Yet it was more than that. Ben just couldn’t seem to put his finger on what it was.
There was the problem, too, of still not having learned much of anything about Landover. No pictures, no flyers, no brochures — nothing. Too difficult to describe, Meeks had hedged. You have to see it. You have to accept the sale on faith. Ben grimaced. If their roles were switched and Meeks were the purchaser, he didn’t think for one minute that that old man would settle for what he had been told!
He hadn’t really learned anything about Landover in the interview that he hadn’t known going into it. He didn’t know where it was or what it looked like. He didn’t know anything other than what had been described in the brochure.
Escape into your dreams…
Maybe.
And maybe he would be escaping into his nightmares.
All he had to fall back on was the clause in the contract that let him out of the purchase if he chose to rescind within ten days. That was fair enough. More than fair, really. He would lose only the fifty-thousand-dollar handling fee — an expensive, but not unbearable loss. He could journey to this magical kingdom with its fairy folk, with its dragons and damsel and all, and if he found it to be any sort of rip-off, he could journey back again and reclaim his money.
Guaranteed.
He scribbled notes hastily on the pad for a moment, and then looked up suddenly and stared out across the empty lounge.
The truth was that none of that mattered a whit. The truth was that he was prepared to make the purchase just as things stood.
And that was the real problem. That was the thing that bothered him the most. He was prepared to spend a million dollars on a dream because his life had reached a point where nothing that he was or had mattered to him anymore. Anything was preferable to that — even something as wild as what he was considering, a fantasy like Landover with iguanas and Hollywood make-believe. Miles would say he needed help if he were even considering this ridiculous purchase — serious, professional help. Miles would be right, too.
So why was it that none of that made any difference to him? Why was it that he was probably going to make the purchase nevertheless?
His lean frame stretched in the cushioned easy chair. Because, he answered himself. Because I want to try something that other men just dream about. Because I don’t know if I can do it, and I want to find out. Because this is the first real challenge that I have come across since losing Annie, and without that challenge, without something to pull me from the mire of my present existence…
He took a deep breath, the sentence left unfinished in his mind. Because life is a series of chances, he thought instead, and the bigger the chance, the greater the satisfaction if he were to succeed.
And he would succeed. He knew he would.
He tore the notes from his yellow pad and shredded them.
He slept on the matter as he had promised himself that he would, but his mind was already made up. At ten o’clock the next morning he was back at Rosen’s, back in the penthouse at the receptionist’s desk fronting the corridor that led to Meeks’ secluded office. The receptionist did not seem at all surprised to see him. She handed him the contract with its triplicate carbons together with a statement of Rosen’s payment policy allowing thirty days same as cash on all specialty items purchased. He read the contract once again, saw that it was the same, and signed it. With a carbon copy tucked into his suit pocket, he departed the building and caught a cab to LaGuardia.
By noon, he was on his way back to Chicago. He felt better than he had felt in a very long time.
Landover
The good feeling lasted until the next morning when he began to discover that no one else was quite as keen as he was on this proposed change in his life.