Page 107 - The Midnight Library
P. 107
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e Tree at Is Our Life
Five minutes later Nora was back in the hotel’s vast conference room. At
least a thousand people were watching the first speaker conclude her
presentation. e author of Zero to Hero. e book Dan had beside his bed
in another life. But Nora wasn’t really listening, as she sat in her reser ved
seat in the front row. She was too upset about her mother, too ner vous about
the speech, so she just picked up the odd word or phrase that floated into
her mind like croutons in minestrone. ‘Little-known fact’, ‘ambition’, ‘what
you may be surprised to hear is that’, ‘if I can do it’, ‘hard knocks’.
It was hard to breathe in this room. It smelled of musky perfume and new
carpet.
She tried to stay calm.
Leaning into her brother, she whispered, ‘I don’t think I can do this.’
‘What?’
‘I think I’m having a panic attack.’
He looked at her, smiling, but with a toughness in his eyes she
remembered from a different life, when she’d had a panic attack before one
of their early gigs with e Labyrinths at a pub in Bedford. ‘You’ll be fine.’
‘I don’t know if I can do this. I’ve gone blank.’
‘You’re overthinking it.’
‘I have anxiety. I have no other type of thinking available.’
‘Come on. Don’t let us down.’
Don’t let us down.
‘But—’
She tried to think of music.
inking of music had always calmed her down.
