Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Nick

I 'm sweating by the time we reach Rudy's. The late afternoon sun beats down on us as we traipse down the hill. I give Noelle a sidelong glance, but she doesn't seem bothered by the heat. What was I thinking, suggesting Santa's Cellar? Rudy's, despite the walk, is a better choice.

I push open the door and usher her ahead of me into the cool interior, where we're greeted by a blast of air conditioning. The dim bar is about half full with happy hour patrons and two guys camped out with a backgammon board in a corner booth. Chip and Jamal are both fellow Santas—winter Santas. Although I've historically handled Christmas in July duties myself, there's a whole roster of Santa Clauses for the winter holidays. I could have asked any one of them to pinch hit next week, but Josh Morgenthal offered. And, truth be told, the Santa Claus Crew gossips worse than a pack of middle-school girls. I didn't want word to get around the Kris Kringle whisper network. That would have only brought a steady stream of St. Nicks trying to change my mind.

So when we pass by Jamal and Chip's table, I smile and nod a greeting but don't stop to talk. I lead Noelle to a two-top near the kitchen.

"Is this okay?"

"Sure." She perches on the high stool and takes the laminated menu from the holder on the table. "Share a serving of poutine?" she asks without so much as glancing at the menu.

I hide a smile. Noelle always did like french fries. "Sounds good."

Rudy's wife strolls over to take our order, plucking a stubby pencil from behind her ear. "Hi, Nick. Hey, Noelle."

"Hi, Tammy," we say in unison.

"What's it going to be?"

"We'll split an order of poutine," Noelle tells her.

"What drafts are on special for happy hour?" I ask.

Tammy gives me the stink eye. "Are you really going to make me rattle off fifteen beers when we both know you're going to order a Frosty Ale like always?"

She has a point. "Fair. I'll have a Frosty Ale."

"Big one or a little one?"

"We're walking," I tell her. "Make it a big one."

"You got it. What about you, Noelle? Peppermint martinis are on special."

"Tempting. But I do love my fries with wine. How about a glass of Mistletoe Merlot? "

"You got it."

She sticks the pencil back behind her ear and leaves to put in our order.

Across the table, Noelle cocks her head. "So how do you get away with calling Griselda ‘Grizzy'? I've always thought of her more like a grizzly, but I'd never dare to say it to her face."

"She's got a gruff exterior but she's a marshmallow on the inside."

"I know," Noelle confesses. "She's the library's biggest donor."

"Really? Didn't expect that."

"She financed the addition of the children's wing. She seems to have a special fondness for kids. Kind of strange that she doesn't have any of her own."

I shake my head. "I don't know that she particularly likes kids. It's probably more that she didn't have much of a childhood herself. Gris was a stage kid. She was in her first Broadway show when she was seven. Her parents pulled her out of school, and she had tutors on set and when she toured. She's been working more or less full-time since second grade. She missed out on all the typical kid experiences."

Her green eyes are sad. "I had no idea." Then she throws me a puzzled look. "How do you know all this?"

"When Carol got too sick to really exercise, she still wanted to do something physical to feel embodied. Gris came to the house to do restorative yoga sessions with her pretty much every day right up until the end. The three of us ended up talking a lot."

"Oh." A heavy silence falls over the table. "I didn't know," she says slowly .

She wouldn't, because at the very end, Noelle disappeared. Carol tried to pretend that her best friend abandoning her as she was dying didn't hurt, but I could tell it gutted her. The memory of her bewilderment at the betrayal makes my heart pound, and I fist my hands to keep myself from lashing out at Noelle after all this time.

As if she's reading my mind, she says, "I wasn't around as much as I should have been at the end."

"It's hard," I tell her. "Some people can't handle death." It's a BS excuse, but I give it to her anyway.

She shakes her head. "No. That's not it. The last time I saw Carol, I came over to wash her hair and paint her nails." She pauses and take a shaky breath. "She asked me to do something for her after she died. I didn't want to tell her no. I mean, who turns down their dying best friend's last wish?"

This is news to me. I stare at her. "What did she ask you to do?"

"It's private."

"Did you do it?" I press.

She sighs heavily but holds my gaze. "I told her I couldn't. And after that, I couldn't face her."

Her expression closes, and I know this topic's off-limits. Before I can try to find another way in, Tammy's back with our drinks.

"Waters are coming. I'll bring them out with the fries."

"Cheers," Noelle says in a low voice.

I don't think either one of us feels like clinking glasses. I'm consumed with curiosity about what Carol asked her, but she's right. It's not my place to know .

"I regret not being honest with her, Nick. If I had, I wouldn't have ghosted her because I felt guilty."

Her voice trembles, and the anguish in her eyes drains the anger from my body. I reach across the table and cover her hand with mine.

"Death's hard, Noe. Grieving's hard. I should know, I almost deprived my daughters of the open house. And that would have been the wrong thing to do."

She manages a wan smile and sips her wine. "I'm glad you changed your mind."

"I didn't really have a choice after you called and told them."

"Sorry," she interrupts with a sheepish shrug that makes it clear she's not one bit sorry.

I go on. "They reached out to my nieces, and, well, you saw them. Combined, they're a force to be reckoned with. They'll have no problem running the show."

"It's good you've got so much help."

I shake my head. "I'm going to go to my fishing cabin for the rest of the week."

She gives me a disappointed look. "Nick, you can't hide from this."

She's one to talk. Didn't she just admit she hid from Carol when she was dying? I want to shoot back. I take a long swig of the cold beer instead.

"No one's going to miss me with all that activity. Besides, I haven't been to the cabin yet this summer. I need to air it out and chase the spiders away. Don't worry, I'll show up when all the work is done—like a blister. "

She twists her mouth but doesn't argue.

Tammy's back. Noelle slides her hand free as an enormous tray of french fries covered in gravy and cheese curds thunks down on the middle of the table. A barback trails behind her with two sweating glasses of ice water. He slides them onto a pair of cardboard coasters on the table.

"Bon appetit," Tammy says over her shoulder, walking away.

A guy playing pool pauses his game to feed money into the jukebox and a loud rock anthem blares. I watch as Noelle pops a smothered fry into her mouth and marvel at the fact that I'm sitting across a table from her.

Noelle Winters is the whole reason I came to Mistletoe Mountain in the first place. I never would have met Carol if I hadn't fallen for Noelle in London almost thirty years ago.

We were college juniors, both doing internships the summer before our senior year. She was working with the archivists at the British Library. I was interning at Claridge's, the famous hotel, as part of my hospitality management major. MJ and her husband had just bought the Resort at the Sea, and the plan was for me to get some hands-on experience before I graduated, then go to work for my older sister and Bart.

I met Noelle at the launderette around the corner from the flat I was subletting. She was parked on a folding chair reading Sherlock Holmes while her clothes dried. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a fist full of change for the machine. As I sorted through the quarters looking for the distinctive heptagon shape of the fifty-pence pieces I needed, she closed her book, crossed the room, and offered me a handful of the coins.

"Here. I'm almost done."

I looked up, fell into those green eyes, and didn't come up for air all summer. We'd meet after work for takeaway curries, cheap wine, and long walks through narrow cobblestone streets steeped in history and drama. We were broke, starry-eyed, and in love. I was, at least.

But when it came time to return to the States for our senior year, she didn't. The library offered her a position and helped her transfer to Oxford for her final year with a promise to hook her up with the prestigious Bodleian Library traineeship after that. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, too good to pass up. I understood. Of course, I did.

We scraped up the money to take the Chunnel to Paris for our last weekend before I flew back home. It was crowded, noisy, and pure romance. I snapped a picture of her on the Pont au Double bridge over the Seine. She's standing with Notre Dame behind her, the wind lifting her long, red hair from her shoulders, her smile wide, and her arms thrown open as if she was giving the entire City of Lights a hug.

And that was that.

Maybe in today's world we'd keep in touch. But in a time before texts, video chats, and social media, we didn't. Email wasn't even really a thing yet. We wrote a few airmail letters, had one obscenely expensive phone call, and then fizzled. I tucked away the memory of the green-eyed redhead who loved Agatha Christie, puzzles, and maple syrup over her ice cream and moved on .

As my graduation approached, I started looking for a job in the tourist industry. MJ and Bart were still getting the Resort by the Sea off the ground, and it was slow going. MJ was pregnant with Rosemary, and money was tight. We agreed I'd get some more industry experience under my belt before they brought me onboard. Remembering the stories Noelle used to tell about her holiday wonderland of a hometown, I sent a resume to the Inn at Mistletoe Mountain on a whim.

The proprietor called and offered me a job managing the inn over the phone. After fifty-seven Vermont winters, he and his wife were ready to pack it up and retire to Florida. We agreed to a one-year trial, then, if we both wanted to proceed, I'd buy the inn from him.

I loaded my clothes and books into the back of my beat-up Rabbit and headed north two days after I got my diploma. Six weeks after I arrived in town, I met a witty, vivacious blonde at the Christmas in July festival, fell head over heels, and never looked back.

Carol and I got engaged eighteen months later. When we started planning the wedding, she tracked down her childhood bestie, who was doing graduate work in Italy, and asked her to be her maid of honor. The night Noelle Winters walked through the door of the inn for our engagement party was like a punch to my gut.

"Penny for your thoughts." Noelle's clear voice cuts through the noise and penetrates my thoughts.

"That'll cost you at least fifty pence," I tell her, reaching for a goopy french fry .

Her eyes go wide and her face softens, and I know she's remembering the launderette, too.

We didn't hide the fact that we knew each other from Carol. But we both shrugged off our past as a summer fling, nothing more. No big deal. It was ancient history then, and it's ancient history now. Someone needs to tell my racing heart that.