new project, actually,” I said, nudging Iris’s arm.

“Daddy, are you going to work all Christmas?” Iris asked.

The question made my chest clench. Perhaps if I could sell another book, Keith wouldn’t have to hustle as hard. My sense of duty had driven me to take this new project seriously, and I was jittery about handing it over. It was a love story, a travel story—derivative of Chasing Shadows. But it was a start.

“No, dear,” Keith answered his daughter. “I won’t work the whole time.”

Todd clapped his hands once, as if closing the book of that conversation. “With that out of the way, Barbara, I’d love to hear more about this new project you’ve been working on.”

While Barbara spoke about her interior design business, Todd’s arm draped across my shoulders, his middle finger drawing idle circles on my arm.

But something had changed between us; I felt it in the firmness of his fingers. His touch didn’t exude familiarity or lust—it felt like he was desperately trying to hold on. How could I convince him that I was right here, no matter the miles or inches between us?

I told myself I was sensing distance only because we hadn’t been alone yet, that once we had a chance to reconnect in private, we’d be stronger than ever.

But even those self-assurances felt forced.

We soon found ourselves driving through a rural, prairie-like land of fences, barns, and trees, all sugarcoated with snow. Keith hung a left onto Mohonk Road and transitioned into four-wheel drive. Quilted with patches of fallen leaves and frost, the sparse forest outside glittered with ice and sunlight. Glimpses of untouched undergrowth made me feel as though we were in a fairy tale.

This impression was intensified when we pulled up to the hotel itself, which had towers and arches, like a true castle. A lengthy, narrow building, the Mohonk Mountain House overlooked a valley on one side and a frozen lake on the other. Inside, the house had an 1800s charm—dark woods, faded plum-and-emerald carpeting, and stained glass window panels that resembled silver fish scales. Christmas garlands and satin ribbons of cream and gold wrapped every exposed beam and railing.