Page 90 of When Stars Collide
“What other bit of news could you possibly have to …” Realization struck me mid-sentence. Phineas smiled as my eyes searched his face for confirmation.“The book? The poetry book I gave you to review. Is that your news? Are we taking it on?”
“No.”
My heart sank, which must have reflected on my face. “Damn it. There has to be a market for it somewhere. I mean—”
“We’renot taking it on,” Phineas continued, “but a former colleague of mine, Clay Braxton, is very much interested in it.”
“Clay Braxton?TheClay Braxton? The man who discovered David Ledbetter and my favorite science fiction novel of all time?”
“That’s the one.”
“B-But how?”
“He has a soft spot for poetry. I read through it. It was quite good; I wish we could have taken it on here. I just don’t have much experience in the marketing of poetry. I’d have done a disservice to the author, but Clay, he’ll be able to give the book the attention it deserves. In fact, maybe you ought to give Elle a call and tell her the good news.”
“You knew it was Elle’s book this entire time, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did.” He chuckled. “Come on, it wasn’t a hard puzzle to piece together. L.N. Rae. Ellen Sloan, the friend of yours who, in your words, is ‘amazing at writing poetry and shit.’”
“You really do pay attention to everything, don’t you?”
“It all depends on what is being said and the person saying it.” He cleared his throat, swiftly changing the subject. “You never mentioned anything about Elle being an artist. Those illustrations she did were quite impressive. They really captured the essence of the particular poems they were meant to embody.”
“That’s because Elle didn’t do those illustrations. I did.”
Note to self: A stunned Phineas is quite the sight to behold.
“You can pick your jaw up from the floor now.”
“I’m sorry. I knew you probably had some sort of artistic talent to be drawn to this profession, but I never would have guessed you could draw like that. Well then, I guess congratulations are in order to both Elle and to you.” He scooted the chair back and stood up. “I’d better let you get to delivering the good news.” Our eyes met, and I couldn’t deny the shiver that went through my body. “It’s good to have you back, Mena.”
The very second Phineas left my office, I pulled my cell phone from my purse and called Elle, hoping I wasn’t sent to voicemail, because I didn’t know how much longer I could contain my excitement.
“Hey,” she answered, not nearly as peppy as she usually was, “I was just going to call you.”
“Oh?” I asked, disappointed that I hadn’t been the first one to deliver the news. “You must have spoken to Clay already?”
“Who’s Clay?”
“If you haven’t heard from Clay, then what’s going on?”
“It’s Monroe. His dad was killed in a car accident last night.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Peter wasn’t one to cry, choosing instead to internalize his pain the way men often did. Except, I was pretty positive that even a hefty percentage of those men took out their pain and the anger it caused them in some way, whether that way involved a right hook to a punching bag or a lamp shattered across their plank flooring. I hadn’t seen Peter utilize either of those methods, or any method to vent for that matter, until his father’s funeral.
Strands of hair poked up every which way, like he’d been caught in a windstorm. While it was true he’d been through a whirlwind, his hair was the result of a nervous tic of his. Whenever he was nervous or stressed, he would run his hands through his hair like it was some sort of security blanket. He’d done that a lot over the last few days, that much was apparent from his appearance.
Elle moved to sit next to me in a pew tucked away in the back of the church. I’d arrived into town late and had been able to slip quietly inside, catching the attention of no one but Elle. Even Peter had no idea I was here. And as I sat watching him grieve with his family, including Amanda, I wasn’t positive whether I even wanted him to know I had come at all. Luke and Elle could tell him I’d shown up to pay my respects later, after I’d already disappeared, slipping into the shadows back to New York.
Occasionally, Peter would glance back at the pew behind him, where Luke was seated. Luke’s head managed to block his face from view at first, but then either he or Peter must have shifted over a few inches, affording me a glimpse of Peter’s face. The hell he’d been through the last handful of days was written all over him. Eyes, rimmed red from tears, peered back at his childhood friend, broken and despondent. Broken and despondent used to be the last words anyone would have used to describe Peter Monroe. Used to be.
When I was in high school, the antennae of my garbage car broke in half when I took it through a car wash without removing it first. Not being mechanically inclined, and under the mistaken belief that duct tape could fix anything, I’d wrapped what amounted to two feet worth of it around the broken shaft, feeling proud of myself and my handiwork when I was done. Of course, the fix amounted to the equivalent of sticking a band-aid over a crack in a dam. All it did was conceal the problem, not fix it. Sure enough, within a day, the adhesive lost its effectiveness and the antenna fell, hanging on by a thread and a sliver of tape. Peter reminded me of that antennae, barely hanging on. I’d never seen him so friable, and that image of him was one that would haunt me for the rest of my life. Tears hugged the corners of my eyes, as I willed myself not to shatter into a thousand pieces right along with him.
“He looks like he’s going to break down any moment,” I whispered to Elle.
She nodded. “He’s looked like that for months. He’s only slightly worse for wear right now.”
