When Stars Collide

by Tammy Robinson

  Then I see Pete’s Books across the road and head there. I’ve spent time in there over the years and from memory they have a couch in a corner for customers. The owner brushes past me as I push open the door, whistling something tunelessly and wearing what looks like a metal bowl on his head.

  I’m left alone in the shop, the couch isn’t there anymore and I don’t think I can stand for a minute longer. I’m dizzy and my heart is palpitating lightly in my chest.

  So you see, with all that, I take the only option available to me and push through the swing door to the office, no one is there but there is a desk and a chair and nothing has ever looked so comforting or welcoming. I drop my bags and collapse gratefully, resting my head on the hard, deliciously cold wooden top.

  I’ll just rest a few minutes.

  CHARLIE

  Well. What an interesting afternoon.

  First, I get a call from Julie telling me that Pete has wandered off down the street wearing the metal bowl again, the one I thought I got rid of after last time but which he obviously rescued from the wheelie bins out back. He’s back in wartime, and the bowl is his helmet.

  Here’s the thing I forgot to tell you before. Pete never actually served in any war. He’s just read probably every book ever published about them. And seen every movie. Well, the old ones anyway, he doesn’t think the modern ones are ‘realistic’ and he can’t stand Ben Affleck. I’ve tried telling him that Armageddon is not actually a war movie but his mind is set.

  Even though it was technically my day off I headed down there. No one else knows what to make of Pete’s illness, so they tend to look the other way. Don’t get me wrong, they care, but they don’t understand.

  I went to Pete’s house, and sure enough he had barricaded himself into his bathroom, lobbing apples out the back window as grenades (he pulls the stick and hurls them at the enemy – his backyard is littered with rotten apple corpses and small sprouted trees). It took me about an hour to coax him out of the bathroom and then another to settle him into bed. I made him a cup of tea and over boiled some eggs which he ate sitting up, the blankets over his bony knees and a lumpy pillow jammed between his back and the wall. While he ate he watched a documentary on the tiny black and white TV in the corner of his room, slurping tea down his chin and onto his chest. Watching him like this is a heartbreaking reminder of age and the things I have to look forward to.

  I left when he came back to the present, a little confused as to why I was there. When he comes back, he’s left with a lingering fear, of what he doesn’t know. It’s hard to see it in his eyes and not be able to reassure him but I have no idea what to say.

  Afterwards I went down to the shop. Julie told me she had checked to make sure there were no customers inside before flipping the lock on the door and shutting it behind her, but I wanted to turn the lights off and make sure he hadn’t left the heater plugged in. Pete’s so bony he feels the cold in 30 degree heat.

  I didn’t see her at first. She was face down on the desk, her dark hair fanning out. There was a brief second when I thought she was dead, and I nearly crapped myself, then she moved slightly, whimpered in her sleep.

  I didn’t know what to do. Stood awkwardly for a while, feeling like a weird pervert, then I cleared my throat.

  I’m sorry, but I’m going to resort to the clichés I hate so much in the books that I sell to describe what happened next.

  Time stopped…

  …and my heart skipped a beat

  She took my breath away…

  …Sparks flew, or crackled, or whatever it is that sparks do

  Ok, that’s more than enough of that. Look, all I can say is there aren’t many moments in my life to date that I can recall with absolute clarity, but when she lifted her head and her eyes met mine, I will never, ever forget how I felt in that moment.

  PEARL

  Shit. Once again I have made a spectacle of myself. My few minutes rest in the bookshop turned into deep sleep and the next thing I knew a noise startled me and I woke to find a slightly chubby but friendly enough looking guy watching me.

  I was so embarrassed. Especially because when I lifted my head up there was a small puddle of drool on the desk. I wiped it up with my sleeve and hoped he didn’t notice.

  “God I’m so sorry” I said, “I promise I’m not a shoplifter or anything, I just....felt sick and I didn’t know where else to go and I saw this desk and.....” I trailed off.

  The way he was looking at me was making me feel self conscious. Did I have drool hanging off my mouth? I rubbed around my lips quickly with my fingers. Nope, seemed ok. Still he kept his dopey grin plastered across his face. Blue eyes, almost white eyelashes. A light dotting of acne on his chin. Hair was massively styled, with tons of product but there was something in the way he looked at me. It was both familiar and new at the same time.

  “I’ll just head off now” I said, getting to my feet and rescuing the bags from where I’d dropped them. One split as I lifted it and a bottle of wine fell out, luckily onto a carpeted surface where it bounced and rolled under the desk.

  “Dammit”

  “I’ll get it” he said, and practically threw himself on to the floor to rescue the bottle. “Red huh?” he said, fishing it out from under the desk and reading the label, “I don’t know much about wine, is it a good one?”

  “It’s ok” I said. No way was I going to admit that my method of buying wine relied heavily on the price tag. $6.99 was ideal, $8.99 was tops. It’s not like I was a wine connoisseur or anything; growing up my father drank whiskey, no mixer, just a touch of water. My mother was a gin lady, tonic and a slice of lemon. Until the divorce when she became an anything-that’s-available lady for awhile. She doesn’t drink at all now. Frowns at me when I do.

  Wine was something I picked up from Adam. He drank red every night and I’d got into the habit too. My salary didn’t stretch to the labels he favoured though.

  He didn’t seem in any hurry to pass the bottle back. I looked at him, and then looked at the bottle pointedly.

  “Oh sorry, here you go” he grinned, handing it over.

  I pushed open the door that led back out to the shop, could feel him following closely behind, and from the light change I realised I must have been asleep for several hours. The sun was lower in the sky, the shadows longer. I don’t want to walk home, I thought desperately, and I must have sighed, or shuddered or something like that because like he could read my mind he was there, beside me, offering me a ride, anywhere I needed to go.

  I thought about all the warnings our mums give us growing up, the safety drills we get at school, every horror movie I have ever seen.

  He didn’t look like a serial killer I mused.

  Then he smiled, a broad, cheek stretching toothy smile.

  Anyone who smiled a goofy smile like that had to be harmless, I decided.

  So I accepted.