Page 26 of Cut Off from Sky and Earth
She lifted one eyebrow and gave me a wry smile. “Good night, Emily.”
“Good night, professor. And thank you so much.”
I felt like Charlie scoring the Golden Ticket. Now I needed to persuade Cassie to cover my shift at the restaurant, so I could use it.
I took a breath. “Cass, you know Roland James is my favorite poet.”
“I do,” she agreed.
“And seeing him read is one of my dreams.”
“I know.”
“But this isn’t just a reading.” I pulled out the ticket and read from it. “It’s an opportunity to take part in an intimate conversation with the Midwest’s premier voice of our generation.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Isn’t he, like, forty?”
“Late thirties at most,” I corrected before conceding, “Okay, not our generation. But a generation. Cassie, please. I’ll give you my tips from next weekend. And I’m working brunch. On a football weekend.”
“All your tips?”
“All of them,” I confirmed.
“You make poor financial decisions,” she told me. Then she grinned. “I’ll do it.”
And that decision, which would turn out to have no financial consequences for me, had terrible life consequences for both of us—her more than me, to be sure. When Cassie dragged herself home from the sports bar a little before 3 AM, dog-tired and smelling of fry grease, I was two hours away in Roland James’ hotel room nursing a scotch while he asked question after question about my writing. My enthusiasm and his attentiveness bubbled over into something more, something tangible, and we ended up in his bed—a slow, sensuous tangle of bodies and sheets that left me floating over my body.
By the time I charged into our apartment, dripping wet from the rain and bursting to tell my best friend about the most transcendent sex of my life, she was lying beside my bed in a puddle of her own blood, her sightless eyes staring up at my bedroom ceiling.
I drag myself back to the present, my chest heaving.
“I didn’t know,” I remind myself fiercely.
It’s true that I couldn’t have known what would happen to Cassie that night. And there’s no guarantee that if I’d been there, the killer wouldn’t have killed us both. But still, I can’t shake the belief that I’m responsible.
I swipe angrily at the tears pooling in my eyes. “Channel this into a scene,” I say aloud. “Make the reader feel Maleen’s regret once Ruth’s locked up in the tower with her.”
I take a deep, shuddering breath and am halfway back to the small writing desk when a loud thump hits the door. I freeze. The pounding continues, and I peer through the window, catching a glimpse of Alex’s profile. A flash of irritation blazes in my chest at being interrupted before I’ve even started again.
Part of me wants to ignore her and simply return to my work. But I don’t have it in me to be so rude, so I sigh and cross the room.
I unlock the door and greet my host. “Yes?”
Alex stomps her feet and rubs her hands. Two bright red patches flame on her cheeks. The cold, biting air swirls around her. I shiver. I hadn’t planned to ask her in, but the alternative is to let the whooshing frigid air fill the small cabin, so I step back and gesture for her to enter.
She reaches down and grabs something off the porch before she storms inside. I edge around her to close the door against the wind and then eye her cautiously.
“Is everything okay?”
Alex scans the room. I don’t know what she’s looking for, but she makes a slow, thorough inventory. This woman is creeping me out. And she’s gripping an axe.
“Alex?” I repeat.
Finally, her eyes land on my face. “I don’t know if you listened to the weather this morning, but we’re in the track of the storm.”
Listen to the weather? I couldn’t if I wanted to. “No.”
As if reading my mind, Alex says, “There’s a battery-operated radio in the dining room. You won’t get a lot of stations, but the station out of Boone usually comes in.”
