The White Christmas Inn

by Colleen Wright

  “We’re almost there,” she said, more to herself than him.

  She squinted into the whiteout.

  Then her headlights caught the first smear of color she’d seen for hours: what seemed like a fine painting someone had accidentally left hanging on the side of the road, swaying gently in the swirling snow. The top of the sign had already been effaced by snow, but she still recognized the familiar lettering at the bottom: “Inn.”

  And just after it, she could see the tiniest hint of a lane leading off the main road, so small she wasn’t sure it was even a road until she made the turn onto it and began to follow it up the hill to safety and warmth, and the start of their daughter’s new life.

  “JEANNE!”

  Jeanne knew Bob Green’s big, booming voice before she saw him. As the door slammed shut behind him, a gust of wind and a handful of glittery snow spilled through the front door into the warm room along with him and his wife, Stacy, the mother of the bride. “Are those for us?”

  Jeanne, who had been headed for the stairs with the welcome baskets for Hannah and Audrey, one on each arm, turned around.

  As she did, Stacy, a pretty fifty-something blonde, embraced her in a hug, the sparkles of snow on her shearling hood chill, but the light in her eyes warm.

  “We’re so glad to see you,” she said. “And so glad to be here. Can you believe it?”

  For what felt like the first time in a while, Jeanne didn’t have to force her smile. She’d always liked Stacy, from the first time she’d ushered her family into Evergreen Inn’s doors over ten years ago. And over all the years the Green family had returned since, that instant connection had grown into a deep affection.

  She squeezed Stacy back, as Bob enveloped both of them in a clumsy bear hug of his own.

  “Congratulations,” Jeanne said, as all Stacy’s laugh lines lit up in a giant smile.

  Then Iris bustled out from behind the desk. “You haven’t used up all the hugs yet, have you?” she joked, clasping first Bob, then Stacy, in a warm embrace. She stopped when she came to Jeanne, then gave her a big hug, too.

  “What was that for?” Jeanne asked.

  “You look like you needed it,” Iris said tartly, before retreating behind the desk.

  In the meantime, Bob had stepped over to inspect the contents of the basket nearest him, pawing through its carefully arranged goodies still very much like a curious and hungry bear. “Warm brownies,” Bob said, helping himself to one as he rooted through the rest of the basket with his free hand. “And grilled cheese! Honey, I told you we shouldn’t stop for anything before we got here.”

  “We didn’t stop because we didn’t want to spend our daughter’s wedding marooned on the interstate in Vermont,” Stacy said bluntly, helping herself to a brownie.

  At her first bite, her eyes closed in bliss and she took a long, deep breath. “I remember the first time I ever tasted these brownies,” she said. “And I’ve made that recipe you gave me over and over. But I still think you must have a secret ingredient. Mine never turn out like yours.”

  “Vermont moonshine,” Bob suggested, taking full possession of one of the baskets from Jeanne’s arm, as Stacy slid her own arm through it companionably.

  “This is perfect,” she said with a sigh. “I always tried to imagine where Hannah would get married, and I never could. But as soon as she said it, I couldn’t imagine anywhere else.”

  The sight of Stacy’s face, and her radiant happiness, brought Jeanne’s memories of the early days at the inn sweeping back: all the hope and energy they had had when they’d first opened the doors, without a shadow, just for that moment, of the troubles of the present.

  “I can’t wait to see what you’ve whipped up for us this time,” Stacy said. “I know it’s going to be perfect.”

  “I hope so,” Jeanne said.

  “I know it will,” Stacy said. “It always is.”

  Bob was the first to hear the sound of Audrey’s footsteps, coming down the stairs. But Stacy was the first one to pounce the maid of honor with a hug. “Honey!” she said. “Thank you so much for being here! How are you doing? How is Hannah-belle? How are Trevor and his folks? Did they get here all right? This snow is a mess, but we made it!”

  Jeanne could see the struggle on Audrey’s face, the attempt to smile through her own pain, and Jeanne’s heart went out to her.

  But when Audrey came to the foot of the stairs, still without having given an answer, Stacy’s face crinkled in concern.

  “Honey?” Iris said from behind the front desk. “What’s wrong?”

  As Audrey took a deep, shaky breath, Jeanne watched her closely. This wasn’t how Audrey had looked after she heard her husband wouldn’t be able to make the wedding after all. This was something worse.

  Audrey opened her mouth to speak, then shook her head and looked down at the swirls and vines of the thick antique carpet at the foot of the stairs.

  “Is something wrong with Hannah?” Stacy asked. “Is she all right?”

  At this, Audrey raised her chin. Jeanne had seen her take the news of her husband’s absence. She had faced it head-on. And Jeanne had a feeling that whatever came next was going to be direct, too, even if it was unpleasant.

  “Trevor’s not coming,” she said.

  “Not coming?” Stacy repeated. “Did he get stuck in this storm? When it settles down, I’m sure—”

  “He hasn’t even left Boston,” Audrey said quickly. “He’s not coming at all. The wedding’s off.”

  “Why, that . . .” Stacy began, her brow darkening. “That little . . .”

  “Nincompoop,” Iris finished for her, decisively. She folded her arms, radiating disapproval.

  Dazed, Bob handed the welcome basket back to Jeanne without really seeming to see her. “Where’s Hannah?” he asked.

  Stacy looked at Jeanne, her eyes wide. “Oh, Jeanne,” she said. “After all the work you must have done.”

  “That is the last thing you should think about right now,” Iris said.

  “You don’t worry about that,” Jeanne said firmly, as her heart sank and her mind began to race. “You don’t worry about that at all.”

  “Where’s Hannah-belle?” Bob demanded, his voice growing louder.

  “She’s up here,” Audrey said, starting back up the stairs.

  Stacy gave Jeanne one more stricken look, then followed her husband.

  Jeanne sighed and did a bewildered half turn in the entry hall.

  Behind the desk, Iris shook her head.

  “I guess that means we won’t be full this Christmas after all,” she said, pulling out the reservation book and flopping it open on the desk before her. “So no room for Trevor Armstrong. And no room for the Armstrong parents. Should I go ahead and run the cards for their deposits?”

  Jeanne could hear from the quaver in Iris’s voice that she was just as upset for Hannah as Jeanne was, and only trying to find a way to be useful in the emergency. But trying to deal with the details in the midst of such bad news started an ache in the back of Jeanne’s head. And when her mind cleared enough to really think about what Iris was saying, the headache only got worse.

  “I didn’t take their deposits,” Jeanne said.

  “You didn’t?” Iris said.

  “They were just part of the Green wedding. I’ve known the Greens for so long. I thought I’d run the Armstrongs’ cards when they got here,” Jeanne said.

  “The only card I’ve got on file here is Bob’s,” Iris said, rifling through the papers on the desk.

  Jeanne shook her head. “We can’t run that. I’m not going to charge him for the room of a groom who didn’t show up.”

  “No,” Iris said. She sat back down, nodding with a certain stubborn approval of Jeanne. “I guess not.”

  But as Jeanne carried the welcome baskets back into the kitchen, the reality of what had just happened began to crash in on her.

  The reservations for the Armstrong family hadn’t been a lot, but they had been jus
t enough, along with the Green guests and their meager cash reserves, to pay the mortgage bill that was still due before the new year.

  How, she wondered as she set the welcome baskets neatly on the counter, lost in a daze, would they ever pay it now?

  In her younger days, she might have burst into tears of frustration. But today, she was too tired to do anything more than lay her head down on the smooth steel of her kitchen counter as tears welled in her eyes without slipping down her face.

  “Jeanne?”

  At the sound of Tim’s voice, Jeanne buried her head in her arms. On top of everything else, she couldn’t face the idea of telling him.

  A minute later, though, she could feel the gentle touch of his arm on her shoulder. Blindly, she lifted her head and buried it in his work jacket, which was still cold to the touch and dusted with snow.

  He had come in from outside and crossed the kitchen to reach her without even stopping to take it off.

  “Jeanne,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

  “Hannah’s wedding,” Jeanne said. “It’s not happening. Trevor broke it off.”

  Tim’s face turned grim. “That guy—” he began, then stopped himself.

  Jeanne met his eyes. “I didn’t get a deposit for the Armstrong family rooms,” she said. “So we’re losing all that income.”

  Tim wrapped her in a hug. “We’ll get through it.”

  She’d heard him say this a million times. And once, it had worked on her like magic. But now it just made her feel like he hadn’t been listening.

  “How?” she asked, pulling back. “How is it going to be all right?”

  “Jeanne,” Tim said. “It’s just a drop in the bucket.”

  “It’s not a drop in the bucket, though,” Jeanne said. “It’s cash. Cash we needed to pay the mortgage. And if we don’t pay the mortgage, we risk going into default before we’re able to make a sale that could make us whole again.”

  “We can break into my retirement if we have to,” Tim said.

  Jeanne shook her head impatiently. “That’s not how we’re supposed to spend that money!” she said. “What are we going to retire on?”

  Tim shrugged.

  “I just wanted some time,” Jeanne said. “I thought I could at least buy us some time. I thought we could maybe land this plane, instead of crashing. Take our time closing up. Give some warning to the people who have helped us all these years. Like Iris. I still don’t know what we’re going to tell Iris.”

  It had really been a gift when Iris sold them the place. There had been other, higher bidders, but Iris had agreed to sell to them because she believed in their vision, and because they were thrilled to let her still have a part of it, living nearby on her own small parcel of land and working at the inn, for as long as she wanted. And for Jeanne, one of the most painful parts of the inn’s troubles wasn’t just watching her own dreams die—it was the fact that she wouldn’t be able to keep the promises they’d made to Iris. And at Iris’s age, how many more reinventions did she really have in her?

  “I thought I had this all worked out,” Jeanne said. “I thought I could at least get us through to the end of the year. Do this wedding. End with something beautiful. Now I can’t even make a single payment.”

  As she said this, Tim stepped back, his face changed.

  “We,” he said.

  “What?” said Jeanne.

  “We can’t make a single payment,” Tim said. “Not you. Us.”

  “I know that,” Jeanne began. “It’s just—”

  “Do you, Jeanne?” Tim asked. “Really? ’Cause I have to tell you, it doesn’t feel that way.”

  “I—” Jeanne began, but Tim was already stalking away from her, across the room. Before she could think of anything else to say, he disappeared again, out the door into the storm.

  And before she could do anything else, the chime he’d rigged to the front door began to jangle.

  MOLLY PLACED THE LAST colored pencil on the large antique desk, set the beautiful tin box that had held the pencil down beside it, stepped back, and sighed.

  It couldn’t be a more perfect setting to write.

  The slightly oversized sheets of white paper that she liked to draw and dream on were placed neatly in the center of the desk. Colored pencils lay to the left of it in a comfortable jumble, with a fountain pen, graphite pencils, and a handful of stray ballpoint pens to the right.

  Above the blank paper she’d laid out all the ideas she’d collected for the book over the past weeks and months: sketches on one side, handwritten notes on the other. It was a trick she’d learned to make the blank page not seem so blank. The notes were a visual sign that she wasn’t starting from scratch: all she had to do was glance up from the page to see how many ideas she already had.

  And with so many ideas spread across the desk, it was almost impossible that one of them wouldn’t spark a new stream of inspiration.

  The thick snow falling beyond the window over the desk was ideal as well. There was nothing to annoy her, none of the invading sounds or sights of the city, like car horns or people shouting on the street. But the steady, beautiful motion of the snow was a pleasant distraction, a place to rest her mind between thoughts, or a way to open the door to let new ideas come in.

  She retrieved her mug of hot cider from the table beside the bed, took a sip, and sat down.

  At the first sight of her sketches and notes, she smiled as if she’d just run into old friends. There was the zebra on the bicycle, the swan wearing a crown, the octopus who wore four different pairs of shoes, the notes about singing policeman! and popsicle chase and Christmas wish.

  As she always did, she just sat and let it all wash over her as the heat from the cider seeped comfortably into her palms. She didn’t write by thinking, but by listening, setting the stage, and letting the story arrive.

  Except that this time, it didn’t.

  For several minutes, she sat in patient expectation, waiting for all the details she’d collected to begin to come play with each other and create a story: the zebra on the bicycle gets flagged down by the singing policeman, the octopus tears off down the street in a Popsicle chase.

  But although the sketches and fragments jostled companionably in her mind, none of them struck a spark big enough to light a whole story.

  She watched the falling snow, to clear her mind.

  She drank half the mug of cider.

  She set the cider aside.

  She picked up a colored pencil and doodled for a bit, to give the ideas a chance to come through her hands, instead of her head.

  Then she put the pencil down again.

  Nothing.

  A little knot of fear began to grow in her stomach, as unwanted thoughts crowded in. This was just what had been happening to her back in Brooklyn, and nothing was different here. Nothing could be more perfect about this spot. So why could she still not write?

  Suddenly all the memories of the grief and uncertainty and loneliness she’d been wrestling with at home in her tiny Brooklyn apartment came rushing back: the days when she’d cried for her mom, all by herself, the days when she’d worked and worked, and had nothing to show for it at the end of the day—and no one to show it to.

  But the memories came back so clear that they didn’t feel like memories anymore. The worry and the loneliness felt just as present here as they had there.

  Maybe the problem wasn’t the place. Maybe the problem was her.

  Molly shook her head, downed the remaining cider in a single gulp, and stood up.

  I’m just tired, she told herself. It was a long trip up here. I just need a little break before I get to work.

  And before she could think anything else, she set the mug down on the desk, and walked out of the room.

  As soon as the door shut behind her, she felt better.

  An incredible blend of delicious smells wafted up the stairs from the kitchen below: cinnamon, and chocolate, and something savory—maybe roasted vegetables and rosemar
y. And a pleasant babble of voices murmured from the floors below, as well.

  Gratefully, she padded down the stairs.

  As she reached the main floor and the front desk, she was surprised by a blast of cold air. The front door wasn’t actually standing open when she got there, but the reason for the chill was obvious: an older couple stood at the desk, negotiating with Iris.

  “Anything you’ve got,” the man said. “If your coal cellar has heat, we’d take that, at this point.”

  “Actually,” Iris said with a smile, “I think we can do better than that.”

  As she found them a room, Jeanne came through the door, carrying a large basket of brownies.

  “Hello!” the man said heartily. “I’m Frank. This is my wife, Eileen.”

  Jeanne did her best to muster a smile.

  “They’re looking for a room,” Iris said. “I told them they were in luck. A wedding has just been canceled.”

  “Canceled?” Eileen said, her smile fading.

  “Just a second,” Jeanne said, depositing the brownies on a serving table in the corner of the entryway.

  “Salted fudge brownies,” she said to Molly. “Please help yourself.”

  Molly, who had been doing her best to stay out of the way, quickly realized that directly adjacent to the brownies was the most comfortable chair in the place, wine-colored velvet, with big overstuffed wings.

  She took a seat, and helped herself to a brownie.

  “Should I give them the groom’s room?” Iris asked Jeanne. “Or the parents of the groom?”

  Molly watched as Eileen gave Frank a quizzical look, but he just laid his credit card down on the counter. “It doesn’t matter to us,” he said. “As long as it’s a room.”

  “Groom’s room it is,” Iris said, with a bright smile.

  A blast of snow and wind roared through the front door, seeming to sweep a figure in along with it. When the door slammed shut again, that figure proved to be a white-haired old man with a face so red from the cold that he looked for all the world like Santa’s grouchier, skinnier, older brother.

  “Dear God,” he said, in a clipped British accent. “I signed up for a trip to Vermont, not the Arctic Circle.”