The Noel Diary Read online

  “You could just put on a sweater for that. You drove, no doubt.”

  “Of course I did.”

  “May I ask why you’re in Arizona?”

  “I’m looking for my father.”

  She let out a soft sigh. “And when were you going to tell me this?”

  “When I got around to it,” I said.

  “You are such a pain.”

  “I do my best. And that’s why my books sell. It’s all that pain I share. It’s schadenfreude.”

  “Schadenfreude,” she echoed. I could envision her rolling her eyes.

  “I need you to do something for me,” I said.

  “Name it.”

  “I need you to book a couple of rooms at the Phoenician.”

  “This close to Christmas, you know they’re going to be sold out.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m asking you to do it. You can work magic.”

  She groaned. “The things I do for you.”

  “That’s why I love you. Let me know when you’ve got it.”

  She groaned. “Ciao.”

  “Bye.” I hung up, then dialed Rachel’s room. She answered on the first ring.

  “There you are,” she said brightly.

  “You were supposed to call me.”

  “I know. I didn’t want to wake you. You needed the sleep. How long have you been up?”

  “I just woke up,” I said. “How about you?”

  “I’ve been up about an hour. I’ve been getting ready.”

  “I still need to shower. I’ll be ready in a half hour. I’ll knock on your door when I’m done.”

  “See you then.”

  I showered and dressed, wearing lighter clothes than the day before. It wouldn’t be short-sleeve weather, but compared to Utah, it was a heat wave. As I walked out my door, Rachel emerged from her room pulling her bag.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  “Hi,” she said softly, parting her hair from her face. “They have a complimentary breakfast downstairs.”

  “Good. I need a coffee. Or two.”

  I grabbed her bag and we took the stairs down to the main floor. The dining area was in a small room at the side of the lobby. I got some scrambled egg concoction with parsley flakes, croutons, and Swiss cheese, while Rachel got a bowl of oatmeal and English muffins, which she spread thickly with orange marmalade. With the exception of an old man watching CNN, we were the only ones in the dining room.

  After we started eating, Rachel said, “What time did we get here last night?”

  “It was a little after one thirty.”

  “Oh,” she said. She hesitated, then went back to eating her oatmeal.

  I watched her spoon a few bites, then asked, “Are you okay?”

  She looked up anxiously. “Did I embarrass myself last night?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You were a little . . . affectionate.”

  She groaned. “I’m so sorry. I get crazy at night.”

  “Best time to get crazy,” I said.

  “I’ve always been that way. When I get really sleepy, it’s like I turn into a completely different person; half the time I don’t even remember what I say. Please don’t tell anyone.”

  I cocked my head. “Who exactly would I tell? Oh, wait. I could call your fiancé.”

  “That would not go over well.”

  “Or I could just put it in a book.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “You have no idea what I would dare.”

  She looked at me like she wasn’t sure if I was being serious or not. “You wouldn’t, would you?”

  “No. That’s the best way to get sued.” I changed the subject. “So, I had a freaky dream last night. It was your mother again, only this time my father stood in front of her, like he was trying to shield her from me.”

  “You don’t think he would try to keep us from her.”

  “I have no idea.”

  “My mother aside, you must have a lot of things you want to talk to him about.”

  “The only thing I want to know is why he abandoned me in an abusive home and never came back.”

  “Maybe he was abusive too.”

  I took a sip of my coffee. “Maybe. I don’t have any recollection of that. But maybe. Neglect is abuse too.” I suddenly smiled darkly. “Maybe it’s like ‘A Boy Named Sue.’ ”

  Rachel looked at me quizzically. “What’s that?”

  “Really, you’ve never heard of it?”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s an old Johnny Cash song. A father names his boy Sue before leaving him with nothing. Going through life with a girl’s name makes him learn how to fight and defend himself. When he’s older he decides that when he finds his father, he’s going to kill him. Instead, the father tells him that he knew he wasn’t going to be around, so he gave him that name to make him tough.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. He gave him a girl’s name to make him tough?”

  “Yeah. So when he finds his father, they have a big fight and the son finally wins and he’s about to kill his father when his father says something like, ‘You ought to thank me, before I die, For the gravel in your guts and the spit in your eye.’ ”

  “Why didn’t he just change his name?”

  I grinned. “Then there wouldn’t be a song.”

  She took a bite of her muffin, then said, “Why do we always take the hard way?”

  My phone vibrated. I looked down. Laurie had texted me.

  Could only get one room—a suite with two beds. Under your name. You owe me big time, Mr. Big Time author.

  I looked back up.

  “Who’s that?”

  “My agent. I asked her to book us some rooms.”

  “Really? She’ll do that for you?”

  “She does whatever it takes.”

  “Whatever it takes to do what?”

  “To keep me happy.”

  “That must be nice.”

  I looked at my watch. “It’s about ten thirty. If we leave now, that would put us in Scottsdale around one.”

  “Scottsdale?”

  “Laurie booked us rooms at the Phoenician Resort. Actually, she booked us one room. A suite. She had to pull strings to get it. Are you okay with sharing a room, or should we try to find something else?”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I trust you.”

  I grinned. “After last night, the real question is, Do I trust you?”

  She rubbed her forehead. “I’m so embarrassed. Please let me live this down.”

  I laughed. “I won’t bring it up again.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So, we check into the hotel, have lunch. That would put us at around three.”

  “How far is Mesa from Scottsdale?”

  “It’s only about twenty minutes. I think I’d rather wait until evening to drop by, so we have a little time to kill.”

  “We could stop in Sedona,” Rachel said. “It’s only an hour from here. I’ve always wanted to see it. And they say it has good energy. It’s the vortexes or something.”

  “I could use good energy.”

  “Like your energy shots?”

  “I’ll take it however I can get it.”

  CHAPTER

  Eighteen

  July 16, 1986

  Dear Diary,

  Today Jacob called me Mommy. I know little kids sometimes accidentally call their teachers Mommy, so it’s no big deal. Unfortunately it was in front of Mrs. Churcher. She wasn’t very happy about that. Life goes on. I keep getting bigger. Next week, my friend Diane is going to drive down from Logan to see me. I’m lonely. It’s strange to say that when there’s another human inside me. I wonder what he or she is like. I wonder if we’ll be friends someday. I wonder if she’ll ever forgive me.

  Noel

  I checked us out of the hotel, carried both of our bags out to the car, and we drove out of town. In Flagstaff the freeway changed from
Interstate 89 to Interstate 17 and we continued south, dropping in altitude as well as latitude.

  After a few miles of comfortable silence Rachel turned to me. “Is it hard writing romances?”

  “I don’t really write romances. I write love stories.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Love stories are more universal.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “They’re about more than boy meets girl. The stories have universal themes that everyone can relate to.”

  “Everyone can relate to romance.”

  I looked at her. “Can they?”

  She bit her lip. “Maybe not.”

  “Also, in a love story, the endings vary. Did you see the movie Titanic?”

  “Yes.”

  “Love story. Rose falls in love with Jack, the standard rich girl/poor boy scenario, but in the end, the boat sinks and Jack drowns.”

  “Yeah, that kind of sucked.”

  I laughed. “Romances are more formulaic. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy and girl end up together. Think Cinderella. The prince dances with Cinderella at the ball, Cinderella runs off at midnight, the prince tracks down Cinderella with the glass slipper she left behind. Cinderella ditches her ugly stepsisters, and she and the prince live happily ever after.”

  “Do they always live happily ever after?”

  “They do in the romance genre. In love stories, it depends.”

  “On what?”

  I grinned. “Whether or not there’s a sequel.”

  When we passed the first sign for Sedona, Rachel said, “Have you heard that song ‘There Is No Arizona’?”

  “Who sings it?”

  “Jamie O’Neal.”

  “Don’t know her.”

  “Really? You’ve never heard it?”

  “Don’t give me grief. You’ve never heard of ‘A Boy Named Sue,’ and Johnny Cash is definitely more famous than this O’Neal woman.” I looked over. “So, what’s it about?”

  “It’s about a woman whose man goes to Arizona and tells her that he’ll send for her after he gets things in order. He keeps sending her postcards, but he was really just lying about the whole thing. In the end she concludes that there’s no Arizona.”

  “Hence the title. That’s tragic.”

  “Very. Definitely not a romance.”

  “Not much of a love story either,” I said. I glanced over. “Why did you think of that?”

  “The chorus goes, ‘There is no Arizona, no painted desert, no Sedona.’ ”

  “Ms. O’Neal was wrong,” I said. “I just saw a sign.”

  By the time we reached Sedona, there was no trace of winter. Ahead of us, jagged red sandstone formations jutted up from the stubbled Sonoran Desert plains.

  Our entire side trip lasted less than four hours. We drove downtown and walked through the Main Street District full of sidewalk cafés, art galleries, jewelry stores, and tourist shops selling T-shirts and Sedona memorabilia.

  After that we drove up to the chapel of the Holy Cross, which looked out over the valley. Most of the people inside the church were foreigners. In spite of Sedona’s reputation as a New Age mecca, it is actually a religious town and there are myriad churches scattered around the natural rock cathedrals.

  We could have easily spent more time sightseeing, but I was beginning to feel like I was avoiding something, which, no doubt, I was. I’m a savant at finding distractions when something’s uncomfortable. It’s amazing how many distractions arise when I’m not in the mood to write.

  We finally headed back to I-17 and drove the remaining couple of hours to Scottsdale. The temperature in Phoenix was pleasant, hovering in the low seventies. Rachel was glad for the warmth, as she wasn’t as used to the cold as I was. St. George, which is near her home, is among the warmest parts of Utah and never really gets very cold. It’s the place where Salt Lakers go to golf in the winter or escape the gray-brown air of Salt Lake’s frequent inversions.

  The Phoenician is a green napkin on the dusty stone lap of Camelback Mountain. As we drove down the immaculate palm-tree-lined streets and well-groomed greens of the resort, Rachel looked around in wonder. “This is really nice,” she said. “It must cost a fortune to stay here.”

  “It’s not cheap,” I said. “Especially this time of the year.”

  “We could have stayed somewhere less expensive.”

  “We could have, but I’m still trying to impress you.”

  She smiled. “It’s still working.”

  We drove past the hotel’s main entrance to the upper property—the luxury Canyon Suites. I suppose that I was showing off a little. Or a lot. Two young men wearing matching uniforms of hunter-green shorts, caps, and smock-like blouses met us beneath the portico. One of them took my car while the other put our luggage on a cart and wheeled it inside.

  Rachel and I went inside the beautiful, marble-floored lobby and checked in at a desk with an attractive older woman. As the woman handed us our room keys, she said, “Welcome to the Canyons, Mr. Churcher. Forgive me for gushing, but I’m a big fan of your work. I hope you and Mrs. Churcher enjoy your stay with us. If there’s anything I can do to make your stay more pleasant, please don’t hesitate to call me.”

  I was about to correct her on our matrimonial state, but Rachel spoke first. “Thank you, Claire. We’re looking forward to our honeymoon.”

  “Forgive me,” she replied. “I wasn’t told that it was your honeymoon. Congratulations. I’ll have a bottle of champagne sent to your room.”

  “Thank you,” I said, standing.

  As we walked away from the desk, I said, “Our honeymoon?”

  Rachel smiled. “Just protecting your reputation, Mr. Churcher. Don’t want your fans to get the wrong impression.”

  I nodded. “That was thoughtful of you. And we got a bottle of champagne out of it.”

  We followed the bellboy with our luggage rack down the soft carpeted corridor about a hundred feet to our room. I unlocked the door and the bellboy brought in our suitcases.

  The suite was spacious and beautiful, and as Rachel walked in, her eyes grew wide with wonder. She walked over to a double glass door that led to a wide patio that overlooked the golf course. Outside our window was a colorful cactus garden. “What a view.” She walked around the rest of the suite, disappearing into another room. After the bellboy left, I turned up the air-conditioning. “What do you think?”

  Rachel walked back into the room. “So this is how the other two percent live.”

  I sat back on the couch. “I could still try to book us something on Airbnb.”

  “No, I’m good,” she said. “This room is really, really big.”

  “It’s eighteen hundred square feet. It’s bigger than my mother’s house. Of course, I usually just get the one bedroom.”

  “Then you’ve been here before?”

  “Many times. Phoenix has some classic bookstores I come to for book signings. There’s the Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe and The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale.”

  “What an amazing life you have,” she said.

  “An amazingly lonely one,” I replied. “Once I came here in the dead of summer. It was a hundred and seventeen degrees.”

  “That sounds awful.”

  “At first I thought the same thing. But actually it turned out quite nice. Hardly anyone was here and I pretty much had the pool and service to myself. Speaking of which, I was thinking we should have lunch by the pool.”

  “Should I put on my swimsuit?”

  “If you want to swim.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  A few minutes later she returned in a bright-red halter-top tankini. She had a beautiful figure, which she modestly covered. She looked at me as if awaiting my approval. I was speechless.

  “So? Do you like it?”

  “Wow.”

  “Wow?”

  “It’s beautiful.” I looked into her eyes. “You’re beautiful.”

  She looked a
t me doubtfully, then down at her suit. “It’s not too . . . risqué?”

  “Maybe for the nineteen hundreds,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, I’m just self-conscious.”

  “With a body like yours, most of the women I’ve dated would wear as little as they could get away with.”

  “Well, that wouldn’t be me.” She glanced at herself in the mirror. “It’s the suit. It’s flattering.”

  “That’s like saying the Mona Lisa has a nice frame.”

  She laughed. “Stop it.” She looked at me and said, “Brandon thinks it’s too immodest.”

  “That suit?”

  She nodded. “I wore it once, then put it away. Sometimes I think he’d have me wear a burka if he could.”

  “That would be putting a candle under a bushel,” I said.

  She laughed again. “Are you putting on your suit?”

  “Ugh,” I said. I wasn’t dying to expose my physique. “Yes. But I’m warning you, I have an author’s body.”

  “You have a nice body.”

  “Now you’ve really lost all credibility. Give me a moment.”

  I went into the bathroom and slipped into my black Tommy Bahamas swimsuit and a Green Day T-shirt, then came back out.

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  The Canyon had its own palm-tree-lined pool surrounded by luxurious wooden lounge chairs and amber-colored cabanas. There were several dozen people outside but no children, so the pool area was quiet. We sat down at a table near the pool and a server approached us.

  “Good afternoon. Will you be dining?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  He handed us lunch menus. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “I’ll have a Diet Coke with lime, and she would like . . .” I glanced over at Rachel.

  She looked up at the server. “I’d like a pineapple juice with a splash of cranberry juice.”

  “With vodka?”

  She looked surprised by the question. “No, sir.”

  “One virgin sea breeze and a Diet Coke.”

  He returned a few moments later with our drinks and took our orders. I ordered a Mediterranean chicken wrap. Rachel ordered the chicken and kale Caesar salad.

  As we ate, we talked about the resort and Arizona’s climate, comparing it to Rachel’s home in St. George. It was tempting to avoid thinking about the reason we’d come to Phoenix. Especially since every time I did, I was filled with anxiety.