Page 12 of The Mistletoe Mystery

I decided to resolve things before they got worse. “I’ll have you know,” I said, “that the primary definition of the word ‘lame’ in most standard dictionaries is ‘injured’ or ‘suggestive of a limp or similar impairment of gait.’ ” I stopped then, hoping for some engagement, but I was met by total silence. Naturally, I offered further explanation. “Perhaps you’re confused by the word ‘gait,’ ” I said. “I don’t mean an opening in a fence or a passageway, I mean a way of walking—G-A-I-T, rhymes with ‘wait,’ ” I said by way of clarification.

More silence. But when Elizabeth said, “Let’s bounce,” the girls by her side required no dictionary to grasp her meaning. They turned their backs on me in unison and bounded down the hallway in a cohesive clump.

Why does this memory come to mind now as I lie here listening to the ebb and flow of Juan’s breath? My school days arelong gone, and tomorrow I return to my work as Head Maid at the Regency Grand Hotel, a job I do not dread at all but perform with great relish and panache.

But for some reason, tonight, I feel more unsettled than usual, afraid of losing the safety and security that adulthood has bequeathed unto me. It’s not fear of losing my work, which fills me with confidence and purpose, it’s fear of losing Juan, of losing his love.

You belong where you’re loved.

But what if I’m not loved, not really? What if I’ve read the cues all wrong, as I’ve done so many times before—mistaking frogs for princes, good eggs for bad? Much as I try to be affable and personable, I’m aware I can be irritating. I say the wrong thing at the wrong time, misunderstand what others grasp with relative ease. What if Juan loses patience with me? And what if what he really wants isn’t me at all but someone, anyone else—like the beautiful blonde down the hall?

Your affairs are none of my business.That’s what Mr. Rosso said to him. I’m sure I heard those words. They stick in my mind now like gristle between tight molars.

I turn, looking up at the white ceiling and counting the cracks in the dark. Is it my imagination, or is there a proliferation of new veins, conspiring to pull the plaster apart? How long before everything comes crashing down on my head?

I take a deep breath and close my eyes, willing myself to wring at least a little rest from this sleepless night. Eventually, feverish dreams descend. Juan sweeps me off my feet, whirlingme around and around until I’m dizzy, repeating over and over again that he only has eyes for me.

“I don’t believe you!” I insist. “Please, let me off the ride.”

He puts me down then, and I hurry to our bathroom down the hall. In the mirror, I see myself, but I’m transformed, with three rows of bulbous, black eyes—pupil-less and dark. I’m still me, Molly, but the black widow version of myself, a spider so hideous, how could anyone ever love me? I scream at the top of my lungs, and when Juan opens the bathroom door, he screams, too, running out the front door of our apartment into the labyrinthine hallways of our building.

“It’ll all be okay in the end!” I call to him. “If it’s not okay, it’s not the end!”

But he runs and runs, never looking back, until he disappears from my sight forever.

I want to cry, to let my feelings spill out, but my monstrous arachnid eyes don’t allow for it.

“Molly? Molly? Wake up!”

My body jolts. Juan is lying beside me, his hair at right angles to his face.

“You were having a bad dream,” he says as he strokes my forehead. “You kept saying ‘eyes’ over and over again. Are you all right?”

I look at the clock behind him—almost 7:00a.m. Time to get up. “I’m perfectly all right,” I say. “Just a silly nightmare.”

“It’s over now, Molly. You’re here with me. Safe.”

He takes me into his smooth, bare arms and pulls me soclose to his chest that I can hear his heart beating like a metronome.

Usually this sound soothes me—the pulse of life within him. But this morning, I’m unsettled by it. What if this isn’t a life force at all but a countdown? What if my days with Juan are numbered and coming to an end?

Chapter 6

Once I’m awake for a few minutes, the bad thoughts retreat. It’s like this sometimes. Terrible notions hold me prisoner in the night, removing all hope and seeding doubt deep within.

There are devils in the dark. Search for the light.

That’s what Gran used to say. In the morning, she’d open the curtains in our apartment, and everything would look better when the light streamed in. I wonder now if she was plagued by bad dreams the way I was, if fear and anxiety overtook her at night, too. I wish I’d asked her that when she was still alive, but I was too young then, too fixated on my own devils to consider she might be contending with her own.

Now, Juan swipes the curtains open, then scoops me out of bed, giggling like a schoolboy as he carries me into the living room and puts me down in front of the Advent calendar. Hestands impatiently beside it, hopping from one foot to the other, saying, “Open it! Open it!” Never in my life have I known anyone who loves gift giving as much as my beloved Juan Manuel.

I smile and slide open today’s Advent calendar drawer. Inside is a little bundle of greens with sprigs of white berries. I recognize what it is right away.

“Mistletoe!” I say as I remove the sprig from the drawer.

“Yes!” he says. “And I already have a perfect spot for it, right above the kitchen entrance.” He points to the passage, where I see he’s affixed a little hook.

He takes the mistletoe from my hands and shuffles toward the kitchen, reaching up to place it high above his head. Then he strikes a pose underneath. “I figure if I stand under here long enough, you’ll take the hint. Or at least the opportunity,” he says.

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