The Mistletoe Inn (23 page)

He took a square piece of paper from his breast pocket,
unfolded it, and set it on the lectern. Then he lightly tapped the microphone, cleared his throat, and leaned forward until his lips were nearly on the appliance.

“Is this working?” he asked gruffly into the microphone. There were a few audible responses from the back of the room and he nodded. “Thank you.”

He stood rigid as a signpost as he slowly surveyed the room with an unmistakable confidence, as if he were still deciding whether or not the congregation was worthy of him. Then he leaned forward again.

“Books are important things.”

The simple words reverberated with authority throughout the darkened room. It was like God had spoken.

“Books are more than paper and glue and ink. They are more than digital imprints. They are sparks. Sparks that ignite fires. Sparks that ignite revolutions. Every major revolution began with a book.” He looked around the room again as if ensuring that every eye was on him. They were.

“Every major religious revolution started with a book. The Bible, the Talmud, the Koran, the Tipitaka, the Tao Te Ching, the Book of Mormon,
Dianetics
—all these faiths have books at their foundations. Billions of people have followed a specific life path because of a book.

“Every political revolution began with a book. From John Stuart Mill's
On Liberty
to Karl Marx's
Communist Manifesto
to Hitler's
Mein Kampf.

“Every cultural and societal revolution began with a book. Harriet Beecher Stowe's
Uncle Tom's Cabin
, the book that Abraham Lincoln said started a very big war, not only
ignited the Civil War but led to the ongoing war for civil rights, not just for blacks in America, but for all races. Then there's Rachel Carson's
Silent Spring
, which began the green movement.

“These powerful, world-changing books did not spontaneously appear. They were not conceived by committee or board. They were created in one mind, by one author. Many of you are here today because you desire to be an author. You may not have understood the power or implications of your desire, but you have desired well.

“But greater than the desire to be an author is the desire to write something of consequence. To write truth. Such an author is rare.” He again cleared his throat. “Perhaps it is a good thing, though. The world can only handle so much revolution.” He stopped and took several gulps from a bottle of water. “When such writers come along, we should revere them. We should understand that we are in the presence of greatness.

“That is why I'm especially honored today to introduce an author who has written truths that have captured the world's imagination. I am honored to introduce Mr. H. T. Cowell.”

A discernible gasp rose from the audience. Someone behind me said out loud what I was thinking, likely what we were all thinking.
That's not Cowell?

Samantha leaned into me. “It's not him. That's not Cowell.”

The man continued. “H. T. Cowell is one of those rare breeds of authors who has made a difference in this world. His first book,
The Tuscan Promise,
defined a genre and launched a thousand writers and ten thousand imitations.

“A lesser mind might attempt to discount the influence of Cowell's works by saying he only wrote romance.
Only
. As if romance were of no consequence. Romance is the thing that dreams are made of and all great human endeavors are borne of dreams.”

He paused, and again his gaze panned the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, it is my profound honor to give you H. T. Cowell.”

The entire audience rose to their feet, including me. For a moment there was no one. Then the curtain parted. Zeke walked out onto the stage.

Zeke hugged the speaker, who turned and walked back to the curtain. Zeke followed the man with his gaze, then turned back to the audience, which was still applauding wildly. Except for me. I couldn't move.

“Thank you,” he said, raising his hand. “Thank you. You're too kind. Please sit down.” The applause only slightly diminished. “Please.”

It took several minutes before everyone sat.

“I'd like to thank my agent, Mr. Harvey Yospe, for that eloquent, not-so-modest introduction.” His eyes scanned the audience as if he were looking for someone. Then his eyes met mine. I was frozen. He held my gaze for a moment, then turned away.

“It's been a while since I've stood before an audience. A long while. I've missed this.

“I don't title my speeches like I do my books, but I noticed that the hosts of this noble event have saved me the trouble. They appropriately named my talk
Why I Stopped Writing
. So that is what I will talk about.

“I will never forget the day that Mr. Yospe called me at my home in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Rarely in life does our
reality exceed our dreams. For me, that was the first of many such days. At the time I was a high school English teacher with a very modest salary. To celebrate our good fortune my wife, Emma, and I splurged. I took her to Pizza Hut.”

The audience laughed.

“The book he was interested in was
The Tuscan Promise
. Three weeks after I hired Mr. Yospe as my agent, the roller coaster began. My book went into a publisher's auction, selling for more than two million dollars. Overnight I was a multimillionaire. Then the movie rights sold. Big directors and big actors signed on. I was asked, or at least allowed, to co-write and co-produce the movie's screenplay. Truly, my life changed overnight.

“Some of you are here, presumably, because you want to be me. Or, at least, to be
like
me. You want to experience the Limousine Lifestyle of the Bestselling Author that my esteemed colleague Ms. McCullin talked about earlier from this very stage.

“I realize that, to a hopeful author, I am the dream. I know this. Five years after I began writing, Scott Simon on National Public Radio asked me, ‘What does it feel like to have the life that thousands of aspiring writers covet?' I replied, ‘Blessed.' ” Zeke nodded slowly. “
Blessed
, I said.” Then his expression changed. “Blessed,” he repeated more softly. “Just six months later I would have changed that word to
cursed
.

“My wife, Emma, the love of my life, was a very private person. Private and shy. Almost pathologically shy. She was that way when I met her, dated her, and married her. She was also sweet and loving and content with the simple
life we had when I was a teacher. I suppose we were poorly paired in this regard because I was not content. I wanted more. And I went headlong after it.

“After things took off in my career, she was quite uncomfortable with the invasion of our privacy. I thought I could temper the differences in our personalities by appearing camera shy. No pictures of me were put on my books. I rarely did television appearances, and newspaper interviewers were required to display a picture of my latest book instead of me.

“Once
People
magazine wanted to do a photo spread of the Cowell family. I knew it was a privilege. My publisher had pushed hard for the publicity, but Emma was mortified. We considered alternate ways of making the shoot happen until the photographer insisted on coming to our home and taking pictures of Emma and me cooking together. If you haven't noticed,
People
is big on kitchen shots. That doomed the photo shoot. While every author on the planet was begging for media attention, I did my best to shun it.

“But being mysterious only fueled the public's interest and curiosity. Book sales continued to grow. And, with each book, each movie, each multimillion-dollar advance, the quiet life Emma and I had together faded a little bit more. My love slowly became a stranger to me—part of a former life I sometimes barely recognized anymore.

“I was gone almost all the time, on tour or speaking. Even touring I still maintained some anonymity. Photographs were not allowed. I grew a beard and wore dark glasses indoors even before Bono made it cool. Yes, the pay was good.” He
shook his head. “Actually, it was obscene—thirty thousand to fifty thousand dollars for a forty-minute speech. That was more than my entire annual salary just a few years earlier.

“And as the books kept coming, the powers that be pressured me for more. Two a year. Then three. I learned to write in airplanes and airports and in private suites in luxury hotels in cities that I never really got to see. I simultaneously went everywhere and nowhere.

“When I wasn't touring in the U.S., there was Europe, Canada, South America, then Asia. And with each flight I put more miles between Emma and me, figuratively as well as literally. It was ironic, I suppose. Emma was the love of my life. I wrote my first book and dedicated it to her because she was my inspiration.” His eyes turned dark. “She inspired me right out of her life.

“I knew we were going the wrong way. But I kept telling her it was only going to be a little while longer.” He scratched his head. “I was right. Just not the way I meant.

“I didn't know the full extent of her pain; she wasn't a complainer, but she did become more withdrawn. She once said to me, ‘Things are different with us.' I said, ‘Yes, they're better. We have a beautiful home, nice cars, nice vacations, everything we always wanted.' She looked at me sadly, then said, ‘I already had everything I wanted.' Then she said, ‘But now I've lost you.'

“I was in Chicago on a book tour when it occurred to me that a child might be the solution to our marital rift. We had planned to have children one day. Maybe, I reasoned, if we had a baby, Emma wouldn't feel so alone. Maybe she
wouldn't be so sad. Two months later she got pregnant. And I was gone when she found out. I was gone when she had her first doctor appointment. I was gone when she learned it was going to be a little girl.

“For the most part, the pregnancy went well, nothing unusual. Then one time, this one time . . .” His voice cracked. “Emma was five months pregnant. I was packing to leave for another event when she said to me, ‘I need you to stay.' I can't explain it, but her voice was different this time. There was something unusual about the way she asked. I looked in her eyes and I saw someone reaching out for me. Someone desperate. Someone I used to know.

“Something told me that it was a turning point in our marriage. I knew I needed to stay. I knew the former me, the man who married her, would have stayed.” His voice fell with shame. “But Emma was right. I wasn't that man anymore. And I didn't stay. There were ten thousand strangers in an auditorium in Dallas who had shelled out thirty-seven bucks apiece to see me. Strangers. I chose them over my love.”

At this moment he paused and I could see him change with emotion. I could feel his pain. “I was still in Dallas when the phone call came. Emma had hemorrhaged in the night. She bled to death.”

Someone behind me gasped. The entire audience was still. Many were weeping. Zeke took off his glasses and wiped his eyes.

“She bled to death because I wasn't there. I don't know if she somehow knew—if perhaps she had had a premonition—but whether she knew or not doesn't matter. She was
hanging over a cliff and she cried out to me to save her, and I . . .” He paused. “I let her go. Somewhere along the line I had traded in my heart for a check and a temporary seat on a bestseller list.”

People around me were sniffing and rubbing their eyes with tissues. I couldn't keep the tears from rolling down my face.

“Coming home to an empty house—there was no home anymore. Only then did I fully understand that
she
was my home.

“I disappeared. I drank to take the edge off my pain. Then I kept drinking to stop my heart. But that wasn't working, so I tried to overdose on painkillers. My housecleaner found me unconscious and called 911. She saved my life.” He paused and looked out over the audience. “Why did I stop writing? I stopped writing because I was a fraud. I had betrayed love, so I was no longer worthy to write about it.”

I could hear Samantha's stilted breathing. It matched my own. Zeke took a deep breath.

“So, my dear aspiring writers, here's a nickel's worth of advice from a man who's reached the pinnacle of success and thrown himself off. You have this beautiful dream before you and some of you are waiting for it to happen for your life to begin. I'm not here to take away your dreams. We need dreams. But you're in the middle of life right now. Never trade what you love for what's behind curtain B. Never. I would give everything I have, everything I've experienced, to see my love sitting in the front row right now.” He took a deep breath. “I would give anything to be you—anonymous
and hopeful you.” His voice cracked with emotion. “I would give anything to be a poor English teacher in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.”