It was not the first time I’d had this question. Thankfully, I was prepared for it. I wrote this crap for a living, after all. “Tommy’s journey was his own. I can’t know what his higher self intended for him, or why his life had to end the way it did. I only know that I have two choices. I can be at peace with knowing that he is at peace, trusting that everything happens for a reason and that I will know what those reasons are when my own time comes to cross to the other side, or I can wallow in misery and ask ‘why me’ and ‘why him’ and resent the universe for being so cruel. My brother is going to be just as dead, either way.”
“That is so deep,” Mindy said, shaking her head slowly. “So deep.”
“We get hung up when we think our happiness is dependent on circumstances outside ourselves. I’d be happy if only this would happen, we say, or if only that hadn’t happened. We have to let go of that and realize that happiness is a choice. When we can choose to be happy in spite of what’s going on outside us rather than because of it, when we can stop letting circumstances dictate how we feel, that is true empowerment.”
“That’s amazing. ‘Happiness is a choice.’ That’s so good.”
I smiled humbly. It really was one of my best nuggets of manure, that one. I rearranged this particular piece of...wisdom slightly after every interview, so it sounded fresh. Hell, I knew a thousand ways to say it by now. It was the core message of seven bestsellers.
“So did you always know you would get your eyesight back one day?”
“Not at all,” I said. “In fact, I’d pretty much given up on it. I’d had cornea transplants before, but I was one of those rare individuals who rejected them every time. And I rejected them violently. My doctor had to convince me that it was worth trying again with a new procedure.” That, at least, was true.
“And it worked.” Mindy clapped her hands to emphasize the words. “What was the first thing you saw after the bandages came off?”
“My sister’s face,” I said, again speaking the truth.
“Oh, that’s beautiful,” Mindy said in an emotional falsetto, blinking rapidly.
“So is she.”
Applause, applause.
Note to self, use that line again.
“So if we create our own experiences according to where we put our focus, how do you think you attracted your blindness?”
Because life sometimes sucks, and I drew the short straw. Because bad shit happens, and it doesn’t make any sense at all and it never will.
I nodded sagely while I pulled the appropriate well-rehearsed reply from my archives. I had them for all the tough questions. “Until we know that our thoughts and focus create our lives,” I said, “we sort of create by default. Our higher selves guide us toward the life we’re supposed to lead, and we either go with the flow or fight tooth and nail. I believe this was simply a part of my journey in this lifetime. I think I had agreed to it before I ever incarnated.”
“Really?” she said. “You really think all those years of blindness happened to you for a reason?”
“Absolutely.” Because I had shitty luck.
“And have you reached any conclusions about what that reason might have been?”
“I think I’ve pieced together some of it, but not all. I don’t think I’ll know all of it until I’m on the other side, looking back, reviewing my life and the lessons it taught me. But I do know that being blind led me to my career of writing self-help (bullshit) books like the ones my family used to (push on me) get for me when I was going through hard times. It led me to dear friends I might not have made otherwise, people in my transplant support group, the best friend I ever had in my life, Mott Killian, who’s since passed over himself, and my dog, of course.”
And Mason Brown. It led me to him. When he hit me with his car because I stormed into a crosswalk, blind as a bat and too mad to be careful. Helluva coincidence that he ended up donating his brother’s corneas to me later that same day. Helluva coincidence.
A big smile split Mindy’s face, and she lifted the book again, opened the back cover and turned it toward the camera, which caught a close-up of Myrtle sitting in the passenger seat of my precious inspiration-yellow T-Bird with the top down, wearing her goggles and yellow scarf, and “smiling” at the camera as only a bulldog could do, bottom teeth sticking up over her upper lip.
The audience laughed, then applauded again.
“Myrtle is blind, too,” I said. “I might not have taken in a blind old dog if I hadn’t been through what I had.” Odd, that was sappy as hell, and yet it was the absolute truth. Just like the bit I’d been thinking about the way Mason and I met. I should really be using this stuff more. But it made me uncomfortable to point to true things in order to prove my false claims. Muddied the waters. I liked clear lines between real life and my fictional nonfiction.
“That’s beautiful,” Mindy said. “That’s just beautiful. Thank you so much, Rachel. It’s been a pleasure having you. I hope you’ll come back.”
“Thank you, Mindy. I’d love to.”
She faced the camera again, holding up the book. “Grab a copy of Rachel de Luca’s Wish Yourself Rich, available now in hardcover and audio wherever books are sold.”
Applause, applause, applause.
“And we’re clear!” called the director.
I relaxed and automatically turned to see if Mason was still there.
He was. But he was looking at me with his head tipped slightly to one side, like Myrtle when I say the word food. Or the word eat or the word hungry or any word remotely related to a meal.
He’d just seen a Rachel de Luca he’d probably never met before. The public one. And now he was going to berate me for it throughout an entire lunch. This should be pleasant. Not.
* * *
Mason had never seen the side of Rachel he’d witnessed on that stage. He had read her books—the last three, anyway—and he’d skimmed the others. They were pretty much all the same—all about positive thinking and creative visualization and everything happening for a reason. He would probably have read more, because the message was so uplifting and empowering, if he hadn’t known that she didn’t believe it herself. Not a word of it.
It was the one thing he’d never liked about her. God knew he liked everything else about her a little too much. But that she was selling this spiel to the masses when she didn’t believe in it felt a little too cold, too calculating. It was a side of her that he found hard to take.
But today, just now, he’d seen a hint of something else. She might say she didn’t believe the stuff she wrote about. She might even think she didn’t believe it. But she wanted to. She had practically emanated a glow on that soundstage when she was going on about her positive thinking message. He was beginning to think it might not be an act at all.
Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on his part.
She’d kept the mask in place as she’d said her goodbyes to her hostess, and the entire time she’d signed autographs for the respectable-sized group who’d gathered outside on the sidewalk, despite the fact that it was cold and starting to snow. Then the crowd fell away as they walked up the sidewalk to find a place for lunch.
“It’s a great time of year to be in the city,” he said.
She nodded. The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was all lit up, and every store window was decked to the nines. “I wish I could stay, but I’ve gotta get home to the kids.”
“Kids? Don’t tell me you got another dog.”
“No, Myrtle’s plenty. My niece Misty is dog-sitting, though.”
“At your place?”